The Palestine Conference The Palestine Conference has come to the
point at which the initiative must lie entirely with the Government ; it has reached the deadlock which was foreseen when it opened, and in the next few days the Government must transform the suggestions already made into concrete proposals. These suggestions so far contain nothing more definite than the intention to end the mandate and establish an independent Palestinian State in which the Jews will have a minority status ; the Jews have drawn the natural conclusion that this means the end of immigration, and therefore of the develop- ment of the Jewish National Home, and as a result have rejected the Government's proposals as a basis of discussion. Unless the Government can assure them that its proposals provide for the natural growth of the National Home—that is, for continued Jewish immigration and land-purchase- their decision to break off the discussions will be carried into effect. The Jewish delegation is in fact already beginning to break up, and this foreshadows the end of the Conference except as a form of negotiation between the Government and the Arabs alone. The publication of the McMahon letters, though they are admittedly open to two opposite interpreta- tions, suggests to the average plain man who reads them that Syria was in fact excluded from the Arab territory promised to the Emir Feisal by Sir Henry McMahon and that Palestine was not. This intensifies the belief that no solution accept- able to both Jews and Arabs in Palestine is possible. But some kind of federalism still seems to offer the best hope.
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