THE NEGEB AND THE JEWS
[To the Editor of THE SPECTATOR]
SIR,—In a letter in The Spectator of April 28th I accused official Zionism of indifference to the future of the Arab small cultivator displaced by Jewish colonists in Palestine. Mr. Israel Cohen denies this, and brings up once more the familiar Government report which showed, to quote his words, " that over a period of to years only 664 Arab families had been displaced. The remainder had become absorbed again in agriculture or found other employment . . ." But does not this mean that 664 displaced families were destitute at the time of the investigation? The remainder, whether absorbed or not, had still been turned out of their holdings and thrown on to the labour market. We are not told how many had sunk to the status of day labourers. The native Palestinian labourer has no minimum wage or statutory working day won for him by a trade union, no health or unemployment insur- ance ; his only protection is the mercy of Allah.
I have never supposed that any blame attached to the Jewish purchasers, or that they were under any legal obliga- tion to settle the cultivators they displaced. But is not Zionism at its best inspired by a profound religious ideal? Will Mr. Cohen deny that Zionism in Palestine has a moral obligation to all, and not only to the Chosen People? He tells us that provision has been made for the fellahin of the Huleh Basin, and in some other cases. Justice demands that there should be compulsory provision in all cases, the cost to be shared between the seller (wealthy absentee landlords in some cases) and the Jewish syndicate that buys the land.
If Zionism has always shown consideration for the displaced Arab, why have some of its major prophets recently insisted on the " empty spaces in Arabia," on which the Arabic- speaking majority of Palestine might be concentrated to leave the land available for the National Home? The Balfour Declaration promised " the establishment in Palestine of a national home for the Jewish people," it did not undertake to transmute the whole of Palestine into an exclusive Jewish State. Did Lord Balfour in 1917 imagine that in 20 years Jews would form more than one-third of the population, and that they would then refuse to accept the status of a numerical minority? That, in fact, they would pose as the rightful owners of Palestine, and deny the rights of a people that has lived in the land without a break for 1,300 years, and of whom many must have in their veins the blood of Canaanites and of Philistines—yes, and of Israel, too?
" Jewish procedure has evoked the friendly appreciation of all impartial inquirers." The testimony of many British and other European residents in Palestine emphatically refutes this. Many, like myself, have gone to Palestine in sympathy with the Jews in their great difficulties and with admiration for the material achievements of Jewish colonists. They have seen that friendship between individual Jews and Arabs exists. But at the same time they have been repelled and alienated by the extravagant ambitions and the callous egotism of Zionist policy, to which they find themselves inevitably opposed.
The " economic absorptive capacity " is not enough. The Government must also take into account the " psychological absorptive capacity " of the Palestinian people. The patience of that people has been worn out by the tragic blunders of Government policy, for which Zionism must share the responsibility. The " psychological absorptive capacity " of Palestine has sunk to zero. Many Arabs, who are not ex- tremists, would say it has become a negative quantity.—Yours
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