PALESTINE AND THE LEAGUE OF NATIONS [To the Editor of
the SPECTATOR.] SIR,—Allow me to reply to a letter published in the Spectator of November 9th, under the heading " Palestine and the League of Nations ? Your correspondent calls attention to what he describes as the undemocratic side of the attempt to establish in Palestine, with its Arab majority, a Jewish National Home. His plea of democracy is, I fear, stultified by its application only to a fraction of a large problem.
The greater part of the Jewish people, numbering many million, is in desperate need of a National Home, a need repeatedly expressed in no uncertain voice and recognized by the civilized world. Nevertheless, were there any question of doing anything that might lead to the disappearance of the Arab's national independence and culture, Englishmen may he assured that no Jew would set his hand to such a project.
The circumstances are far otherwise. I would invite him, in his concern for democracy, to examine the whole field of the Jewish and Arab national problems. Such an examination will reveal to him the fact that the British Government has, since the War, been engaged in a not unsuccessful effort to right two historic wrongs. In the one case, Britain has been the means of the establishment of Arab States in the I fedjaz, Iraq, and even Transjordania ; Arab culture and achievement have been set upon a path that will make possible once again the revival of the lost glories of the great Arab race ; in the case of Jewry, she has initiated a policy that has in mind the re-establishment of the oldest of peoples in its ancient home. Carried out by the same Power, these two acts are complementary, and will, as time passes, grow to be considered so universally.
Your correspondent's suggestion that the whole question be placed before the Council of the League of Nations is certainly to the point, for that body which is in touch not only with single facets, but all the various problems of peoples and places and their interactions, is already well aware of the details of the Palestine question.—I am, Sir, &c.,
A. ABRAHAMS.
World Union of Zionist-Revisionists, 6 Upper Bedford Place, W.C.1.
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