THE FUTURE OF PALESTINE.
ao THE EDITOR OF THE " SPECTATOR.") Sia,—Having just returned from eighteen months' official employment in Palestine, first as a member of the Military Administration, and subsequently as a Political Officer, may be permitted to comment briefly on the weighty observations of Lord Sydenham in your issue of February 7th? I should explain at the outset that while I am myself a Jew, I have had no official connexion with the Zionist Organization except is
the sense that I was for a time attached by General Head. quarters to the Zionist Commission as Political Liaison Officer.
I readily agree with Lord Sydenham in deprecating the facile optimism of Colonel Patterson and those whom lie echoes. Those who are most fully convinced of the wisdom of the policy to which H.M. Government are committed by the Balfour Declaration and its recent confirmation by Lord Curzon—a policy which, quite apart from its sentimental appeal, rests on solid considerations of political expediency—will be the first to insist that its effective execution will demand conspicuous caution, moderation, and restraint.
Had it been possible for the future of the country to be
definitely determined immediately the occupation -became effective, it is probable that the decision, whatever form it might have taken, would have been received with ready acquiescence. The Palestinian will, like other people, resist, if driven to extremes, any intolerable personal wrong, but his political interests are limited in the extreme—he does not to this moment know his own mind—and he was at the outset perfectly ready to welcome any regime that pursued a definite policy with efficiency, firmness, and honesty of purpose.
On the other hand, every day's delay in the settlement has rendered the situation more uneasy; and the prolonged pericd of provisional military administration has given interested parties—and it is not in every one's interest to make our• position comfortable—too good an opportunity to be lost of playing on the prejudices and passions for which Palestine, with its infinite variety of contending creeds and sects, offers so congenial a soil.
While, therefore, no good purpose can be served by ignoring the complexity of the situation which the events of the past eighteen months have created, it is necessary to remember that it has been alloWed to develop under every possible dis- advantage. It is not unreasonable to hope that once the status of the country is definitely decided, once the Administration and the public are free to devqte themselves to the practical activities of normal life, and the non-Jewish population is convinced by the evidence of concrete facts that no interference with its rights or liberties is to be apprehended, the existing tension will, if the Zionists refrain from forcing the pace, materially relax.
If it were indeed the Zionist policy to claim political domination for a racial minority, to secure a monopoly for Jewish capital, and to expropriate the Arab cultivator, it is certain that it could only be executed in the face of formidable and intelligible opposition; but it is equally certain that it would, in that event, never have received, as it has, the support of H.M. Government as well as of the remaining Allied Powers.
The responsible spokesmen of the Movement make, however, no such claims. They have repeatedly declared that the creation of a Jewish State is not a question of practical politics, that the native non-Jewish population will be invited to co-operate in whatever schemes of development they undertake, and that interference with the non-Jewish cultivator forms no part of their plans. Without labouring the point, I need only refer to the speeches of Mr. Herbert Samuel and Dr. Weizmann at the London Opera House on November 2nd, 1919, and to. Dr. Weizmann's formal statement in the Jewish Chronicle of January 16th, 1920, in which these assurances are given in unequivocal terms.
They can be given the more readily in that a very substantial increase of the Jewish population and the creation of a vigorous and healthy Jewish life are perfectly compatible with their strict observance. No one familiar with the country will suggest that it at present contains more than a fraction of the population it is capable of supporting. Even in the restricted area known as Occupied Enemy Territory (South), which excludes the potentially productive and at present almost empty districts to the east of Jordan, the density of population is only 74 to the square mile; in the Lebanon, whose natural advantages are but little superior, it has risen, under relatively efficient administration, to 168. If the nomads settle down to intensive cultivation, as Lord Sydenham anticipates, so much the greater will be the area released for closer settlement.
As for Jewish capacity for agriculture, the figures reproduced by Lord Sydenham from the Financial Statement of the Administration for the current year are not only a mere estimate (no Census has been taken) but are in any ease some- what misleading. Until about forty years ago the Jewish population of Palestine was made up of Jews of the old school resident in the four Holy Cities, reinforced by pietists who came there in their old age to end their days. For the old generation, therefore, which still survives as a considerable but diminishing proportion of the whole, agriculture had naturally no attraction. The immigrants of recent years, who in the face of official obstruction have built up the numerous agricultural colonies with which every one who has taken part in the Palestine campaign is familiar, are drawn from an entirely different class; and percentages which fail to take into account the peculiar character of the old-world settle- ments prove little or nothing. Lord Sydenham's scepticism as to the achievements of the new generation is in striking contrast with the views of imnartial eyewitnesses. As long ago as 1900 H.M. Consul in Jerusalem remarked in his Annual Report :—
" There can he no doubt that the establishment of the Jewish colonies in Palestine has brought about a great change in the aspect of the country, and an example has been set before the native rural population of the manner in which agricultural operations are conducted on modern and scientific lines."
Similar observations will be found in the Board of Trade Report on British trade in Syria (1911), in the Report of H.M. Vice-Consul at Jaffa for 1913, and in other accessible documents of an official character. It is not the fact—though the point appears to be of minor importance—that the Jewish colonies do not undertake the production of cereals. The annual value of their output of cereals, root-crops, and sesame far exceeds that of any of their other products with the sole exception of oranges. As for the non-Jewish cultivators, who are referred to as excelling them even in horticulture, the allusion is not readily intelligible unless it is to the German Templars, in which case the statement is accurate but hardly relevant.
There remains one further aspect of the matter on which, in the light of Lord Sydenham's observations, it may be per- missible to comment—the question of the Holy Places. There is no reason to suppose that the Zionist leaders do not fully realize all that the Holy Land means to the entire Christian world or the place it holds in Moslem tradition. So far as Moslem feeling is concerned, it is necessary to guard against exaggeration. Palestine is seldom visited by Moslem pilgrims; and Moslem protests against British policy in Palestine, as against British policy in other parts of the Ottoman Empire, will not infrequently be found to be inspired by persons who have not the remotest interest in Islam, and are actuated not by religious zeal but
Iby very different and very much less respectable motives. Be that as it may, the Zionists have never claimed, nor—it may be assumed—has British policy any intention of conferring upon them, any kind of control over the Holy Places. There is no reason to suppose that the acceptance by Great Britain of a mandate for the administration of Palestine and the pro- vision of facilities for the creation there of a Jewish national home will in this regard make any change in the existing situation except in so far as it will put the Holy Places, in which Christian interest is preponderant, under the direct supervision of a Christian Power which has at the same time never failed to show the most scrupulous regard for the religious susceptibilities of its Moslem subjects. So far as the Zionists are concerned, the matter is, as they realize, one in which they have no right or duty beyond that of disinteresting them-
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