IS JEWRY A NATION ?
By D. L. LIPSON, M.P.* ANY Jews, of whom I am one, deny that the Jews are a nation and oppose the agitation of the Zionists to set up a ewish State in Palestine. We regard ourselves as members of a world-wide religious community. As such, we are citizens of the ountries in which we live, with the same rights and responsibilities s our fellow-citizens of other creeds. The British Jew owes his oyalty and service to Britain, the American Jew to the United ates, and so on. We claim that it is only in religion that we differ torn the majority of our fellow-citizens. We, naturally, have a place n our hearts for our co-religionists in other lands. We grieve when hey are persecuted and do what we can to help them and relieve eir distress, but the tie which binds us to them is different from at which unites us with our neighbours with whom we have been ought up, and with whom we have all the community of interests which are shared by citizens of the same country. It is true that our sympathy with our fellow-Jews in other lands makes us more inter- nationally-minded, but not at the expense of our patriotism.. Indeed, in these days whed understanding and co-operation between the nations is so vital for world peace and for the settlement of economic problems, this special interest of the Jew in the fate and fortunes of his co-religionists in other lands helps to make him a better itizen of his own.
Many non-Jews are unaware that the difference between the Jew and his fellow-citizen is only one of religious faith and observ- ance. They still regard the Jew as a foreigner or as belonging to a different race. This was true of the Nazis, and is still true of the anti-semite wherever he is to be found. It is this mistaken view about the Jew, this turning of a religious difference into something which challenges his right to call himself British in Britain or French in France, which has produced persecution, and again and again in many lands has endangered his person and his rights.
* Mr. Lipson, for many years a housemaster at Cheltenham College and twice Mayor of Cheltenham, has been the Independent Conservative M.P. for the borough since 1937.
This wrong view of the Jew shows itself every time an offender against the law, who happens to be of the Jewish faith, is not described in the Press as English, Irish or Polish, as the case may be, but as a Jew. One never sees a Baptist or a Roman Catholic described under similar circumstances by his religion. In this way the poison of misunderstanding about the Jew is instilled in the public mind. An interesting example of this occurred recently in Parliament, when an M.P. asked what the quota was of Jews allowed to immigrate into the United States. The answer is that quite properly the United States determines what immigrants shall be admitted on the basis not of their, religion, but of their nationality. Unfortunately the agitation of the Zionists, with their demand for a Jewish State, gives further colour to the mistaken view held by the anti-semite and the ignorant that the Jew is an alien in every land except Palestine. This is an example of extremes meeting. The anti-semite and the Zionist both tend to create the same wrong conception of the Jew, and both have complicated the Jewish problem, and made a solution more difficult.
The Zionists have brought about an anxious situation in Palestine by their avowed policy to establish a Jewish State there. The non- Zionist Jew is greatly interested in Palestine, and supports the pro- posal of the Balfour Declaration to set up a National Home there. He is proud of what Jews have accomplished in Palestine, and wants permission for as many survivors of Nazi persecution as possible to enter the country. On humanitarian grounds the case for this is overwhelming, but it is prejudiced by the fact that Zionist policy has made it crystal clear to the Arabs that the ulterior object of this in- creased immigration is to create a Jewish majority in order to make Palestine a Jewish State. Is it surprising that the Arabs are con- cerned at this threat to their national sovereignty, and violently resist the demand for further Jewish immigration? Would any country— our own or the United States or any other—react differently under similar circumstances?
The Zionist claim to dispossess the Arab is not a just one. The Arabs have right on their side in resisting it, for they have been in possession of the country for hundreds of years. It is argued that the Zionists would develop the resources of the land better than the Arabs. That is true, but the Italians could have said the same of Abyssinia ; it did not justify their invasion of that country. It is argued that the Arabs have other territories to which they could go, but the Jews have not. That is the type of argument that the Germans used about the British Empire when they demanded colonies, or that the Japanese would have used to justify an invasion of Australia. If the Zionists persist in their policy of a Jewish State a clash is inevitable between them and the Arabs. That would endanger what has already been accomplished by Jewish settlers in Palestine, and would mean great loss of life. There is no security for Jewish immigrants who go to Palestine while the present tension exists.
The threat of the extreme Jewish Nationalists to use force will, if carried out, also bring about a serious situation between the Jews and the British in Palestine. That would not only be a calamity of the highest order, but would be an act of gross ingratitude. Britain has in the recent war again showed herself to be the Jews' best friend. If Britain had not stood firm against the Nazis in 1940 Jewry would have been wiped out. There would have been today no Jewish problem and no Palestine problem. The Jews everywhere would have been exterminated. Neither Russia nor America could have prevented this. If Britain had yielded m 1940 there would not have been available- later the help she was able to give Russia, and so make possible her ultimate recovery and victory after her first grievous' defeats. With Britain and Russia crushed, what hope would America have had alone against Germany, Japan and their satellites? Zionists should remember this when they feel inclined to criticise Britain because she cannot do all that the extreme Jewish Nationalists want her to do in Palestine.
What is the solution, then? The Zionists should drop their agitation for a Jewish State and agree to a Palestinian State in which Jews, Arabs and Christians could co-operate for the common good. On this basis Jews should be admitted into Palestine up to the country's economic absorptive capacity. At the same time, Great Britain, the Dominions and the United States of America should also agree to admit a reasonable number of the Jews who have survived the Nazi terror and who do not want to go back to the lands where they and their families have suffered so terribly.
In all countries the Jew should be given full citizen rights and receive that protection of the State against injustice and injury which is every citizen's right. Anti-semitism should be outlawed. Unless this is done one of the obj.:cts for which the war has been fought will not have been achieved. and there will remain the attitude of mind which produced the policies of Nazism and Fascism and may bring about a third World War. There may be. checks and setbacks here and there to this policy in practice, but the Jewish problem cannot be solved in isolation. Its solution is part of the world problems of peace and the rights of man. It can only be solved by a policy which is at the same time just to the Jew and unjust to no man. The Zionist policy of a Jewish State in Palestine does not satisfy these two requirements.
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