THE CONSEQUENCES OF ZIONISM
Sta,—As an old pupil of Victoria College, Alexandria, and its late head- master, Mr. R. W. G. Reed, I read with great pleasure Mr. Kenneth Lindsay's article on his Middle East Journey. May I, as one of many Arabs who have experienced in their lives the beneficent influence which Mr. Lindsay says he felt throughout the Middle East, endorse his tribute to that great Englishman and the school with which his name is indissolubly linked. It is only institutions like Victoria College and ,nen like Mr. Reed and his predecessor, the founder of the school, Mr. C. R. Lias, who can, on the British side, lay in the Middle East the foundations of .a true and lasting moral relationship between England
and the Arab world, beneficial to both and stronger in its ultimate implications than anything which formal treaties or military bases can provide.
I must, however, confess my inability to understand what Mr. Lindsay means when, speaking of Palestine, he says that " some voice . . . a Churchill or a Smuts, must appeal to the world, not only to Europe, but to the Middle East, to stop the inhumanity to Jewry which is now so sadly manifesting itself in the Arab world as well as m Europe." It seems to me, Sir, that this utterance betrays a fundamental misunder- standing of the Palestine problem, and gives a misleading impression about the general relations between Arabs and Jews in the Middle East. To suggest that there is any analogy between the plight of the Jews in Europe and their position in Palestine, or any other part of the Arab world—between, that is to say, anti-Semitism and the Arab opposition to Zionism—is both untrue to the facts and extremely unfair to the Arabs. In Europe the Jews have indeed been subjected to inhuman persecution for no reason save that they are Jews ; and, therefore, as innocent victims of racial aggression, they have rightly earned the sympathy of all decent-minded people in the world. But in the Arab world there has never been any such thing as "inhumanity to Jewry." Such feelings of anti-Semitism as seem to be manifesting themselves among the Arabs are entirely due to the assault of Zionism on the Arab world. The Arabs cannot see the Zionists except as invaders and aggressors, and their opposition to Zionism is, therefore, a reaction of self-defence against a political menace. The only way to ensure for the Jews as Jews a safe and happy future in the Arab world is to put an end to political Zionism. If this is not done, not the voice of a thousand Smutses or Churchills will be able to prevent a bitter and lasting conflict in the Middle East from which the Jews themselves would be the first to suffer.—I am,
The Arab Of 16r, St. Stephen's House, Westminster, S.W.r.
Previous page
