THE ARAB WORLD SIR, —Mr. Nevill Barbour's article on the Arab
World published in your issue of June 22nd, 1945, called forth a cannonade from the Zionist batteries. May I have the hospitality of your columns to state the Arab answer which, alas, has seldom received enough attention in this country.
One of your correspondents condemns the British White Paper of 1939 as a breach of faith towards the Zionists and advocates a "com- pletely new outlook " on the Palestine question. This new outlook. however, turns out to be nothing more novel than a reassertion of the original Zionist demand for a Jewish National State in Palestine and reaffirmation of the Balfour Declaration as interpreted by the Zionists. The attempt to enforce this " new outlook " is more than twenty-five years old and has proved, apart from all moral considerations, disastrous and incapable of success save as a naked military enterprise against the Arabs, which Britain presumably is unwilling to undertake.
The contention that a Jewish National State in Palestine would be a political and strategic asset to Britain is, on your correspondent's own showing, a complete fallacy. It is not true, as he alleges, that "every Arab force (with the exception of the Transjordan Legion)" organised by the British " either mutinied or melted away in desertions." To cite first the crucial example of Palestine itself, io,000 Arabs volunteered for service in the British armed forces and did not " mutiny or melt away in desertions." Another example is that of the Sudan Defence Force. which played a vital part in the East African campaign and later served with loyalty and distinction in North Africa. But if Mr. Hanunersley', contention were entirely true it would surely be the most damning argument against his own thesis, for such hostility to Britain as did exist in certain parts of the Arab world during this war was mainly due to the Balfour Declaration and Britain's sponsoring of the Zionist cause for twenty-five years. The Arabs, not only of Palestine but of the whole Arab world (who until 1918 had been very pro-British), were so alienated by a policy which they felt to be an outrage on their rights and a threat to their very existence that some of them in despair turned away from Britain. Your correspondent's argument therefore puts the cart before the horse and begs the whole question. Britain's strategic and economic interests in the Middle East cannot be safeguarded by a policy whose inevitable result (if persisted in) would be to forfeit the friendship and good will of 32,000,000 Arabs for the sake of the support of a small " loyalist " state artificially created in their midst. In the long run only Arab friendship and the peaceful stabilisation of the Arab world can guarantee Britain's interests in the Middle East. The Arabs desire the friendshig of Britain and are willing to co-operate with her to their mutual advan- tage. The only obstacle that still remains in the way is the Palestine question. Remove this obstacle by applying the White Paper (which it the basic minimum the Arabs can accept) sincerely and effectively, and you will by the same act right a great wrong done to the Arabs in 1918 and ensure your own interests.
To describe the White Paper as a breach of faith (when in fact the Zionists have been given all that the Balfour Declaration promised them, viz., tlie best endeavours of the British Government, including at times bullets and bayonets, to facilitate the establishment in Palestine of a National Home for 600,000 Jews) is a cynical insult to the intelligence and moral sense of those who know the facts. The most cardinal of these facts is that the Balfour Declaration itself constituted a flagrant breach
cf a solemn promise previously made to the Arabs. By no acrobatics of interpretation can Palestine be shown to have been excluded from the area of Arab independence recognised by Britain in 1916. The fact that it is a small part of the Arab world is entirely irrelevant, for it is a vital part and its Arab population have the same right to it as the Arabs cf other countries have to theirs, or for that matter as any people has to she land it has inhabited for centuries and made its own.—I am, Sir,
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