[To the Editor of THE SPEcTATon.]
peace when I " encourage Palestinians to consider their rracial, s! problems in terms of ' majority ' and 'minority ' rights."
,The defenders of Zionism are very prone to mis-state their adversaries' case, and I fear that Mrs. Dugdale has dime so in this matter. I cannot accept her definitions. Firstly, I -
do not encourage. Palestinians I encourage: Arabs.: The use of the word. Palestinian is fprejudical because it assumes
that there is a genuine_ nation established in the Holy Land, to be distinguished by this adjective from the Arab race which surrounds it. This is not so.
Secondly, I am not encouraging the Arabs to consider, after any .fashion whatsoever, a racial problem of theirs. Here again is a false assumption, but a much graver one.
There is no racial problem in Palestine inherited by its inhabitants. We have created one by importing the Zionists. It is ball enough that we should be guilty of•the wilful intro, duction of a problem into the Arabs' land, but that we shriiild go on to describe It- as 'their racial problem' passes all
bounds. •
Thirdly, it is very signifier:tint that Mrs. Dugdale; when deal, ing with Palestine, puts into inverted commas the wordi " majority " and " minority." I did not employ them and, the text dOeS not tall for them. Mrs. Dugdale, however, inserts theirs because by those who support our present policy Majority cannot be 'given its plain sense in Palestine. Yet, if one but looks into it, the long democratic struggle for free institutions comes to little else than the removal of inserted commas from the words " majority and "ininoritY." and the establishment of each as a -practical body, the former enjoying its 'privileges, the latter- its safes, guards.
. . . Today in Palestine, alone in the world, this is reversed. The minority has . the privilege, .,the majority the safeguards. But, now, indeed, is a reason for inverted commas : the " a " safeguard of the majority in ,the Mandate are worded ..„. deliberately so that they cannot be accurately defined and enforced. . •
In the space of a letter I am not able to answer in full all the issues raised by Mrs. Dugdale. The Arabs have been able to give utterance to their grievances; but they never have been listened to. Their perfectly founded appeals against the legitimacy of the " Balfour" Declaration" have - been met by mere unproved denials from successive Colonial Secretaries. Mr. Winston Churchill, Mr. J. H. Thomas,' Mr. Ormsby Gore and others, after acting as the witness for the Crown, have then returned to the bench and given judge- merits in their own favour. On the one occasion upon which it was possible to bring the acts of the Colonial Office, before a neutral court of justice, in the matter of the Mavromatis concessions, the verdict was given by the Court of the Hague against the pretentions of the then Colonial Secretary. •
Economic pleas are irreleSlant:- The death of. British soldiers in ' Palestine 'is' dire to the insistence of -Whitehall that the country is one where there are no political issues and that economic issues stand in their place. •• -
Nor is -there any Jewish right to Palestine. The bistdric claim mentioned by kis., Dugdale is not so much historic as prehistoric. If we are to engage in 'extraVagant recon- stitutions of the world'of two thousand years ago, let us instal these enforced pageants amid our own people.-I arin'acirry for the Jewi driven from their homes by the tyranny of 'the Nazis, birt we "must not impaae thein on Palestine and try to cure. tyranny with tyranny. Let us flint room for them in our own Empire, not add to Our reputation for hypocrisy by giving theni a warm .Welcoine to the shores of another people.—I am, dear Sir, yours'faithfullY, m. jEpiring. The Bath Club, W. 1.
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