INCONSISTENCY IN PALESTINE
Snt,—One wonders whether the British public appreciate the curious difference in method and severity adopted by the British authorities in Palestine in their efforts to suppress "trouble" created by the Arabs in 1936/39, and that created by militant Zionists there today. One might have supposed that, as the Arabs were fighting (as they not unreasonably conceived) solely for their status in and rights to their own country, their efforts could command some sympathy from British opinion: and when the invading Zionist community are guilty, month after month, of crimes ten-fold more atrocious and more numerous, involving the daily cold-blooded murder of British troops and intense destruction of property, one might expect a sterner British attitude. But no! Arab villages were, for three years, destroyed, homes and buildings burned, flocks and crops confiscated, crushing collective fines imposed; martial law rigorously imposed ; but we meet present and far worse Zionist violence with a few days of polite martial law (quickly withdrawn wilth apologies for the disturbance), with always-rejected appeals for co-opera- tion from the Zionist newspapers and public, and with the greatest solicitude for the comfort and property of the community to which the murderers and incendiaries belong. In 1938, a single year, over fifty Arabs were condemned to death; how many such sentences have been passed—and how many carried out—against Zionists in 1945, '6, or '7?
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