• JERUSALEM NOW
By PROFESSOR E. B. CASTLE*
WE must have been the last unofficial citizens to leave Lydda airport. It was difficult to apportion our gratitude—whether to Providence, to the fantastically young British Tommies who were holding the situation or to B.O.A.C. informality which packed us among evacuating equipment in a freighter 'plane bound for Cairo. Two days before Jewish and Arab staff had departed, taking in their baggage certain vital parts in the wireless installation and thus reducing the range of communication to five miles. Contact with the outside world was therefore dependent for the moment on planes flying within that radius. But all was brave and cheerful, in spite of a smouldering Customs House.
Possibly a very brief visit to a situation so nightmarish as that existing during the last days of April in the city of Jerusalem may not result in reliable impressions. I can only record the impact of vivid experiences on a fresh and impartial observer who had oppor- tunities for considerable and sometimes intimate contact with all sides. Outside the minute islands of comparative quiet which consti- tuted the three protected zones, each about 50o yards square, the combatants faced each other by day and by night across a few yards of no-man's-land. This fantastic proximity of Arab and Jew had to be experienced to be believed. A journey of a few hundred yards was an adventure. Sniping in daylight, heavy fighting at night and a hardly stretched British force reduCing the impact of Jew upon Arab and Arab upon Jew at the points of penetration from one sector into another—this was the accompaniment to daily activity. Every house counted for something, each side taking what sudden advan- tage might emerge out of prevailing chaos, honest policemen shot for their guns, citizens robbed of their cars in the open street. Tension, fear, suspicion everywhere—summed up potently in Lancastrian accents at the barbed wire outside the Jewish Agency by the youthful soldier who examined our passes: " I wouldn't trust me bleeding self."
The life of Jerusalem was disintegrating before our eyes. Hanging like a funeral shroud over the minds of thinking folk was the one overwhelming apprehension: " What will happen when the British walk out? " That the British are right in going I have no doubt. But it is a tragic pity that the people at Lake Success have been so long in believing they would go. It is a pity, too, that the Security Council could not have held a session in the King David's Hotel. For on May r5th, unless some miracle happens, Jerusalem will be without a civil administration or a holding force to maintain the last remnants of civil order. The slightest mishap with a gun will break any tenuous truce that may have been established. Everyone knew and feared that the destruction of Jerusalem might be imminent. In any case unrestrained war in Jerusalem would bring devastating pestilence. The city's modern water-supply is piped for many miles into the city. Modern buildings are entirely dependent upon it. The older houses and the whole of the walled city have their ancient cisterns. For twenty years these have been unused ; they are filthy, most effective incubators of disease. If these cisterns are restored to use microbial infection will account impartially for far more lives than the fanatic's bullet. And electric power depends on water, for it is generated from Diesel engines. In five days from the cessation of water-supply the electricity services would cease. Motor fuel would decide whether the 16o,000 souls of Jerusalem would be fed. Both petrol and food were getting scarce before we left, though we heard that there was plenty of food in the Old City. Nevertheless the 2,000 Jews in the Old City were entirely dependent for food on the daily visit of a British armoured car. No one knew what would happen to them and their Haganah custodians after May r5th.
It is important not to confuse two distinct elements in the tortuous discussions on the truce. First there was the need for the limited truce involving the safety of the Holy Places. I was assured at the highest Arab sources that there need be no difficulty here.
* Mr. Castle, who is Professor of Education at University College, Hull, has just returned from Palestine, where he was a member of a small Quaker mission investigating the possibilities of organising a reconciling relief service for Arabs and Jews.
Indeed, Moslem initiative was Indicated in the terms broadly defined in Azzam PaSha's proposal on behalf of the Arab League on April 28th, viz., that there should be no shooting in, to or from the walled city ; that neither Arab nor Jew guards in the old city should be asked to lay down their arms ; and that the truce could be extended from the wall of the old city to include the Mount of Olives. These were practicable if limited conditions. If, at this juncture, the Jews were to demand access to the Wailing Wall it would be a pity, much as one has to sympathise with their desire, for this would introduce avoidable complications. A more real problem would be the means of feeding the Jews in the Old City, for this would necessitate an agreed route of access from the wider municipal area. That too, however, is possible. But a major com- plication involved in establishing so limited a neutral area was its effect on the refugee position, for refugees would surge into the already overcrowded city and create acute problems of supply and disease. Hence the pressing need for an extension of the neutral area to the whole city.
At this point the nature of the problem changes from a means of protecting monuments sacred to the religious life of three great communities to a political and strategic problem of some magnitude. On purely military grounds it must be realised that Jerusalem commands the Jericho road, the only artery of communication for the Arabs with their friends in Amman. Hence, agreement to neutralise the main Arab approach from south to north Palestine needs some consideration in Arab circles. The loss to the Jews would be much less severe. But it was obvious that, unless this wider area could be included, calamity awaited the Holy City. The situation demands one single act of statesmanship, sharp and definite, ruthless if need be in its impartiality, which would estab- lish in this one area a visible stabilising fact. I remember at the time thinking of Jerusalem as a lighthouse on a rock in an angry sea, unshifting, solid, visible. People have lost faith in the certainty of anything but further misery. This exasperating frustration is daily increased by the spate of talk and indecision that comes from Lake Success. That is .why definitive action in Jerusalem would have an effect far beyond its walls.
There could be one of two types of action, possibly a combination of both—either the establishment of civil order under a neutral governor backed by a holding force of neutral police (4,000 was the number suggested) or an agreement by both sides to declare Jerusalem an open city. Hopes of the first solution were dissipating fast, and thoughts of the second were hardly born. But at the moment of writing the possibilities of both seem rather brighter. British initiative and International Red Cross co-operation have brought a truce under Red Cross auspices into the realm of possi- bilities. The idea is so good that one must feel, with Monsieur de Reynier of the Red. Cross in Jerusalem, " It must be a dream ! " By the time these remarks are in print the miracle may have happened, and unless madness prevails Jerusalem may be a city of refuge under the Red Cross flag, instead of a centre of war and pestilence. But should the Red Cross plan fail, then order must be secured by more conventional means if Jerusalem is to be saved. It is likely .that Arab and Jew will persist in a further trial of strength. For recent success has confirmed Jewish .hopes of the Jewish State, and the Arabs declare they will fight for two genera- tions against the division of their country. But Jerusalem can be saved by the firm and rapid action of the United Nations.
Quite possibly the cynic or the peaceful citizen of Golders Green will think I have exaggerated the danger to the Holy City. This is not so. The views expressed are supported by the most experi- enced and sober opinions available, by people who are mistakenly described as unimaginative officials and hard-boiled business-men. If the worst happens, as it still may, then Christendom will only have its own senseless divisions' to thank for the destruction of the city where its holiest traditions were born.
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