[To the Editor of THE SPECTATOR.]
SIR,—In your leading article entitled" The Palestine Turmoil" you state first that Balfour's system has not worked satis- factorily because •success means the mixture of two races which will not mix. Yet in the very .next. sentence you complain that Balfour's promise of "the establishment in Palestine . of a national home of the Jewish people" was wrongly .interpreted in some quarters as "the conversion of Palestine into a national home for the Jewish people." Surely if a mixture is improbable, if not impossible, this iamterpretation could hardly be regarded as unjustifiable. Both Arabs and Jews feel that.the3r have an indefeasible case, and it is hardly surprising that British administrators have had little success in their efforts to conciliate both sides. In promising to establish a home for the Jews,Balfourmay perhaps have made an attempt to run with the hare and hunt with the hounds, and the, present trouble seems to be a natural consequence of this. policy.
Further, in view of the fact that the Jews consider that they imave...an. ancient right to Palestine and having regard to British assurances, it seems: to me grossly unfair and irrelevant to compare Jewish immigration into Palestine with the recent criminal annexation of Abyssinia.—Yours faithfully,
BERNARD ADLER. .88 ...Manor Road, Stoke Newington, N.16, .
[No comparison was made between Jewish immigration into Palestine and the criminal annexation of Abyssinia: The purport of the words, "Abyssinia might conceivably be more prosperous under Italian rule" was made perfectly clear by the•eontext, the argument being that. the Arabs are as much entitled: to prefer poverty to prosperity at the hands -of the Jews,-as.the Abyssinians • are. in relation to the. Italians,-
ED. The* Spectator.] •
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