Palestine and the League
-LIVERY healthy British reader of the Report issued -1-'41 by the Permanent Mandates Commission on last year's disturbances in Palestine must be feeling a little sore. He observes that the Mandates Commission reads a homily to Great Britain upon miscalculations— due to a generous optimism—which Great Britain has herself freely acknowledged and is now practically correcting ; and he fails to find in the recommendations of the Commission any useful constructive advice except that economic development is the real cure for that strife between Arabs and Jews which has hitherto baffled every attempted remedy. Unfortunately, this advice about economic development is only a disguised form of saying that the hard-driven British taxpayer ought to put his hand deeper than ever into his pocket for the honour of making a success of the Mandate in Palestine.
The Mandates Commission talks about having warned Great Britain several times of the inadequacy of her troops and police for keeping the peace. But British students of the recent history of Palestine will be at a loss to know when these warnings were given. They will remember, on the contrary, tributes by certain members of the Mandates Commission to the unprovo- cative British policy in Palestine which with no con- spicuous show of force—indeed, with a constantly dwindling display of it—contrived to prevent any serious rioting from racial or religious causes. The thought leaps hotly and inevitably to the lips of the British reader : " Does the Mandates Commission really mean, as it seems to imply, that after all the only way to govern Palestine is to impose a peace upon Jew and Arab by a large garrison and a ubiquitous gendarmerie ? If that is to be the orthodox doctrine of the League, nothing will have been changed as a result of the War but a few names. We may say that we live now in an age of peace, but the methods of preserving the peace will be the old methods of those who assumed force to be inevitable."
We have tried thus to describe the first ruffled feelings of the normal Briton ; but although we think these feelings natural enough, we must hasten to say that it would be a disastrous error if resentment were allowed to set the tone of comment in this country or, still worse, to determine the bearing of any British Government towards the Mandates Commission. The reply of the British Government to the criticisms of the Mandates Commission which has been published together with those criticisms says all that is necessary in the way of a rejoinder.
Even a rejoinder so moderate in its firmness as this necessarily leaves unexpressed the moral of' the present contention, for expressions of this sort have no place in official correspondence. The British people will go quite astray, however, if they do not point the moral for themselves. It is a wholesome thing, though often surprising and disagreeable, to see ourselves as others see us. We may think with justice that others see us most unfairly, but there will be no hope of settling the affairs of the world by international discussion and by bringing world-wide opinion, which is the arbiter of the future, to bear on intricate and delicate problems unless we make up our minds to accept the truism that the world is composed of all kinds of men and all kinds of opinions. Although the Report of the Mandates Commission seems to us to be wide of the mark, con- tradictory in some of its statements, and as altogether !elm useful than the very businesslike and frank Report of the Shaw Commission, we cannot for a moment doubt its good faith.
The members of the Mandates Commission obviously took their work seriously, and even at points where they are mistaken they are in intention holding up a high ideal for those who are trusted to carry out the League's instructions. Real discussion involves hearing everybody's opinion, however unexpected or startling it may be. The world is only beginning its experiments in regulating international affairs by conference, and it would be fatal to shrink from the superficial incon- veniences of the method. So far the experiments have yielded much more success than failure, and some of those who gloomily prophesied twelve years ago the collapse of the League would not like to be reminded now of the exact wording of their predictions.
Great Britain, rightly proud of her pioneer work in colonial administration, was perhaps a target too easy and tempting to be resisted by some members of the heterogeneous Mandates Commission. We can all under- stand the motive of those ancient Athenians who, weary of hearing Aristides described as " The Just "—if the shadowy legend be true—inscribed his name on their oyster shells for banishment without probably .con- fessing to themselves that the reason for their condemna- tion was so slender. It is naturally remembered by Englishmen that the rising in Syria, when a part of Damascus was indiscriminately and unnecessarily bom- barded, passed without censure from the Mandates Commission ; yet if the reason for the present strictures of the Mandatory Power in Palestine is that Great Britain was expected to be faultless, it is not for Great Britain to complain.
The chief issue of historical fact between the Mandates Commission and the Shaw Commission is whether the riots of August, 1929, in Palestine were directed against the Mandatory Power as such or merely against the principle embodied in the Mandate. The Mandates Commission says that the excesses which the Arabs committed against the Jews " were ultimately due to the political disappointments which they attributed to the parties concerned in the Mandate, and primarily to the British Government." Unfortunately for those who accept the view of the Mandates Commission, the British Government have repeatedly offered to associate Arabs and Jews in a form of representative Government which would be compatible with the obligations of the Mandate, but these offers have invariably been refused by the Arabs. The Arabs, in truth, have so far steadily refused to co-operate politically with the Jews because they resent the whole principle of the Mandate. The one political system which they would accept would deny that principle.
Nowhere has there been quite such a difficulty as that in Palestine, where both Arabs and Jews claim to be the original possessors of the land. Undoubtedly the Jews were there before the Arabs ; but the Arabs have been the practical and lawful occupants for a thousand years. Without declaring for either one of the possible answers to a conundrum which is as elusive as the question, " Which came first, the owl or the egg ? " the Mandatory Power has done its best to act impartially in the highly complex task of making Palestine a Jewish National Home while " safeguarding the civil and religious rights of all the inhabitants irrespective of race and religion." This latter duty, an essential element in the British task, has becn strangely ignored by the Mandates. Commission.
When all has been said, by far the most important fact in this affair is that the Mandates Commission is in no visible danger because it has given a shock to British susceptibilities. Great Britain has her own case, and has stated it squarely. In this country most of us believe that the Mandates Commission might have written its Report differently if it had had before it all the evidence which came before the Shaw Commission. But the Mandatory system, with its necessary directing head—the Permanent Commission—not only survives but is vigorous. If the system flourished only in a particularly favourable soil or climate we might indeed doubt its final worth, but in the experience of to-day we can say that it is a hardy plant which emerges undamaged from curiously adverse conditions. And for those who believe ardently in the League and its machinery this is an extremely encouraging fact.
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