THE FUTURE OF PALESTINE.
THIS is not the time for speculation as to the territorial or commercial gains which may come to the British Empire as the result of the war. J The less we say or think about the profits which we may make out of the war, the more certain we are to carry our Allies, including America, and the great Dominions with us to the end. We did not go to war for the sake of territory or trade, as the Germans falsely pretend, and our disinterested aims have been generally recognized by the world. The good impression which we created at the outset must not be weakened now by indiscreet and unauthorized conjectures as to the profits which we are going to set against our terrible losses in the fight for liberty. A flagrant example of the speculations which we dislike appears in the New Europe of last week. Tho unnamed author of an article on " Great Britain, Palestine, and the Jews " assumes that the appearance of General Murray's army at the gates of Gaza implies our intention to conquer Palestine and to keep it. " We are not," he says, " gathering up Palestine as material for bargaining at the Peace Conference." Having imputed this policy to our Government, without any warrant, he defends it on strategical grounds. The Turkish threats against the Suez Canal have amounted to little' in this war, but have shown that the desert is no longer a barrier to armies, and that a great military Power holding Palestine might cause us serious concern for the safety of our main Imperial route to India and Australia. We cannot, therefore, let Turkey retain Palestine, as " the Turkey of the future will be a tool of Germany." Indeed, " we cannot allow any great military Power other than ourselves in Palestine." We are told bluntly that " French interests in Palestine "—as distinguished from Syria—" arc of the most exiguous character," but that " Palestine is a vital need of British Imperial strategy." In fact, in the author's conception, the "great natural fortress " of the Holy Land might serve as " a central military reservoir for the whole Empire." But a British Palestine must be a Jewish Palestine, and thus we are led up to the idea that the Jews are to go back to Canaan and establish a self-governing Jewry under the British flag. The British Empire then " will be assured of the spontaneous affection and gratitude of all conscious Jews throughout the world," though this flattering prophecy is marred by the ambiguous remark that " what England can gain in that way we can measure by what she has lost through the failure to satisfy Irish national sentiment," which is either inept or wholly misleading.
Wo may say at once that this article in the New Europe does not represent any body of opinion in this country. We know nothing of General Murray's military plans, but it is obviously absurd to suppose that wherever our armies go, there they must and will remain. German propagandists have used that ridiculous argument to alarm Allies and neutrals, but it has not imposed on the most credulous. We have never met any serious person who thought that the possession of Palestine was necessary to the defence of the Suez Canal or that it was desirable on other grounds. The Sinai Desert has not indeed proved an impassable barrier to would-be invaders of Egypt, any more than it was in the days of the Hittites or the Assy- rians, and we, like Napoleon, have crossed it to attack the Turks in Palestine. But a belt of almost waterless wastes a hundred miles across is a far better defence than most frontiers have, and even in these days, with railways and pipe-lines and aeroplanes at a general's command, the Sinai Desert is a very awkward obstacle to overcome in face of a well-armed and vigilant defending force. We should need a good deal of evidence to convince us that the Suez Canal would be more easily and cheaply defended by holding the mountains from Mount Carmel to the Jordan Valley and the hills of Judaea than by watching the few tracks across the Sinai Desert. Besides, there is not the least likelihood that Turkey will remain after the war either a vassal of Germany or the ruler of Palestine. The German hold over the Turk must be shaken off, and the Turkish misrule of subject-races like the Arabs and Syrians must cease, or we shall not have won the war. The alleged military necessity for annexing Palestine is thus disposed of. On other grounds the project is wholly objectionable. Within the British Empire we have already a sufficiency of Depend- encies, of undeveloped or half-developed lands inhabited by alien and backward races. Our responsibilities in this field aro stupendous already and must not lightly be increased. The problem of the Dependencies perplexes every one who tries to think out a scheme for the closer organization of the Empire, and it would be tempting Providence to add unduly to the number and variety of such possessions. We may have to assume the duty of restoring Mesopotamia to something like its old prosperity, as we have done in similar circumstances in Egypt, but the prospect, though full of romantic possibilities, is not by any means to be welcomed. For us to undertake such a task in Palestine would be sheer madness. We can expend all our spare capital in developing Nigeria or East Africa far more profitably than in trying to make long- neglected Palestine flow with milk and honey once again after many centuries. And from the political standpoint annexing Palestine would be like putting one's hand into a wasps' nest. The question of the Holy Places is still as thorny as ever it was. Young readers of history smile when they are told that the Crimean War was caused by a dispute over a key and a star, but they are wrong if they think that the sentiments then so rudely excited are dead beyond recall. Our French friends have never forgotten that Francis I. was recognized in 1535 by Solyman the Magnificent as sole protector of the Latins in Turkey, and the French Roman Catholics have never ceased to maintain the ancient Franciscan convents in Jerusalem and to contend for their time-honoured privileges at the Holy Sepulchre. They would, we are sure, be deeply hurt, even if they were too polite to admit it, by any proposal on our part to annex the Holy Land. Russia and the Greek Church as a whole are profoundly interested also in Jerusalem, and so are the Syrians and the Arabs as well as the Jews. It is irupos ible for any sober statesman to treat a country like Palestine, the focus of so much ancient religious and historic feeling, as if it were a tract of tropical Africa, to be annexed at will on the flimsiest of pseudo-military grounds.
The proposal to colonize Palestine with Jews stands on a different footing. Though by no means new, it seems to us entirely commendable. The Zionists have been working at the scheme for twenty or thirty years, with help from the Rothschilds, and the late Baron Hirsch apparently intended his millions to be devoted to the colonization of Palestine on a large scale by the Jews from the Russian Pale and from Runsinia. Long before the Zionists, the idea was brilliantly set forth by a great Jew in that most witty and fascinating romance, Tancred. The Emir Fakredeen of the Lebanon, whom Tancred de Montacute met during his pilgrimage to the Holy Land, was full of fantastic schemes for founding a new Syrian Empire based on the Druses and Maronites, but he was at heart a Jew and desired the regeneration of his race. When Tancred remarked to the Jewish banker : " It seems to me that you govern every land except your own," Besso replied : " That might have been done in '39," when Mehemet Ali had driven the Turk beyond the Cilician Gates. In Tancred's period, according to Disraeli, the Palestine gossips were saying that " Palmerston will never rest till he gets Jerusalem," but the Jews knew better. In recent years a number of small Jewish colonies have been established, and before the war they were making steady progress. Immi- grants from Northern and Eastern Europe naturally found it hard to accustom themselves to the new conditions, but those who persevered with Zionist support have done fairly well. It is said that the Jews already form a sixth of the scanty population, which is under seven hundred thousand, so that newcomers would find a Jewish environment in most parts of Palestine. If so much has been done despite the mis- government of the Turk and the chronic disorder caused by the unruly nomad tribes, it is probable that the Jews would multiply and prosper were Palestine freed from the Turk and given peace and order. Mr. Zangwill's Jewish Territorial Organization has sought the world over for suitable sites for Jewish colonies, and in East Africa, in Cyrenaica, and in Angola has met with apparently insuperable difficulties. Palestine, with its great stretches of unfilled land and its lack of people, seems to offer more to the Jews than any of the proposed alternatives. A thriving Jewish colony in the Holy Land would benefit every one and offend none. The existence of an isolated Jewish State would be pre- carious. It must have behind it some Christian Power or Powers, or it would become as bad a centre of political in- trigues as Turkey or Morocco or Persia. Yet, as we have said, the question of the Holy Places involves so much religious and national jealousy that we could not become their protector, and probably no other European Power alone could do so with safety. It seems to us that America has here a great opportunity for rendering a service to Europe and the East. She might very well undertake the task of protecting the Jewish Republic of Palestine—a neutral international Republic in which no Power was unduly favoured to the exclusion of others—just as she has fulfilled the task of protecting the Republics of Cuba and Panama. America would excite no jealousy. She is on the best of terms with all the Allies, and is universally respected outside Germany. Her medical missionaries have for many years pervaded Asiatic Turkey from the Black Sea to the Red Sea, and have won the confi- dence and affection of the many races. America has no political aims to serve in the Near East. Her assumption of a protectorate would simply be a guarantee that the little Palestine Republic would have no external enemy to fear and would be required to maintain an honest and competent administration. Many conflicting and irreconcilable ambi- tionS would thus be stilled for ever, and Christians, Jews, and Moslems alike could visit peacefully the sacred places which have an eternal appeal for mankind.
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