PALESTINE AND THE ZIONISTS.
ITo THE EDITOR or THE " SPECTATOR.") SIR,—The letter of Lord Sydenham in your issue of July 23rd, in which he invokes the aid of Mr. Henry Morgenthau in his anti-Zionist campaign, seems to show that his lordship is in desperate straits for fresh arguments. The article to which he refers is a strange exhibition of prejudice and ignorance, the extent of which it is naturally impossible for Lord Sydenham to appreciate. Mr. Morgenthau is not, and never has been, " one of the leaders of the American Jews," and his statements on Zionism cannot therefore be regarded as expressing anything but his own private views. The only Jewish organization with which he is prominently connected is the Free Synagogue in New York, but it is notorious that the Rabbi of this synagogue, Dr. Stephen S. Wise, is one of the most redoubtable champions in America of Zionism, and even attended the Peace Conference in Paris in the spring of 1919 in the interests of the movement. Lord Sydenham quotes some of Mr. Morgenthau's " scathing words," but, unfor• tunately, does not realize that Mr. Morgenthau singularly fails to prove anything except his own Incompetence to deal with the question he has tackled. The resignations of "the more distinguished members" of the American Convention, to which your correspondent refers, did not take place " as a protest against the claims of Dr. Weizmann to dominate the Inner Actions Council with the assistance of European Jews and to override the American organization," since Dr. Weizmann never made any such claims. Those resignations were the result solely of the rejection, by a more than two- thirds majority of the Convention, of the annual report sub- mitted by the executive of the American organization, on which "the more distinguished members" had a majority, and the vote was taken even before Dr. Weizmann addressed the Convention. The resignations have not involved any " split in the Zionist movement in America," which is actually more strongly organized now than it was a few months ago. In any case, Lord Sydenham's solicitude for the solidarity of the Zionist organization is rather touching..
Your correspondent says that " henceforth the movement directed to the establishment of a Jewish State in Palestine will be controlled mainly from London and Frankfort." At present the World Zionist Organization is concerned with the realization of the Balfour Declaration, the terms of which must be quite familiar to Lord Sydenham, and the seat of the execu- tive is solely in London. The reference to Frankfort may be intended to be disparaging, but it is certainly unfounded. It is rather curious that Lord Sydenham should defer to an American visitor as an authority on.the economic possibilities of Palestine, when he must know that quite a different and reasoned judgment was expressed by such an undoubted expert —and an Englishman, too—as the late Colonel C. R. Conder, and also by a living and eloquent authority, the Very Rev. Sir George Adam Smith. But if his lordship thinks that the economic possibilities have been "grossly exaggerated," why is he so perturbed P Surely he ought to be pleased that the Jewish people have been spending so much money on the country! He asks for "justice to the Palestinians," but does not cite a single case of injustice having been committed. He says that "many lives have been already lost " because of the Balfour Declaration, but omits to add that they were the lives of Jews—six in the Jerusalem outrage in April, 1920, and forty- six in the outrages in Jaffa and other places in May, 1921. British rule has not deprived the Arabs in Palestine of a single right or single acre that they possessed under the Turks; on the contrary, it has restored to the Moslem religious organization handsome Wok/ revenues which were unjustly taken by the Turkish authorities, and it has created a great numbers of schools and free dispensaries, besides providing other improvements in the general well-being of the community, for which the Arabs under Turkish dominion might have had to wait another century. Your correspondent's observation that "the Palestinians were freer, happier, and able to play a greater part in their affairs under the Turk than under our rule" is such a palpable travesty of the actual situation that one wonders how any member of the House of Lords could be responsible for such a statement.
If Lord Sydenham sincerely thinks that Mr. 3llorgenthau "has lucidly explained the injury which the Balfour policy is inflicting on his co-religionists," he will be relieved to hear that these co-religionists will know what to do under the circumstances. But he has no right to advance this alleged injury of the Jews as a pretext for attacking an ancient
and sacred Jewish ideal.—I am, Sir, &c., ISRAEL COHEN. 77 Great Russell Street, W.C. 1.
Previous page
