THE BALFOUR DECLARATION - PALESTINE AND THE WAR - EVENTS LEADING TO LORD BALFOUR'S COMMITMENT - Draiman
"LIBERTY
Two events conspired to put an end to the Ghetto. One was the
discovery of America
Out of the ashes of this decaying order gradually developed a new
force, the power of industrial capital. This new force immediately discovered
itself in mortal opposition to the entire system of life the Medieval Era had
erected, since it could only maintain itself by free competition and continuing
consumer expansion, which meant the opening of new markets. The greater the competition
among merchants and those who held the power to grant credit, the better would
industry flourish.
The Ghetto was one of the medieval corporations which had to go in
the interest of a speedy evolution of capitalism. Though it continued in some
cities into the modern era, its fate was sealed.
It was this young and growing industrial capitalism which was the
great lever creating the modem democracies, and with them the emancipation of
the Jews.
The new system soon developed a philosophy justifying itself, and
fiery expounders of its tenets. "Liberty Man.
The question arose as to whether this queer race of the Jews whose
glorious past history was long forgotten, sunk in the torpor of religious
formalism, was capable of supporting such enlightened ideas. Learned debates
took place as to whether, if they were enfranchised, they could take their
place in an organized secular society; whether they could become soldiers,
manufacturers, artisans, professional men - in short, whether they were capable
of competing in the civil society which was to be based on the new order. The
atheist and liberator Voltaire considered them dangerous and incurable reactionaries, a source of religious superstition. Others like Tallyrand, Montesquieu and Mirabeau asserted
that the Jew must be included in the new dispensation.
Almost coincident with these events the American Revolution exploded
in the face of an archaic world and based its fundamental principles on the
same Rights of Man.
In this onrush of the Liberal spirit the Western Jew miraculously found the walls of the Judengasse torn down. They fell before
his eyes like the walls of Jericho
Enthusiastically the Jews put themselves in line with this glorious
theme of world brotherhood. For the first time the vernacular took the place of Hebrew in their daily life. The Eighteenth
and Nineteenth Centuries were the age of Massentau fen (mass baptism). In Berlin
Early an attempt was made to meet this wholesale desertion of Judaism
by creating a new and reformed liturgy and a new attitude towards Jewish destiny.
Inaugurated in Germany Germany Holland Brunswick
The last step in this denationalization process, in which the Reform
Rabbis led the procession, was the transformation into metaphor of the
doctrines of Jewish nationalism for which the race had steadfastly held over so
long a period. All that now remained of laws meant to control the social and
economic interests of the Jews was dead ritual.
For a brief century the ideal of again making themselves an individual
force in history sank into comparative insignificance and gave place to a
desire to become adapted to environment.
Both the spirit and fact of Jewish history became falsified; and Jews
endeavoring to win equal rights in every sphere of human activity began to
frame both their thought and action with an eye to the opinion and point of
view of others. As a living force with legitimate, healthy rights of its own,
Judaism was discountenanced by Jews, who had transformed themselves into neo-gentiles?.
It survived only as an innocuous shadow.
The inexorable forward movement of `toleration' hit its peak immediately
after the World War. Palestine Germany Weimar Republic
Enthusiastically the Western Liberals and 'Assimilationists' went
to the very point of denying the existence of a Jewish nation altogether. Learnedly
they `proved' that a Jewish race could no longer possibly be in existence.
Had anyone told these enraptured Jews that the last strongholds of
ignorance, meanness and tyranny would not yield but would instead reacquire a
vitality and strategy capable of once more putting Liberalism desperately on
the defensive, his only reply would have been a smile of pity and commiseration.
How could they dream that the Germany Germany
be revived with even increased force and viciousness. All of this
was contrary to the rationale of the new order; hence it became schematically
impossible.
While all this was happening, the torch of Jewish nationalism distorted
and vitiated, but alive, spluttered among the masses still going about their
daily tasks in the ghettos of East Europe .
'THE LOST TEN TRIBES'
In the wake of the irresistible Liberal sweep which was
de-Judaizing the Jews, occurred a most remarkable phenomenon the Anglo-Saxon
people, rising rapidly to world power, literally pitched themselves headlong at
the same time into a Judaizing process.
Aroused by such magnetic personalities as Knox and Tyndale the
British peoples retreated to creative Prophecy, to the stern and simple
democracy of the Hebrew Bible. The Old Testament in particular was studied with impassioned thoroughness.
James Truslow Adams remarks that "Christ did indeed occupy a place
in their [the Puritan] theology, but in spirit they may be considered Jews and
not Christians. Their God was the God of the Old Testament, their laws were the
laws of the Old Testament, their guides to conduct were the characters of the
Old Testament."" "They baptized their children," writes
Lord Macaulay, "by the names, not of Christian saints, but of Hebrew
patriarchs and warriors." Even the old Saxon names, once household
words, were condemned to oblivion. "Cromwell hath beat up his drums
clean through the Old Testament," comments Cleveland
Every attitude of the aggressive young imperialism which the Anglo-Saxon
was erecting became tinctured with Hebrew philosophy.
So completely was it absorbed that a large section of the English
people began to look upon themselves as being actually descended from Israelites.
A whole body of literature sprang into being claiming that the word British was
derived from Brith and Ish of Hebrew, meaning `circumcised man,' and that the
English were descended from the Lost Ten Tribes of Israel.
This conviction on the part of a large part of the British public
became so great that it resulted in the forming of `The British-Israel World
Federation,' at one time claiming over five million members and including such
eminent personages as Queen Victoria and King Edward VII.
The Hebraizing spirit attended other considerable sections of the
Reformation though it was particularly at home with the Anglo-Saxon peoples,
whose identification with Hebrew history and philosophy became so complete as
to almost appropriate it for themselves. Lecky expressed this debt in the
famous remark: "Hebraic mortar cemented the foundation of American Democracy!"
In the same vein Ulysses S. Grant advised his countrymen to "hold fast to
the Bible. It is the sheet-anchor of
your liberties. . ." And Jean Paul bespoke his times when he
THE WANDERING JEW
37
declared that "the first leaf of the Mosaic record has more
weight
than all the folios of men of science and philosophies."
Protestant theology in particular, rested on the belief that the world
of mankind was evolving towards a millennium in which holiness was to be
triumphant everywhere, and that a primary prerequisite to this happy
eventuality was the return of God's Chosen People, the Jews, to the Holy Land
.15 Supporting their position with direct quotation from Biblical Prophecy, a
large group of earnest men, divines, statesmen and writers, set themselves to
be the instruments to speed this desired end. Specialized histories of the Jews
gained wide circulation, and it was not long before the political emancipation
of Zion
in English politics.
By 1839 popular interest had become so intense that the General
Assembly of the Church of Scotland, after sending a special commission
to the Holy Land to report on conditions there, addressed "A
Memorandum to the Protestant Monarchs of Europe on the Subject of the
Restoration of the Jewish People to the Land of Palestine." From this date
onwards a pro-Jewish Palestinian discussion ran parallel in the London
The Government, taking canny notice of this body of public feeling
and being interested in the Near East on its own account, commenced
to take a hand. With the entry of the murderous anti-Christian Mehemet Ali into
Syria
Interest mounted rapidly in all circles. The statesman Lord Shaftsbury
became so absorbed in the project that he learned Hebrew. The colonization
expert, Colonel George Gawler, devoted virtually all his time to this cause,
firmly convinced that Jewish repatriation was a political desideratum for England Near East befriended the Jews
and took an active interest in their cause. It became a ruling passion
with such men as Laurence Oliphant and the archaeologist Conger.
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THE RAPE OF PALESTINE
A mountain of literature and a whirlpool of activity had by now
been brought to bear on the matter. All these writers and orators pointed out
the desolate, empty, semi-savage condition of the country. Various associations
were formed to agitate the cause and monster mass-meetings were held. English
statesmen such as Sir Samuel Montague guaranteed publicly that "not only will
the Jews be assisted in colonizing Palestine
While the interest in the fate of the Jews was most spectacular and
deep-seated in Britain
In France
Congress to restore the Holy Land . Here, too, Henri Dun
ant, founder of the Red Cross and author of the Geneva Palestine Egypt Near East .
In America United States Judea , an independent nation
. . ." The lively sympathy for Hebrew resettlement is shown also by the
petition to President Benjamin Harrison submitted by Dr. Wm. Blackstone, Chairman
of the Conference of Christians and Jews, in 1891. Signed by an imposing list
of the greatest names in America
"not for twenty-four centuries since the days of Cyrus, King
of Persia
By 1914 a powerful non-Jewish
public opinion, favoring the enterprise as a rational historical development
existed everywhere.
In England
THE WANDERING JEW
REAWAKENING HEBREW CONSCIOUSNESS
As unaware of all this as if it had taken place on Mars, a wholly independent
movement began stirring in the Hebrew ghettos.
As early as 1857 the Hungarian Rabbi Yehuda Alkalai suggested the
purchase of Palestine
Others like the writers Hess, Kalisher and Smolenskin began to
voice articulate opinions.
In 1882 Leon Pinsker issued his volume Auto-Emancipation in which
he demanded that the Jews redeem themselves by their own self-will. Like a lone
tragic eagle, Pinsker gazed with tortured sympathy at the misery of his people.
Appalled at their apathy and wretchedness he wrote: "Among the living
nations of the earth the Jews occupy the position of a nation long since dead.
With the loss of their fatherland, the Jewish people lost
their independence and fell into a decay which is not compatible with
existence as a whole vital organism. The State was crushed before the eyes of
the nations, but after the Jewish people had yielded up their existence as an
actual State, as a political entity, they could not nevertheless submit to
total destruction – they did not cease to exist spiritually as a nation. The
world saw in this people the uncanny form of one of the dead walking among the
living. The ghostlike apparition of a people without unity or organization,
without land or other bond of union, no longer alive, and yet moving about
among the living, this eerie form scarcely paralleled in history, unlike
anything that preceded or
followed it, could not fail to make a strange, peculiar impression upon
the imagination of the nations."
Finally fired by the atrocious pogroms that were taking place in South Russia a group of
intellectuals formed the Chovevi Zion Society 16 which soon attempted practical
work in the direction of a resettlement in the Old Land
Jewry which had been gazing on all these vague gropings with tolerant
amusement, living like a drugged man on promises of a new world order where men
would live like gods, was jolted from
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THE RAPE OF PALESTINE
this fantasy by two startling events. The first of these had been the
arrest, torture and conviction of the leading Jewish notables in the city of Damascus Syria
In France
unfortunate man's innocence. It soon became so apparent that the
whole case was a deliberate frame-up that the ensuing hubbub forced the
authorities to retry the Jewish officer some four years later, when, under
farcical circumstances, he was once more sentenced to Devil's Island .
The doughty novelist, Zola, risked his career by issuing the famous
J'Accuse, exposing the outrageous nature of this affair.
Arrested, he fled to England
After an agitation which convulsed the entire civilized world, Dreyfus,
who had been kept in an iron cage on the Island , was pardoned, still
un-vindicated.
The anti-Semitic movement now grew with marvelous rapidity,
confounding every theory of the educators, who had held such? a
result impossible. Jewry once more began to seek communion with its own organic
forces. The desire for a specifically Hebrew cultural scheme in which they
could live their lives out, began to arise in the minds of the unhappy
creatures groping their way around tortured ghetto paths.
HERZL
Sitting quietly in the press galleries during the second Dreyfus trial
was a young Viennese journalist named Theodore Herzl .17
THE WANDERING JEW
41
A thoroughly Westernized Jew who accepted the Enlightenment as a
matter of course, he suddenly saw the Jewish problem outlined stark naked.
Returning to Vienna
Friends, de-Judaized like himself, to whom he enunciated these `revolutionary
ideas,' counseled that he had been working too hard and urged him to see the
great brain specialist Max Nordau, which nothing daunted, Herzl did.
One of the journalist's friends inquired anxiously of Nordau after
the visit: "What do you make of him?"
"Well," said Nordau thoughtfully, "it is of course
quite possible that he is crazy - but if he is, so am I, because I agree with him.)l
Tall, majestic, handsome, looking like an Assyrian god who had stepped
down from an old frieze, the magnetic personality of this figure suddenly
galvanized the incoherent movement into action. Until then Zionism had been
resting upon a vague cultural-settlement base, with no definite scheme of control.
The great difference between Herzl's viewpoint and that of his immediate
predecessors was his pointblank insistence on political guarantees before a
single other step was taken. Claimed this new master: ". . . the solution
of the Jewish difficulty is the recognition of the Jews as a People, and the
finding by them of a legally recognized home to which Jews in those parts of
the world in which they are oppressed would naturally migrate, for
they would arrive there as citizens just because they were Jews, and
not as aliens." With prophetic insight Herzl insisted on complete
political guarantees. He wrote: "An infiltration is bound to end in disaster.
It continues until the inevitable moment when the native population feels
itself crushed, and forces the Government to stop the further influx of Jews. Immigration
is consequently futile unless based on an assured supremacy.”
His a priori demand was for "sovereignty over a tract of the earth's
surface that is adequate for our rightful needs as a nation.”
There was something almost omniscient in the man's ability to peer
into the curtained future. In a letter to the Rothschild's at
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THE RAPE OF PALESTINE
Vienna he pointed out that the Liberal governments of Europe, apparently
so firmly established in the prosperity of those days, were not to last. They
would fall and would be replaced by tyrants, either royal or popular, who would
be worse than the aristocracies whom the parliamentary governments had
displaced .19 It took less than forty years for this prophecy to come true.
At the first Zionist Congress he predicted that the Jewish problem would
inevitably be turned into the problem of Zion
On all sides the storm of opposition mounted like a rising
hurricane.
Assimilationist rabbis thundered against him in their pulpits.
The Jews of Germany Basle instead. But he had
gotten the ear of the crushed Jewish masses and had touched their imaginations as
no figure had since the ill-fated messiah Zevi.
Abused and ridiculed as few men have been in history, Herzl continued
with his plan to attempt the purchase of Palestine
Jewish millionaires might have easily provided the 410,000,000
demanded by Abdul Hamid for a concession in Palestine
The great man listened benevolently and finally said: "Herr Herzl,
I observe that you are an intelligent man - but you have such fantastic ideas.”
In vain Herzl cajoled and pleaded: he could not rise the money; and
in the meanwhile the `Young Turks' made an end to Abdul Hamid and the Palestine
On the pulse of these events the British kept practiced and
interested
fingers. When Herzl came to London
THE WANDERING JEW
43
whose interests were coincidental to this scheme of development?
had created ready-made for him a galaxy of famous and influential
supporters. Powerful organs such as the Daily Chronicle and Pall Mall Gazette were demanding
the fulfillment of the Zionist program and calling for a conference of the
Powers to consider it.
Herzl had already appeared at the sittings of the Royal Commission
on Alien Immigration. Given the honor of being the first witness on
the problem of Jewish homelessness and immigration, he had been questioned
closely by the Commission for an exact definition of what was meant by Zionism.
He replied with his usual straightforwardness that it meant the establishment of
a Jewish State under absolute guarantees of political control, and nothing
else.
The British now took a direct hand and offered the territory of Uganda West Africa on a full autonomous
basis under chartered rights, "a recognition," states the official
British Peace Handbook No. 162, "that Herzl and his following were
regarded seriously in serious quarters." Supporting the Government in this
well-intentioned offer was a young M.
P. named Arthur James Balfour.
But the Russian Zionists rebelled; and at the next Congress the whole
Uganda Palestine
Within the Zionist movement itself various schisms began to develop.
The widest of these, was that of the so-called Practical Zionists who derived
from the old Chovevi Zion Society. They were bitterly opposed to Herzl's
policy, were uninterested in political guarantees, and stressed `cultural' and
`practical' work.
One of their rising stars was the young chemist Chaim Weitzman.
Their leader was Achad Ha'am, a little pinch-faced man with a
goatee and the eye of an ascetic.
Achad Ha'am represented all that his arch-enemy Herzl would never
understand in his lifetime. He was born in a little village in the Pale and was
brought up in an ultra-orthodox home where secular knowledge was tabu. He
literally concentrated on the Talmud, and his knowledge of that book became so
great that
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THE RAPE OF PALESTINE
local rabbis would come to consult him when he was still in his early
teens. He was a typical hair-splitter in words, the personified ideal of the
spirit of philosophic dialecticism in the flesh.
He considered all `political' Zionists to be barbarians. "What
we lack," he wrote, "is a fixed spot to serve as a national spiritual
center, a safe retreat, not for Jews, but for Judaism . . . The foundation of a
single great school," he insisted, "of learning or art in Palestine
Fanatically understood by the queer type of scholastic whose soul
he interpreted, Achad Ha'am, if influence counts, was the most potent of all
the modern Zionist forces. Belittling Herzl as a wild dreamer, his influence
began to be apparent after the Tatter's death, and finally triumphed. He was an
extremist who could care much for idea and little for men, a product and
consequence of that tragic pariah world into which the gentiles had sequestered
Jehovah's people.
Herzl saw what Achad Ha'am did not - what, indeed, he was incapable
of seeing -that a free and living culture is not the source but the outcome of
an organized and stable life, and that this contemptuous attitude towards
political control could only end in one more ghettos - this time in Palestine
It is the Hebrew tragedy that the manly Herzl should have died
young and the visionary Ha'am should have lived to a ripe old age. On July 3, 1904 , harassed and worn,
the incomparable leader suddenly sickened and died. He was then only forty-four
years old.
The Zionist movement had already begun to be encumbered with
ideological contentions, and factions of various descriptions. Its leadership
fell in the hands of minor worthies, followers for the most part of Achad
Ha'am, who talked in learned? circumlocutory motions and all but smothered in
the mantle they had inherited. Even so, carried along by its own irresistible momentum,
Zionism continued to grow rapidly.
CHAPTER IV
THE JEWEL OF THE MEDITERRANEAN
TOPOGRAPHY
The name `Palestine
Like its Hebrew equivalent, Pelesheth (Land of Wanderers Philistia . At first applied to a
small section of the coast it later spread to encompass the entire country. Until
the resurgent Zionist movement brought this area into the sphere of world
politics its identity was largely interchangeable with that of Syria Asia Minor but later
contracted to cover the confines of Palestine
With proprietary determination the Jew has always referred to his
homeland as Eretz Israel Land of Israel
By and large, this territory must be accounted one of the most stirringly
beautiful and, certainly, one of the most remarkable countries on the face of
Mother Earth. It is not to be wondered by those who have seen it that
"some of the finest visions of the true age of reason has been penned
within its borders." 2
Here in matchless beauty can be found every climate from tropical
to sub-alpine, and a bewildering variety of flora and fauna to match - all in a
half hour's ride. It is possible to pass through four different zones, from the
scotch fir in the hill country down to the date palm growing in its native soil
on the plains of Jordan
The valley of the Dead Sea , sultry and
depressing, lays thirteen hundred feet below the level of the Mediterranean . From this strange
salt lake, almost visible to the naked eye is Jerusalem
45
46 THE RAPE OF PALESTINE
nine thousand feet above the ocean calmly sunning itself below, and
becomes alpine. On the central range, snow has been known to reach a depth of
nearly two feet. This explains the feat of Benaiah who went down and slew a
lion in the midst of a cistern in the day o f the snow. The beast had strayed
up the Judean hills from Jordan
A fertile plain fronts the Mediterranean for the entire length of
the country except where rugged Carmel Judea , lie rolling foothills
studded with rich valleys. South of Jerusalem Edom valley of Esdraelon Asia and Africa , splits
the mountain range which spreads across Palestine Haifa Jordan
In an area but little larger than Vermont Judea to the opal shores of
the Dead Sea .
Yet in these neighboring hills the climate is so temperate that
first rate apples may be grown; and on the hottest days the nights are cool
enough to sleep under blankets.
The climate is divided roughly into a rainy and dry season, with a
short period of scorching desert winds called the Humseen.
The rain falling in the three winter months becomes a deluge.
Wild flowers follow each other in stunning confusion. Glittering like
precious gems, anemone, crocus, poppy, wild mignonette, oleander and narcissus
sparkle in the sun just as they must have once delighted the Hebrew women in
the old days.
Overhead, birds of all kinds make the air gay with their limpid notes.
Whole hosts of harmless lizards of every color dart like small genii across the
banks of hedge and sward. In the wilderness are tiny gazelles who look as if
they had been painted on the landscape. It is claimed that there are still
wolves, hyenas and
THE JEWEL OF THE MEDITERRANEAN
47
jackals in the hills. Tristram speaks of foxes near Nablus
Beyond this eloquent native beauty, which the hand of barbarian man
is not powerful enough to destroy, the country has been stripped and starved. In
parts it is a veritable carcass of a land.
Travelers gazing on Palestine Land of Promise
The great oak forests of Gilead , Bashan and Lebanon Jordan Valley Judea except an
occasional goatherd, there is hardly a hilltop of the many within sight
which is not covered by the vestiges of some fortress or city of former ages. Where
now only forbidding rocks greet the eye, the soil on their steep sides was once
held securely in place by ingeniously devised terraces.
The indescribably wild state of the country, before the Zionists came,
is pictured graphically in the chronicles of the last century.
Some of the descriptions given are almost unbelievable. Churton
refers to the plain between Jerusalem Jordan Walpole
one of the most remarkable and best situated countries in the world,
without a population, without resources, without commerce." 7
West of the Jordan
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THE RAPE OF PALESTINE
brew irrigation works crumbling on the hillsides; remain to remind the
traveler that once this country was populated by a civilized people. Standing
on the Moab Moab Gilead and Bashan . That this vast region
was then one of the most fertile and populous on the globe is amply proven by
the multitude of ruins which dot its surface at the present day. From a single
outlook Merrill counted as many as forty ruined cities and towns.8 Buckingham
described "ruined
towns in every direction, both before, behind, and on every side of
us. . . There was not a tree in sight as far as the eye could reach." 9
Even in early Christian centuries Trans-Jordan * was so thickly settled
as to be honored with the seat of a bishopric. Many Greeks drifted in and
settled among the Syrian and Roman elements.
After the Fourth Century, the Bedouin Arab inundated the country
and left it a wilderness again, as it remains today.
The tumbling remains of fine marble baths, great columns, and
evidences
of a cultivated life now hushed in death, are looked upon by the
Arab with uncomprehending eye. Merrill, with the hurt conscience of a great
archaeologist, complained bitterly that these aboriginals were wantonly
smashing the famous ruins.
At Jerash alone are remains unexcelled by the best antiquities of
northern Damascus
Today the very names of these places are forgotten. The Bedu 10
herd their sheep in these deserted courts and make their rude beds of grass
among their stones. They extract the same blackmail, and if it is withheld,
sweep off the harvests in the same time-sanctified retaliation. Their frail houses
of hair had been * Trans-Jordan, the territory of the Jewish National Home
lying east of the River Jordan Jordan Transjordan :
THE JEWEL OF THE MEDITERRANEAN
49
there four thousand years before, and are there again today
unchanged.
The whole of Eastern Palestine is incomparably more
fertile and better watered than the western third of the country. Draining it is
a number of large rivers, fed by innumerable springs, filled with fishes and
other aquatic life.
Travelers glowingly describe its rich soil and natural beauty.
Irby and Mangles mention "the vast variety of natural flora;
and downs with verdure so thick as to appear almost turf." 11 Lord Lindsay
declares that "the whole of the country . . . on the east of the Jordan Gilead "turning furrows which were nearly a mile
in length, and as straight as one could draw a line.”
This whole area across Jordan
JEWISH PRE-WAR SETTLEMENTS
Historians agree that there has been no period since the time of Joshua
when there has not been Jews in Palestine
The oldest identifiable community whose continuing record can be
established are the Jews of Pekiin, a village in the hills of upper Galilee near Safed, a group
which has not moved in two thousand years. This settlement is referred to in
the Talmud under the name of Tekoa, and then reappears more than a thousand years
later in the narrative of an early Sixteenth Century traveler.
At Bukeia in the mountains is another ancient community of Jews who
claim to be descended from Israelites living there before the Dispersion; and
the Samaritans at Sechem are known to have been there since the days of Nehemiah.
All through the Dispersion, Jews sought to return to their
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THE RAPE OF PALESTINE
homeland. They trickled in from all directions after each
catastrophe in the Diaspora. Most of them succumbed to massacre, forced
conversion and disease. The rest were turned into broken spirited men whose
cowed eyes became hypnotized by mere liturgical devotions.
The first practical steps for modern colonization were taken in Russia 1880, a group of students,
mostly from the University of Odessa Land of Israel
Students with soft white hands and determined wills, began to arrive
in small groups. The great-hearted Englishman, Oliphant, his head full of
idyllic schemes for buying the country from the Sultan, found a number of them
stranded in Galilee . He helped they found what is now the prosperous
colony of Zichron Jacob, near Haifa
Soon at Petach Tikvah a thriving agricultural colony was
established.
Jewish resettlement had begun in dead earnest.
By 1883, three thousand of these hardy dreamers had landed in Jaffa
Progress continued quietly and steadily. Arabs attracted by the
magnetizing vitality of the returning Jew began to drift in from impoverished Syria Egypt
Exports from the port of Jaffa 682,000 in 1911, from C 264,000 in 1900.* A Blue Book
issued by the British Board of Trade in 1911 acknowledges that "the chief
feature * The Palestine Sterling
THE JEWEL OF THE MEDITERRANEAN
51
of the economic development of Palestine
By 1914 the Jews had increased to over 100,000. There were now
fifty-four agricultural colonies, with a total area of 110,000 acres . New land was being
rapidly purchased, garden suburbs laid out. The all-Jewish city of Tel Aviv
investment of blood, courage, lives and money.
The official British Peace Handbook on Zionism thus describes the
settlements: "The Jewish agricultural colonies, which have grown up during
the past 25 years, show a level of agricultural and scientific development far
ahead of anything else in Palestine
So stood the Jewish effort at reclaiming their homeland, at the beginning
of the World War, when they wholeheartedly threw their destiny into the balance
with that of the Allies. They had already achieved a solid foundation for a
sound national economy.
Soon they were to have the solemn promise of the nations for a charter
which would finally end the tragedy of Jewish homelessness.
CHAPTER
CHAPTER V
THE BALFOUR DECLARATION - PALESTINE
Indirectly, the World War was fought for possession of the Near East . The natural route for
expansion of the mushrooming industrial growths of Europe lay in the direction
of the great sluggish masses of Asia where vast consumer
needs and untapped natural riches excited the cupidity of Europe 's imperialists.
All great conquerors whose interest was divided between East and
West have considered the possession of the land bridge between the Mediterranean and the Euphrates essential to their security.
Assyria and Egypt
It was pivotal to the empires of Macedon and Rome
Here Great Britain Russia Germany France
The only formidable competitor who developed during this period was
Germany
The Kaiser and his entourage realized that here was the path to power.
Moreover, it was here that they considered Britain India Berlin
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THE BALFOUR DECLARATION
53
clear pathway through the Balkans. The dying Turkish Empire was flooded with
German generals, engineers, diplomats and agents. "The Baghdad Mesopotamia . When it got to the Tigris and Euphrates , it would proceed to Basra Karachi Calcutta Delhi Whitehall
Here was the most potent threat the British Empire had faced in
generations. If the German plans were allowed to come to a head, the Reich
would be in an infinitely better position to deal commercially in the East than
Britain Berlin India
It was imperative to British strategy that the German drive to the
East be halted at the gateway of the Asiatic continent. It was apparent that Great Britain Near East if her Empire was to survive.
Like two great patient cats England Germany
two feline antagonists had stalked each other for a decade, tensely
awaiting der Tag, when the fight was unexpectedly precipitated by
the explosion at Sarajevo
Though the primary struggle was between the rival economic ambitions
of the English and Germans, the French too had their eye on this strategic sector.
In March 1915, Paris Syria Palestine 1915, M . Picot again insisted that the whole of
Syria France 1916, a secret agreement was concluded known as
the Sykes-Picot Agreement, dividing up the spoils of the `war for
democracy' in advance. Under this agreement Palestine Haifa Acre ,
54
THE RAPE OF PALESTINE
which were to go to England France Damascus Aleppo Mosul
From 1788 till 1914, Great Britain India Germany France
EVENTS LEADING TO LORD BALFOUR'S COMMITMENT
By the autumn of 1917, after a startling attack by the Turks on the
Suez Canal , a wholly new idea had taken possession of the
minds of politicians and strategists. It was obvious that a protective bastion
had to be created to buttress the artery of communications with India Britain Palestine
of the proverbial two birds who were killed with one stone, a miracle
could be maneuvered to make it three. First, an end would be put to French
pretensions to control over this vital area. Scarcely less important, the
enthusiastic support of the Jews all over the world to the Allied cause could
be gained. And still a third factor, not to be overlooked, was the poverty of Judea and the surrounding desert.
If the Jews would undertake to form a country here and would invest the
necessary money, Britain
All this sounded too good to be true, and the Government began putting
out feelers to see if it could be finagled through. So
THE BALFOUR DECLARATION
55
potent, in fact, did this new policy appear that already on November 22, 1915 a leading article in
the Manchester Palestine Egypt
From a purely military viewpoint, the friends of this idea in Britain Palestine Mediterranean a new dominion
associated with Britain England
Still other factors of pressing importance were at work. Lloyd George,
wartime Prime Minister, was anxious to bring over the United States Germany
ruler had once declared to Herzl, when the two met in Palestine Palestine Turkey the Hague
Aside from specifically British questions of policy, the hard-pressed
Allied spokesmen were poignantly aware of the instability of their ally Russia
the Eastern battlefront informing Jews that German victory
56
THE RAPE OF PALESTINE
meant liberty for them; s and in all neutral countries adroit
advantage was being taken of the propaganda story which set the Kaiser's
legions up as crusaders in a war of liberation.
Thus in a large sense the alliance of the Western Powers with Russia Palestine
Among the details is a significant aide-memoirs by the British Embassy
in Petrograd to Sazanov, Russian Minister of Foreign Affairs,
on March 13, 1916 , reading ". . .
Although as is known, many Jews are indifferent to the
idea of Zionism, yet a numerous, and the most influential, part of Jewry
in all the countries would very much appreciate an offer of agreement
concerning Palestine
"If the above view is correct, then it is clear that by
utilizing the Zionist idea important political results can be achieved.
Among them will be the conversion, in favor of the Allies, of Jewish
elements in the Orient, in the United States
". . . The only purpose of H. M. Government is to find some arrangement,
sufficiently attractive to the majority of the Jews, which might facilitate the
conclusion of an agreement ensuring the Jewish support."
The rumors that Germany Turkey London
When the inevitable happened and the great Russian bear began to
collapse, the question of an alliance with Jewry took on even greater importance.
Jewish influence in Russia
THE BALFOUR DECLARATION
57
in the revolution - but they were greatly divided. "Some were for
peace at any price, some for the maintenance of the alliance with the Western Powers;
many were utterly uninterested in Zionism and had found a messiah in Karl Marx
. . ." 7 But the great bulk of the Russian Jews were known to be Zionists;
and with calculating eye the British computed that the alliance with Jewry
might have permanent value. Zionism became an important political issue.
Negotiations were instituted with the Jewish leaders to sound them
out on this pressing subject and to determine their demands.
By February 1917 the way had been prepared for a formal meeting
with Sir Mark Sykes of the British Foreign Office. Soon after, Mr.
. Nahum Sokolov, representative of the Zionist Organization, opened discussion
with the French and Italian Governments.
In July the Zionists submitted a memorandum to the British Cabinet
suggesting the formula to be used in an official pronouncement of sympathy for
their cause.
STRUGGLE WITH THE NON-ZIONISTS
If the purposes and aims of the Zionist movement needed clarification
in anyone's mind, a circumstance at once occurred supplying that deficiency. The
intentions of the Government were no sooner manifest than a loud and violent
protest was set up by certain classes of Jews in England France America
Among them were the `new thinkers' who, enveloped in a cloud of
Marxist pharisaism, saw the projected return to Zion
movement which violated their `deep Socialist convictions.'
Others were the great capitalists, who were afraid that any
declaration in favor of a Jewish State might place their hard-won social
position in jeopardy. Included in this strange gathering of the clans were the
ultra orthodox fanatics who were awaiting the divine Messiah; and the Reform
Rabbis whose tissue-paper houses this new movement seemed destined to destroy.
The Conjoint Committee, the most influential of all Jewish bodies
in England
58
THE RAPE OF PALESTINE
of the Zionist demands, asserting that the Jews were only a
religious community and not a nation. "The granting of a charter for Palestine
Immediately the Zionists replied with vigor. The press of the day
was full of the argument, with' the Government and the entire gentile world
solidly on the pro-Zionist side .8
"Under the pressure of Allied needs," says the official
British historian at the subsequent Peace Conference, "the objections of the
anti-Zionists were either overruled or the causes of objections removed. .
." s At that time the Zionists could have practically written their own
ticket, since there was no subject on which everyone but the Jews themselves
were so unanimously agreed as the matter of a pro-Zionist declaration. The only
powerful opponent of this course in the Government was the India
ultra-Islamic under a Jewish Secretary of State.
Although the members of the Conjoint Committee had been hopelessly
buried under an avalanche of public ridicule, certain changes were made in the
wording of the Declaration to placate them.
As early as October 19 16, the Zionist leaders in Britain Palestine
with the aspirations of the Zionist movement.”
On February 7, 1917 , Sir Mark Sykes
communicated with Weitzman and Sokolov, together with M. Georges Picot,
representing the French Government." This was the first of a series of
round-table conferences. Its full minutes, as well as those of subsequent
sessions, were transmitted to the American Zionist Organization by officials of
the British War Office.
Throughout the negotiations President Wilson who, as early as 1911
had made known his profound interest in the Zionist idea, was intimately consulted;
and all drafts of the proposed Declaration were submitted to the White House
for approval.
The formula accepted in July 1917 by the British Cabinet read:
"H. M. Government, after considering the aims of the
THE BALFOUR DECLARATION
59
Zionist Organization, accepts the principle of recognizing
Palestine as the National Home of the Jewish people, and the right of the
Jewish people to build up its national life in Palestine
"H. M. Government regards as essential for the realization of this
principle, the grant of internal autonomy to Palestine
"The conditions and forms of the internal autonomy and a charter
for the Jewish National Colonizing Corporation should, in the view of H. M.
Government, be elaborated in detail and determined with the representatives of
the Zionist Organization." 11
One of the changes introduced to mollify the anti-Zionist Jews was
the substitution of the phrase "the establishment of a Jewish National
Home in Palestine Palestine
By November 2, 1917 , after its wording had
been sufficiently
emasculated to suit the `ideals' of Jews all around, Lord Balfour placed
it in the form of a letter to the pro-Zionist, Lord Rothschild, reading as
follows:
"I have much pleasure in conveying to you on behalf of His Majesty's
Government the following declaration of sympathy with the Jewish Zionist
aspirations, which has been submitted to and approved by the Cabinet.
"His Majesty's Government view with favor the establishment in
Palestine Palestine
"I should be grateful if you would bring this Declaration to the
knowledge of the Zionist Federation.”
Ironically enough, the second part of the Declaration, which was
since construed by Britain
60
THE RAPE OF PALESTINE
was inserted on the insistence of the Zionists themselves, partly
to meet the objections of Sir Philip Magnus, Mr. . Claude Montefiore and other
powerful non-Zionist Jews; and partly as a symbol of that "nobility of
social vision" with which the strangled ghetto mind was obscured. 13
Written by Achad Ha'am, this proviso was not in any remote sense
considered as a modification of the Declaration but rather as a polite sop to
quiet the fears of the non-Zionist Jews, and an equally considerate makeweight
assurance to the various religious communities scattered over the Holy Land .
All of these alterations and changes in the British Government's
commitment, says Herbert Sidebotham, then secretary to Premier
Lloyd George, "were inserted in deference to the opinion of a minority, in
the hope of securing complete unanimity among Jews . . . It was certainly no
British interest, either at this stage or later, that weakened the scope of the
promise and infected it with ambiguity." 14
The Zionist negotiators, naive and inexperienced, felt that the introduction
of these nice, virtuous phrases in their magna carat was a fitting and seemly
gesture with which to begin their great adventure. Herzl, who had the gift of
seeing beyond his nose, would have known better.
WHAT DID THE DECLARATION MEAN?
In view of the cool disclaimers which were to come later, it is interesting
to note what interpretation was placed on the British Government's Declaration
to the Jews at the time. Whatever bearing it might have had on the commendable
questions of humaneness and justice, it could hardly be regarded as a wholly benevolent
gesture. Balfour himself, handsome, clever and icy, was no mere romantic. He
who had pacified Ireland
The benefits immediately accruing to the Allied cause need hardly
be argued. Certainly the tremendous number of Jewish
THE BALFOUR DECLARATION
61
soldiers fighting in the Armies of the Western Powers were fired by
this warm earnest of good faith. Nor can one estimate the weight of Jewish
influence in neutral countries, which dropped heavily on the Allied side of the
scales. Nor the enthusiastic aid given to the Allenby invasion of Palestine Palestine
Not only was the effect of this superb piece of propaganda felt in
all neutral countries but it was immediate in its reaction on the morale of the
Central Empires, with their stew of subject races, accelerating the cleavage
then taking place between the subject nationalities and their overlords. Worthy
of note, too, is the boldness with which the German Zionist Conference in Berlin Palestine Palestine
Wholeheartedly the great and important body of fundamentalist Christian
opinion, hating war for any proclaimed purpose, rose to the bait. Jannaway
expresses this profound conviction in his book, Palestine and the World,
asserting that Biblical Prophecy was being fulfilled exactly as predicted, thus
placing Jehovah squarely on the side of the Western Powers.
"Indeed," says a semi-official British publication,
"support of the Zionist ambitions promised much for the Allies . . . That
it is in purpose a direct contract with Jewry is beyond question." 18
This was acknowledged plainly by General Smuts, member of the War
Cabinet, who speaking retrospectively some years later, asserted that "the
Declaration was intended to rally the powerful
62
THE RAPE OF PALESTINE
Jewish influence for the Allied cause at the darkest hour of the War”;
a statement which David Lloyd George, Winston Churchill and others,
emphatically reiterated.
The Declaration was unreservedly endorsed by the other Powers.
On June 4, 1917 the French Government,
through its Minister, M. Cambon, formally committed itself to "the
renaissance of the Jewish nationality in that Land from which the people of Israel China
themselves." 17
In America
President Wilson wrote that "the Allied nations, with the
fullest concurrence of our own Government and people, are agreed that in all of
Palestine
In gratitude the American Jewish Congress cabled H. M.
Government, on November 2, 1917 , its desire that Great Britain League of Nations , as may be formed,
to assure the development of Palestine
In the United States Holy Land ." The minutes
of its sessions show that this understanding had not altered by an iota five
years later, when the American Congress was induced to put its seal of
approval, by resolution, on the selection of Great Britain Palestine
The utterances of the Cabinet ministers who framed the Declaration
were no less emphatic. General Smuts asserted that "in generations to come
you will see a great Jewish State rising there once more." Declared Lloyd
George grandly ". . . Great Britain Armenia Judea for the Jews."
And on another
THE BALFOUR DECLARATION
63
occasion he lumped the whole matter in a nutshell, telling the excited
Zionists: "We have given you national existence. In your hands lies your
national future." Lord Balfour was no less clear. "The destruction of
Judea 1900 years ago," he asserted, "was
one of the greatest historical crimes, which the Allies now endeavor to
remedy."
British newspapers were as one in their mighty paean of approval.
Without exception they spoke of "the new Jewish State which is
to be formed under the suzerainty of a Christian Power.”
Across the water, the American newspapers echoed these remarks in
the same expansive detail. A representative editorial of the time explains:
"The Zionists are that group of Jews who wish to found a Jewish Republic
in Palestine Jerusalem
. . The British cabinet has pronounced in favor of Zionism."18
CHAPTER VI
BRASS BUTTONS AND STUFFED SHIRTS - MARCHING JEWS
Anti-Zionists invariably stress the part played by the Arabs during
the War, inferring that the sons of Ishmael earned their patrimony, and that
the Jews, who had done nothing, insolently demanded a chunk of the Arab pie
when the spoils were being divided.
Actually the Jewish share in the victory was significant, well justifying
in value received the solemn bargain made with world Jewry to reconstitute the Land of Israel
In the neutral countries the Allied cause, associated everywhere in
the Jewish mind with justice and equity, was given invaluable support. Jews
fought in the armies of the entire Western Powers. Over a hundred thousand
Jewish soldiers were killed in action. In the British Empire itself, out of a total
community of 425,000 Jews, 50,000 were in uniform. In true Maccabean spirit
they earned more than their share of honors and decorations on the battlefield.
One of them was the heroic Sir John Monash, leader of the Australians.
Behind the lines, the Zionist leader Chaim Weitzman was the genius
directing the Admiralty Chemical Laboratories. According to Lloyd George, he
"absolutely saved the British army at a critical moment" by devising
a substitute for exhausted English supplies of acetone, used in making the
basic material in gunpowder.
Among others, Sir Alfred Stern invented the tank, which saved the
Western Powers from annihilation during the latter part of the fighting. Solomon
J. Solomon created the idea of camouflage, allowing harassed Allied shipping to
run the U-boat blockade. Everywhere Jewish brains, money, valor and enthusiasm
were placed wholeheartedly at the service of the Allies.
64
BRASS BUTTONS AND STUFFED SHIRTS 65
In Palestine
In 1915 Palestinian refugees in Egypt Zion Zion
In the meanwhile a brilliant young Russian writer, Vladimir Jabotinsky,
had been scurrying around in an attempt to organize a legion of Jewish
volunteers from the Diaspora countries to fight directly under the Jewish flag.
With rare insight he pointed out that words and promises were soon forgotten
and that the most enduring Jewish title to the Holy Land would come from a
direct investment of Jewish blood under a Jewish flag.
The influential capitalist Jews were aghast. They put pressure on
the British War Office to stop this little impassioned Zionist with the under
slung jaw who they believed was jeopardizing their position in the gentile
world with his lunatic nonsense.
But the British needed this Jewish regiment for publicity purposes:
they had made themselves the champion of the oldest betrayed nationality in
existence, impressive to the Poles, Czechs, Armenians, etc., who had been
listening to the noble assurances of the Western Powers with their tongues in
their cheeks. The War Office consequently overrode the objections of the
anti-Zionists and allowed Jabotinsky to form The Jewish Regiment.
As the protest of the scared English Jews became louder, the regiment's
name was changed to The Judeans, official sub-title for the 38th Royal
Fusiliers. Following hard on its heels came another Jewish battalion, the 39th Fusiliers.
66
THE RAPE OF PALESTINE
sheer romance of the historic occasion. At a giant mass meeting seeing
the Jewish warriors off, the Hon. G. N. Barnes, M.P., spoke fulsomely in the
name of His Majesty the King. He eulogized the Jewish soldiers as "fellow
fighters for freedom," and assured his listeners that "the British
Government proclaimed its policy of Zionism because it believes that Zionism is
identified with the policy and aims for which good men and women are struggling
everywhere.”
In Palestine Zion
Wildly enthusiastic, the able-bodied Jews in the conquered
territory
enlisted. With an appreciation almost reverential the British Peace
Handbook No. 6o announced that "the most important event which has taken
place . . . since our occupation, has been the recruiting of the Palestine
The distinguished service rendered by these Jewish regiments is
indelibly written in the records. Said General Bartholomew "For the Turks
the end of the War was dependent upon maintenance of the Jordan Jordan
contributing in great measure to the brilliant victory at Damascus
This was amply confirmed by General Chaytor, leader of the
Australian and New Zealand Jordan Valley
Of fully as great importance was the voluntary intelligence service
rendered by the celebrated Nili Society all over the Holy
BRASS BUTTONS AND STUFFED SHIRTS 67
Land. Organized by the scientist Alexander Aronson, 3 its daring exploits
were largely instrumental in the success of Allenby's campaign. Far from giving
the invaders any help, the Palestine
Spiritedly the Palestinian volunteers addressed themselves to Colonel
Patterson when he landed with his Jewish boys: "We are convinced that Britain Britain England
They had every reason to feel `convinced.' In April 1917 the
British War Department had issued a statement on War Aims in the Near East in which it was
proclaimed that "Palestine Palestine
The Suzerain Government shall grant full and free rights of immigration
into Palestine Palestine
Charters or statutes of similar colonizing bodies." These
statements were simultaneously reduced by the Allied war propagandists to brief
slogans and exploited to the fullest advantage everywhere.
Addressing the first Conference of Jews in the liberated area, Major
W. Ormsby-Gore, later as Colonial Secretary to suffer a serious case of
amnesia, orated for His Majesty's Government as follows
"Mr. Balfour has made a historic declaration with regard to the
Zionists: that he wishes to see created and built up in
68
THE RAPE OF PALESTINE
The marching Jews listened. The great dream which had inspired the
Jewish mind for so many long centuries, seemed about to be realized. They believed
Britain
REVOLTING TRIBESMEN
Part of Lloyd George's technique during the War was connected with
the old art of inciting dissatisfaction within the enemy camp. This practice
had proven especially effective with the moribund Austro-Hungarian Empire, and
several capable agents, including the famous Lawrence
The English started with little in their favor. To speak of Turkish
oppression of the Arab was actually an absurdity, unless one referred to the
Levantine Christian on the coast. The constitution of the Ottoman Empire was the Arab's Koran
from which the Turk derived his law, religion and culture. Even the Turkish
language became half Arabic; and it was only with the later revolution under
Kemal Pasha that the decadent Arab
cultural pattern which ruled the life of the Ottoman nation was eliminated.
Under Turkish suzerainty the Arab areas were virtually independent,
razed by local chiefs whose authority was recognized? by the Sultan. Arabs held
high position all over the Empire. The Sultan's Guards were almost completely Arab.
The schools and army were dominated by them. Even the Prime
Minister, Mahmoud Chawkat Pasha, was an Arab.
The whole system of Muslimism itself practically precluded any idea
of national sentiment, until it began to arise under the stimulus of British agitators.
In Baghdad
BRASS BUTTONS AND STUFFED SHIRTS 69
mass of townsmen and fellaheen were utterly apathetic to any nationalist
feeling. Regional sectarianism was everywhere the rule. The Shiahs did not
desire a Sunni government; nor would the Sunnis tolerate a Shiah rule, while
the mass of tribesmen did not desire any government at all.
As matters rested, the British were compelled to create a
completely
synthetic situation if they were to have the great Arab revolt come
off. They decided to rely on private rivalries and ambitions; and here they
made a shrewd guess: the desert was a hotbed of rapacity, hatreds and feuds.
Sitting immobile in the Hejaz was the Sherif
Hussein, descendant of the Prophet and unbending hater of Christians and all
their works. Almost alone among the Arabian princes he was the nominee of the
Turks. His measure may be gained from the fact that he even prohibited
talking-machines in his kingdom, believing them to be the invention of the devil.
On the other side of Hussein was his mortal enemy, the gigantic Ibn
Saud of Nejd . Saud, a good hater who believed in the old
Mohammedan tenets of conversion by disemboweling, was also in conflict with the
powerful Emir of Hail, who was being supported by the Turks.
The British wanted Hussein for the moral effect they presumed his
name would have on the Faithful, and made overtures to him early. Part of these
`negotiations' lay in the bland threat to feed him outright to the ferocious
Saud, to whom they were handing a subsidy of 45,000; a month to insure his neutrality.
To make the argument more pointed, Britain Egypt Mecca Medina Hejaz with bankruptcy, since
this pilgrimage provided the barren land with its chief source of revenue.
The Sherif had still other and more urgent considerations to hasten
his decision. One of these was the British naval blockade of the Arabian coast,
"inevitably aggravating the internal distress caused by the lack of pilgrims."
8
That Hussein's over-lordship of the Holy Places would make him an
acceptable leader to all the Arabs of the Peninsula turned out to be an
error. Even at that time, his mortal enemy, Saud,
70
THE RAPE OF PALESTINE
was the principal power in South Central Arabia as was another mutual
opponent, Ibn Rashid of Hayil, in the North Central part.
Nor would the great sheikhs, such as those of the Huwallah, the
Shammar, or the Mutair accept Hussein's over lordship, or even permit him to
speak for them. 7
The whole business degenerated into a confused medley of intrigue,
directed by a multitude of British agencies acting under conflicting
instructions and authority; the powerful India
Just what kind of `Arab patriot' Hussein was, may be learned from
the fact that he allowed a contingent of volunteers to be recruited in his
territory for the abortive Turkish expedition to the Suez Canal in February 1915, and
used his influence to assist the crew of the German cruiser Emden Red Sea Coast.9 Thus he negotiated
with Turks and British alike until he could make sure he was backing the right
horse. Actually all he wanted or hoped to secure was complete independence in
his own corner of southwestern Arabia , military support
against his rival, Ibn Saud and unfettered control of the lucrative pilgrim
revenue.
Finally, the British High Commissioner in Egypt
In order to force the `Arab patriot' to move, the British had to
submit to as fine a mulcting as they have ever experienced.
The Agreement entered into early in 1916, reads that "The Government
of Great Britain
It read: "Foreign Office has approved payment of £ 10,000 to Abdullah
and £ 50,000 to Sherif of Mecca
BRASS BUTTONS AND STUFFED SHIRTS 71
a cool £ 1,000,000 in materials and money,
and stimulated his patriotism with grandiose promises of personal power."
Nothing else than this flood of gold, writes Lawrence Sinai Peninsula , comments that Arab
actions from
start to finish "proved that they were only interested in the revolution
for three objects in the following order of importance - gold, loot, and the
satisfactory clearing up of their own daraks or areas." 12 Indeed, the
only time a full muster of the `patriots' could be counted on was payday.
The whole `campaign of the desert' was a strangely inept piece of
business, vastly enlarged on by British publicists for outside consumption. A
good account of it is given by the French General, Edouard Bremond; in his book
Le Hedjaz dans la Guerre Mondiale. Hussein himself is described as "an obstinate,
narrow-minded, suspicious character," so insanely jealous of his son
Feisal that he was forever issuing from his throne in Mecca
Observers, neutral and friendly, have described the character of
these purchased levies. They were not, by our standards, good soldiers.
Bloodless victories were the kind that they appreciated, and Lawrence
and Lawrence Lawrence
Likewise, we could not use the men of one tribe in the territory of
another." 16 With sardonic resignation he observes: "My men were
blood enemies of thirty tribes and only for my hand
72
THE RAPE OF PALESTINE
over them would have murdered in the ranks every day. Their feuds
prevented them combining against me; while their unlikeness gave me sponsors
and spies wherever I went or sent. . ." 17
Often the Arabs refused to fight at all because they were not satisfied
with the amount of loot they were receiving. Lawrence himself was once
abandoned with two companions in the middle of an engagement, his Arab allies
having gone raving mad with the lust of plunder. In their frenzy they fought among
themselves, and soon were all `missing,' "having dispersed with their spoil."
Even in victory they did not hesitate to leave
their own wounded lying helpless on the ground while they looted.
Under these circumstances, says Lawrence
of a spectacular battle or the capture of a large town with its garrison.
The British, in fact, had their hands full with their wild allies.
Aviators had to fly at a considerable height to avoid being shot at
by the Bedouins, who had "an irresistible desire to shoot anything that
was moving fast." 19 They found the Arab chiefs volcanic and suspicious
and ever ready to resent the presence of infidels. "Many of them,"
writes Captain Hart, "behaved as if the British officers were their
servants, and set an example of rudeness that was imitated by their followers,
as
well as by their slaves." Lawrence
The whole Lawrence
He was a brave and clever man, but the truth of the
BRASS BUTTONS AND STUFFED SHIRTS 73
matter is that he never penetrated into Arabia at all, and merely went
down the western coastal fringe from Mecca Arabia could hardly have
known of his existence, "while the suggestion implied of Arabian
unification under a foreigner and a non-Moslem is, of course, a myth." 23
His entire `army' of purchased irregulars did not amount to a row
of peanuts when compared with the Arabs fighting on the Turkish side against
the detested infidel. Simultaneous with the Sherif's commitment to the Allies,
his powerful neighbor Hussein Mabeirig, chief of the Rabegh Harb, joined the Turks;
and facing the invaders was at least one entire Ottoman division made up
entirely of Arab men and officers.
The number who participated in the `revolt' were an uncertain and
fluctuating quantity, "simply gathering," says Bertram Thomas,
"for some particular expedition in numbers that sometimes reached a few
thousand, but were more often only a few hundred." Lloyd George estimated
their total number to aggregate "but a few thousand horsemen,"
remarking that "the vast majority of their race in the Great War were
fighting for
their Turkish conquerors." 24
There have been few peoples in history who have gotten so much for
giving so little. In Iraq
ripped open in search of the gold liras which the Arabs thought the
soldiers had swallowed. Graves containing Turkish and
English dead were despoiled for any articles which might have been buried with them.
Throughout the Turkish Empire the phrase Khayin Arab
(treacherous Arab) became an ugly proverb.25
As shown by the records, as far as Palestine
74 THE RAPE OF PALESTINE
Trans-Jordan it was the Jewish Legions who, having assisted the English
to take the passages of the Jordan River, marched on to capture Es Salt, then
considered its principal town. Lawrence
At this time the dazzling fiction of a Palestinian Arab struggle against
the Turks had not yet been invented. The British themselves, roiled by the
disinclination of Palestine Lawrence
Syrians, of whom six `ratted' and four deserted. No Palestinian Arab
is mentioned by Lawrence
to speak pompously of Arab nationalism in Palestine
This class, while regretting the opportunities for illegitimate gain
offered by Turkish rule, has no real political cohesion, and, above all, no
power of organization." There was in fact not a single Arab personality in
Palestine Burton
Despite the ado subsequently made over the vaunted promises to
Hussein, all the evidence indicates that until British policy shifted after the
War, the idea that Palestine Lawrence Syria Palestine
McMahon himself vigorously denied that any pledge had been
BRASS BUTTONS AND STUFFED SHIRTS 75
given to Hussein which could be construed to mean that Palestine July
11, 1922 , Winston Churchill, then Secretary of State for the
Colonies, declared: "No pledges were made to the Palestine Palestine Hejaz to anything.
When Hussein finally proclaimed himself Commander of the Faithful,
it proved a fatal step, hardening against him the Wahabis and other fanatic
Moslem groups in whose eyes the Sherif was an infidel backslider. London, too,
was tiring of his incessant demands and arrogance; and burned with rage when the
new King of the Hejaz refused to sign the
Treaty of Versailles League of Nations under British
tutelage. Quietly they withdrew their support from the recalcitrant Hussein and
let it be known that he was now on his own.27 Saud, who had been waiting for
this moment, needed no further invitation. He promptly occupied Mecca Cyprus Hejaz and Sultan of Nejd .
While the Sherif was engaged in this death struggle with his ancient
enemy, Britain Red Sea port of Aqaba
On May 27, 1925 , the British
Government regretfully informed the Commander of the Faithful that if he would
not accede to this demand, it "would have to take Aqaba and Maan by force."
On June 18, both towns became part of Transjordan .
Here was created the need for a fresh departure in British Arabic policy
since their new protege, Saud, would not accept the fact of British possession gracefully;
he continued to roar with aggrieved self-righteousness that he had been robbed.
This friction, which persists until today, resulted in still another of
76
THE RAPE OF PALESTINE
Whitehall's famous zigzags, this time back in the direction of Abdullah
of the House of Hussein.
THE ARAB VIEW OF ZIONISM
During all the period that the Zionists had been without benefit of
Balfour Declaration or Mandatory `assistance,' the attitude of the Arabs toward
the Jewish National Movement had been one of almost unanimous approval. In 1906,
Farid Kassab, famous Syrian author, had expressed the view uniformly held by Arabs:
"The Jews of the Orient are at home. This land is their only fatherland. They
don't know any other." 28 A year later
Dr. Gaster reported that he had "held conversations with some of
the leading sheikhs, and they all expressed themselves as very pleased with the
advent of the Jews, for they considered that with them had come Barakat, i.e.,
blessing, since the rain came in due season." 29
The Moslem religious leader, the Mufti, was openly friendly, even
taking a prominent part in the ceremony of laying the foundation stone for the Hebrew University Mt. Scopus
Throughout Arabia the chiefs were for
the most part distinctly pro-Zionist; and in Palestine
Land acquisition was easy. Commercial intercourse between Arab and
Jew was constant and steady. In the face of the practical regard with which the
impoverished natives viewed these queer Moskubs 30 who brought with them manna
from heaven, the anti-Zionist elements, if they existed, kept silent. Remarkably
enough, the incoming Zionists, vigorous, modern, and capable, were treated with
high respect, while the native Jew still remained despised.
The Arab National Movement itself, puny, inexperienced, and hated
by the huge Levantine population who continued to regard themselves simply as
Ottoman subjects, looked to the
BRASS BUTTONS AND STUFFED SHIRTS? 7
strong, influential Zionist Organization for sympathy and
assistance.
Hussein of the Hejaz who had been booted
upstairs by the British into a position of recognized authority in the Arab Nationalist
Movement after the War, distrusted European nations and their statesmen to the
very marrow of his bones. He looked to the Zionists, as a kindred folk, for the
financial and scientific experience of which the projected Arab state would
stand badly in need. When the Balfour Declaration was communicated to him in
January 1918, he had replied "with an expression of good will towards a
kindred Semitic race." 31
In May of the same year, at Aqaba where he held court and made
camp, Hussein was visited by Dr. Weitzman, head of the Zionist Commission. At
this desert conference the British Government and the Arab Bureau in Cairo
Feisal, dark, majestic son of the Sherif, spoke as the Arab
representative.
Intimate mutual cooperation between the two Movements was pledged. The
Zionists were to provide political, technical and financial advisers to the Arabs;
and it was agreed that Palestine
This alliance fitted perfectly with Hussein's ideas.
Basic hostility to all Christian powers characterized father and son,
who felt that the Jews were the indispensable allies, and indeed the
instruments, of a new Arab renaissance. They regarded a dominantly Jewish Palestine Arabia ; and were anxious for
a rapid development of the Peninsula if it were to become
capable of resisting the attacks which their weakness must sooner or later invite.
When Feisal came to Europe in 1919 representing
the Arab cause, the Zionists submitted their plans to him. Both Feisal and
Lawrence approved of them, and early in 1919 these conversations culminated in
a Treaty of Friendship. Solemnly signed, this convention provided for the
"closest possible collaboration"
in the development of the Arab State Commonwealth of Palestine
78
THE RAPE OF PALESTINE
considered; 32 Mohammedan Holy Places were to be under Mohammedan control;
the Zionist Organization undertook to provide
economic experts to the new Arab State Palestine
On March 3, I9I9, Feisal acting officially for the Arab movement, wrote:
"We Arabs look with the deepest sympathy on the Zionist movement. Our
deputation in Paris
The Arab leaders placed themselves on record everywhere in an
obvious effort to attain Zionist support for their own aspirations, then under
the cloud of European Imperialist ambitions.
A representative example is Feisal's public communication to Sir
Herbert Samuel, pleading the need to "maintain between us that harmony so
necessary for the success of our common cause."
On meticulous English records, carefully buried in the Government vaults,
the entire story is written in comprehensive detail.
At all discussions British representatives were present.
Major Ormsby-Gore was liaison officer on the ground.
It was he who pulled the strings between Arab and Jew, at a time
when Zionism was still persona grata to the gentlemen who rule Whitehall
THE MILITARY JUNTA
Whatever the mighty deeds and feats of derring-do by English arms
elsewhere in the Great War, it is not a fact that they alone conquered Palestine
BRASS BUTTONS AND STUFFED SHIRTS 79
When with pennants flying, Sir Edmund Allenby made his historic
entry into Jerusalem December 9, 1917 , the Hebrew battalions
were also there. Sir John Monash's Australians were the bulk of his effectives.
Under his command, among others, was a contingent of French Colonials and a
force of Italian Bersaglieri from Libya
the other by Major d'Augustino, the French and Italian
representatives
respectively.
It was understood all around that the expressed Jewish wish was to
have the British in control during the early period when the foundations of the
Jewish National Home were to be laid.
The Zionists were at the time much afraid of the practical results which
might follow from the International control favored by the French and Italians;
and they looked on the English as their friends and sponsors. Under this Jewish
insistence the Latins generously allowed their interests to lapse and the
English military was left in complete authority.
The surrender of Jerusalem Temple
But hardly had the Turks been driven out when it became apparent to
Jew and Arab alike that the entire Administration was uncompromisingly opposed
both to the letter and the spirit of the Declaration. In his solemn
proclamation after taking the Capital, Allenby spoke as if the Declaration had
never been issued.
In fact no mention was made of the Jewish National Home in any
official announcement in Palestine May 1, 1920 .
Even all references to the Jewish Legion, unstintingly praised in the
military dispatches f or its gallantry in action, were suppressed by G.H.Q.
from the dispatches as published in the Palestine
80
THE RAPE OF PALESTINE
Weitzman and his cohorts had been used to dealing with suave
statesmen whose assurances were still ringing in their ears.
Balfour had just reiterated that "no one is now opposed to Zionism.
The success of Zionism is secure." 35 Ormsby-Gore had even gone so far as
to urge the immediate creation of a Jewish passport. In Jerusalem
agreed to, read: "Jewish opinion would prefer Palestine British Empire ; but its
administration should be largely entrusted to Jews of the Colonist type. . .
Zionists of this way of thinking believe that, under such conditions, the
Jewish population would rapidly increase until the Jew became the predominant partner
of the combination.”
The Zionists were under the impression that they had "gained the
adhesion of the Powers to practically the exact terminology of the Basle program adopted in
1897" under the direction of Herzl. 3B They were totally unprepared for
the unexpected attitude of the Military, and stood around rubbing their hands
in consternation.
The Generals, looking on the pro-Zionist commitment of the Foreign
Office as little less than criminal lunacy, virtually refused to carry out London Cairo Syria Palestine
BRASS BUTTONS AND STUFFED SHIRTS
81
In his mind's eye he already considered Palestine
The Zionists were put in their place with a bang. Despite the
Jewish majority in Jerusalem Jaffa
The attitude of the Generals toward the Jews was contemptuous and hostile;
and subordinates were swiftly responsive to the cue supplied by their superior officers.
General Money asserted with cool complacency: "I have asked many people in
position - in England England
the Holy Land had been handed over
to Weitzman who had demanded it as his pound of flesh for having invented
"in the nick of time . . . some ultra-Teutonic deadliness of gas and bombs."
38
Not un-instructive of the whole tone of this administration is the
case given by Horace Samuel, late Judicial Officer in Palestine
HANDRUBBING STATESMEN
It was tragic for the hopes of Zion
8
THE RAPE OF PALESTINE
dreaming and weakness under attack which had characterized life in
the Russian Pale. Wise politicians would have known that the Balfour
Declaration was only the beginning of their troubles; that from this time
onward, the Jewish estate would have to be protected by every artifice that
stubborn determination and vigilance could invent. But the inexperienced
Zionists considered their provisional charter to be the solution to all problems.
Learnedly they mapped and blueprinted the perfect society which was gradually
to unfold its petals like a lovely
orchid in the new Land of Israel
Shocked by these pedantic vagaries, the shrewd Nordau urged that a
half million Jews be thrown into Palestine Holy Land under any conditions. The
practical difficulties to such a project were by no means insuperable, and,
fully as important, Arab resistance to the policy of the Jewish National
Home was at this time scarcely visible. Arab landowners, holders of
great vacant stretches, were under the impression that radical land legislation
was impending and were anxious to sell at any price. It was a golden
opportunity, never to come again.
But Zionist spokesmen at that time were opposed to what they
considered `premature' immigration, and wanted to build on `sound' lines. With
cautious logic they demanded to know "How will these people live? We have
no houses for them - they will starve! “41
"Let them live in tents - let them starve!" replied
Nordau.
"But you had better bring them in at once while the
opportunity lasts. Gentlemen, you have the Balfour Declaration: but you don't
know England
The Hierarchy, condemning Nordau and his followers as `impractical,
un-idealistic and headstrong,' was content to wait.
Its initiative had been immobilized by the collapse of Russia
BRASS BUTTONS AND STUFFED SHIRTS 83
only a social class and not a nation, they declared Jewish
nationalism
a counter-revolutionary activity.
Completely upset by this volcanic withdrawal of their principal source
of support, the bewildered Zionists did nothing.
Their complete reliance on the good faith of British assurances caused
them to neglect the most logical and prudent step, that of consolidating their
position quickly, before opposition forces had had time to collect themselves.
The British could hardly believe their eyes when the Jewish leaders,
obsessed with vague schemes for national ownership of the land, actually
welcomed the drastic legislation ordered by Allenby prohibiting land sales as
well as immigration. They did not even protest when the Jewish Legion was
ca'Talierly disbanded and told to leave the Holy Land for their points of origin,
though the balance of Allenby's force remained under arms.
In London July 24, 1918 , equipped, with the
authority of the British Government, to advise the Palestine
The Generals, who had been treating the Jewish population as if it
were non-existent, did not even bother with blandishments; they simply ignored
the Commission altogether. Not even a pretense of friendship with the
Government could be maintained.
With a pointed demonstration of contempt, when the Jewish National
Anthem was played at a concert in a Jewish school, General Money and his staff
deliberately kept their seats. Putty-souled Zionist leaders, who might have
used the incident for a complete show-down fight in a world where the advantage
of sympathy and legality was all theirs, remembered the knout of the Czars
sweated and kept silent.
84
THE RAPE OF PALESTINE
Incident multiplied itself on incident, and for twenty months the
status quo of the country remained unchanged. The only time the Zionist leaders
opened their mouths was when "the notorious anti-Semite Colonel Scott (acting
head of the judiciary) publicly insulted the Jews and the Jewish religion in
the corridor of the Law Courts."" The howl that went up,
forced by Orthodox institutions, compelled him to resign.
The Zionists were badly rattled. Wanting the hardihood necessary to
handle this admittedly difficult situation, they could only sit helplessly by,
hoping for the best. They watched apathetically while a civil agent of the
Government, an apostate Jew named Gabriel, busied himself in promoting British
commercial interests while the Jews, treated as social, commercial and
political outcasts were kept at a distance. With equal
meekness they stood by while the Government sabotaged Jewish efforts
to come to an understanding with the Arabs.
With conscious design the Administration fostered hostility between
Arab and Jew. It directly advised the amazed Arabs of Palestine Egypt
tenets of modern nationalism, in order to resist Jewish
`pretenses.'
And in London
The Arabs were not only instigated and advised, but supplied with
funds, and their arguments ghost-written by Englishmen in high places. They
proved a tolerably good investment.
Their ready compliance may be seen in the very convenient demands put
forward in the Third Arab Palestine Holy Land be not separated from Syria
During all this time the Military had been playing a high game of
politics on its own, maneuvering carefully to present the forthcoming Peace
Conference with a fait accompli which would set the lily-livered civilian
officials in London
BRASS BUTTONS AND STUFFED SHIRTS 85
their heels. Tension was strong between British and French as to
who should control the Eastern Mediterranean . The French, traditional
protectors of Syria Sidon Jerusalem
The Generals aimed at one big Arab state or federation of states,
to include the Hejaz , Iraq Syria Palestine Egypt Britain Palestine Syria Levant or a Zionist policy in
Palestine
Now began a technique of instigation and incitement from which the
Anglo-Saxon rulers of the Holy Land have never varied
wherever they had a point to be gained. Tension between France England London
forwarded the protest to Palestine
themselves.
Matters came to a head in 1920 when Feisal staged a revolt against
the French in Damascus Palestine Syria
the Balfour Declaration in the face of native hostility, the
Generals
arranged a pogrom in Jerusalem League of Nations , which had not yet
officially named a mandatory, would be forced to `recognize the rights' of the
native population and cancel out the Zionist adventure.
86
THE RAPE OF PALESTINE
POGROM AND WORLD HORROR
The Governor of Jerusalem London
When Colonel Patterson, staunch Zionist friend, heard that Bols had
been appointed, he was shocked. He writes: "I knew Bols well, having
worked with him for two years. I knew him as an out and out anti-Semite, who
would leave no stone unturned to destroy the Jewish National Home root and
branch."
So moved was this honest English soldier that he boarded a train for
Cairo
Ominous incidents crowding fast on the heels of the intensive propaganda
which followed the crowning of Feisal in Syria
The riots of April 1920 broke on the heads of the astonished Jews
like a clap of thunder. Misled by the naiveté of their responsible leaders,
they awoke from their dreams of a Jewish Commonwealth to scenes no different
than those from which they had fled in Russia
The action was perfectly timed. Moslem crowds had gathered for the
Nebi Moussa festival in Jerusalem
Now agitators were addressing this churning mass, urging
BRASS BUTTONS AND STUFFED SHIRTS
87
them forward against the Jews. Hesitant for a moment, the
reassuring
cry arose: "The Government is with us!"
The stage had been ably set. All Jewish policemen had been relieved
from duty in the `Old City Jerusalem
Shrieking madness covered the Old City
Shivering with the emotion of an unhappy, betrayed man, Weitzman,
supreme Jewish leader, wept bitterly. In another part of the city, Jabotinsky,
the little Russian writer with the prognathous jaw was raging. Cursing the
wordy timidity of his Zionist confreres he swiftly gathered together a group of
ex-Legionnaires. Heartened, other young Jews joined the
"Self-Defense." Where they appeared the rioters ran for their lives.
Meanwhile the Government surrounded the Old City
Jabotinsky and his Legionnaires were arrested as fast as they could
be apprehended. It was symptomatic of the general tone of the Administration
that Howes, the Commandant of Police, caused Jabotinsky to be held in the
common lockup, while Arab agitators who had also been arrested were
accommodated in a pleasant room in the Governate itself. Zionist stock slumped still
lower when Jewish notables were refused an audience, while motor cars were
placed at the disposal of Arab leaders for
the purpose of granting them an interview with the Chief
Administrator.
46
With ghoulish thoroughness the Government both during and
88
THE RAPE OF PALESTINE
after the riots searched the Jews for arms, deliberately rendering them
defenseless, and causing numerous arrests of those guilty of protecting their
homes and loved ones. Cynically Sir Louis Bols complained in a dispatch to Cairo
So devilishly inhuman a course would hardly seem credible if it
were not supported by the word of many witnesses, some of them distinguished
Englishmen, revolted by this sickening parade of events. The tone of the
Administration was so hostile that a celebrated American archaeologist, a
non-Jew, told Horace Samuel "quite specifically" that because of his
sympathy for the riot victims "he found himself deliberately
cold-shouldered by the British officials." 47 A thoroughly upset British lady felt
compelled to write that "for the first time yesterday I felt ashamed
of being born an Englishwoman." 48
Jerusalem had undergone an orgy of slaughter, rape, torture and sack.
Everywhere homes and stores were wrecked. Sixty innocents lay dead, and
innumerable victims were injured, the memory of unspeakable horror engraved on
their consciousness, never to fade. Far away in the little Galilee village of Tel Hai
In a vermin-infested jail, awaiting trial, was Jabotinsky – Jewish patriot
and ex-officer of His Majesty's Army- now stripped of his honors and treated
like a dangerous felon. With scant ceremony he was tried, and with his
Legionnaires sentenced to ifteen years at hard labor.
Shocked by this savage order, the Jews shut their shops in protest.
The Government replied with a ukase ordering the shops reopened under penalty
of a fine of £ 50; an action more than interesting in view of the way
subsequent Arab strikes were handled.
Suddenly, like a typhoon which had gathered from nowhere, a
tremendous wave of protest swept the world. England with her hands full in
Ireland and India, smarting under the condemnation
BRASS BUTTONS AND STUFFED SHIRTS 89
she was receiving in all civilized quarters was aghast.
The Generals' plan had become a boomerang.
The League had not yet granted an official mandate; and the French,
irritated to the boiling point, took action to throw Feisal out. Angling for
Jewish support, they let it be known that they would not refuse if the mandate
for Palestine
The English were in a tight spot. They stood morally condemned before
the world. The precious life line to India
Here was another shining opportunity laid right in the Zionists' laps.
The functionaries in Whitehall
To show their good faith they severed the heads of the top
administrator
of Palestine
Page104
CHAPTER VII
THE MANDATE BY THE LEAGUE
WEIZMANN OBLIGES
At the Peace Conference, held at Versailles
following.
At this psychological moment, had Zionist leaders possessed the
political shrewdness which induced the other nations to scramble eagerly for
the biggest hunk of spoil they could get, the Jewish problem would have found
its solution, and would not today be a plague spot in the life of Europe .
vacant; and the signs were already written on the heavens that Israel Europe or perish. The Arabs,
undeterred by the restraining `principles' of the Zionists, had demanded, and
received, more than they had ever envisioned in their wildest dreams, they
received over five million square miles of territory.
At a moment when public opinion would have completely approved of the Zionists taking immediate possession, they
demurred on `democratic' and `social' grounds.
An example of their attitude is contained in the assertion by Sir Herbert
Samuel that "the immediate establishment of a complete and purely Jewish
State in Palestine
90
THE MANDATE BY THE LEAGUE
91
Both at Versailles Palestine England
a bitterly questionable compliment to the oppressed Jews who survey
it in retrospect.
Throughout the Versailles Conference the view taken by the British
delegation, and supported by the Plenipotentiaries, "was that if there was
to be a Jewish nationality, it could only be by giving the Jews a local
habitation and enabling them to found in Palestine a Jewish State." 2
Powerful America Europe in her pocket was heart and soul for a
Zionist solution. The official American recommendation at the Peace Conference
was for the establishment of a Jewish State. A commission of prominent Americans
had been sent by President Wilson to investigate, and their recommendations,
adopted by the President and other American delegates without dissent, were
direct and forthright, stating bluntly that "it is right that Palestine
The frank of America Holy Land were protected, opposition
virtually did not exist. The Arabs themselves were more than friendly and in
fact were looking to the obviously influential Zionists for support of their
own program.
Again, as in the case of the Balfour Declaration, the only
oppositionists
were Jews - capitalists or Marxists - who considered Zionism a move
of gravely dangerous import. In England America
92
THE RAPE OF PALESTINE
"Against the program of political Zionism." But the only
effect of these hysterical renunciations was to cause the Plenipotentiaries to
scratch their heads in wonder and dismiss the authors as a bunch of
well-meaning crackpots.
Heavily in the Zionists' favor was the biting rivalry between the
British and French, each determined to shut the other out of the Near East if it could. Sticking
in the craw of the British was the Sykes-Picot Treaty, which all but handed the
Levant over to France
facto control of the route to India, to slip through their fingers.
Able tacticians, they pointed out that the Balfour Declaration to which
Paris
The French, secure in the largest military establishment on earth,
already almost at war with England Turkey Palestine Syria
Though the Kaiser was chopping wood somewhere in Holland Palestine
The French stood pat. They wanted Palestine
They relied on the Jews and on President Wilson to provide the
necessary brake to French ambitions.
As it became evident that the Zionists held the decision in their
hands they were courted by both sides. Sir Mark Sykes and M. Georges-Picot,
authors of the earlier agreement, both declared themselves as favoring the
Zionist solution.
What the French had not figured on was the almost pathological pro-Anglicism
of the Jews, enduring product of an earlier generation of English friendship. It
must be noted that
THE MANDATE BY THE LEAGUE
93
there was nothing either in the Balfour promise or in the
negotiations at Versailles Great Britain
It was still very much open to the Powers to appoint anyone they pleased.
The only positive commitment was that Palestine
The Zionists, prompted by London
In the name of the Jewish people the American Jewish Congress solemnly
pleaded with the Powers for the appointment of Great Britain Zion Poland Versailles
should be entrusted to Great Britain League of Nations . This request was made in an elaborate statement
on the future of Palestine France
Condensing a volume of duplicity and ingratitude in a few words, De
Haas remarks that "the British at once commenced a process of whittling
the phraseology before the Supreme Council of the Peace Conference." 4
So matters stood when in April of 1920 the League Council met at San Remo
The French, smiling delightedly, were confident that the Zionists
had had enough of English patronage. Despite the recommendations of the Peace
Conference, technically the Sykes-Picot Agreement was the document
which governed the future status of Palestine
94
THE RAPE OF PALESTINE
He again reiterated the demand that England
for the Jewish estate.
The reaction of the Arabs to the San Remo
King Feisal of Iraq
A few months later the matter was clinched for England
The Treaty of Sevres was signed between Turkey
Secure in the knowledge that the overlordship of this coveted territory
was now theirs; London
The Zionists made plea after plea, realizing that they had put their
feet in quicksand. They appealed to the League as if the procrastination lay there.
On February 27, 1922 , representatives of
the Zionist Organization went through the play-acting of informing the League
Council in Paris Palestine Jaffa Great Britain
confer on her the government of Palestine
THE MANDATE BY THE LEAGUE
95
the Jewish People in building up their Commonwealth." s
A confirmed Zionist, President Harding made his interest known
unofficially; and in April of 1922 the United States Congress stated
by resolution its profound satisfaction that "owing to the outcome of the
World War and their part therein, the Jewish people, under definite and
adequate international guarantee, are to be enabled . . . to recreate and
reorganize a National Home in the land of their fathers," commending
"this act of historic justice about to be consummated" as "an
undertaking which will do honor to Christendom."
Still the British continued to hem and haw, utilizing every trifling
technicality to spar for time. It was not until the revised convention with Turkey Lausanne Hudson Bay
Company, was given the right to act in an advisory capacity, its powers
limited by language ambiguous enough to be interpreted in any direction the
ruling power of Palestine
It provided that in the territory east of Jordan
to local conditions. It was understood that this related only to
the unsettled condition of this area and the possibilities of policing it properly.
What this innocent appearing clause meant in far-sighted English minds the Jews
were presently to discover.
In view of later English contentions that under the Mandate they
were forced to consult the Arabs in implementing their actions, it is
interesting to note that the Arabs were not approached when that responsibility
was handed to Britain
A most casual reading makes it plain that the League had
* See Appendix `A,' p. 571.
96
THE RAPE OF PALESTINE
engaged itself to a definite and positive policy of Jewish development,
not only permitted, but fostered and subsidized by the Government
of Palestine Palestine Palestine
as a whole who are the beneficiaries. The Mandate is clearly for an
absent people who are not yet there on the ground, with the existing
populations secondarily guaranteed full liberty and civil rights.' This
alteration of basic law came under discussion at the twelfth meeting of the
Twentieth Session of the Mandates Commission (June 1931) in connection with a
British observation to the effect that "in international law there was no such
thing as a Jew from the standpoint of nationality." To this the
Vice-Chairman of the Commission replied that the remark
would be correct except for the existence of the Balfour Declaration
and the Mandate, which had introduced a new element into this law in favor of
the Jewish People.
Included in the Preamble was the Balfour Declaration and its ratification
by the Powers at San Remo Palestine Palestine
Jewish as the Palestine
Of the direct commitments the most important was Article II which
stated that "the Mandatory shall be responsible for placing the country
under such political, administrative and economic conditions as will secure the
establishment of the Jewish National Home as laid down in the Preamble . .
." While Article VI ordered the Mandatory to "facilitate Jewish
immigration" and to "encourage, in cooperation with the Jewish Agency
. . . the close settlement of Jews on the land including State lands
and wastelands not required for public purposes.”
On December 3, 1924 , the United States
THE MANDATE BY THE LEAGUE
97
the contracting parties to this international arrangement. This treaty,
known as the American-British Mandate Convention on Palestine League of Nations . In the correspondence
relating to the several draft treaties submitted, it is plainly evident that
the American Government considered England
The final draft of this agreement guarantees that "the United States League of Nations and their nationals,
notwithstanding the fact that the United States League of Nations ."
The determination of America United States
For once the Nations were attempting to solve their problems in a
consciously intelligent manner. They had tackled the question of Jewish
homelessness vigorously, and rested from their labors sincerely believing that
they had rid the world of one of its oldest problems.
THE FIRST PARTITION
At the time of the Peace Conference there was no haggling over the
size of the Jewish territory. The American Commission took it for granted that
"the new State would control its own source of water power and irrigation,
from Mount Hermon in the east to the Jordan Palestine Syria
THE RAPE OF PALESTINE
the southwest by Egypt Iraq Hejaz . The English
viewpoint, embodied in British Peace Handbook No. 6o on Syria Palestine Damascus Syria Palestine
east it was understood that the Zionists could have any part of the
great desert they wanted; and that the southern boundary was to be established
at the historic line, the "River of Egypt.
With the San Remo Downing Street , suddenly showing a
neighborly spirit, began to make territorial concessions to the French at the expense
of the Jewish National Home. Satisfied with those elements relating purely to
the safety of their Empire, English negotiators were completely indifferent to
proper Palestinian boundaries from any other point of view. The Zionists were in
consternation when London
Since the coming Hebrew Commonwealth Mount Hermon . This strategic
sector, as well as the lands of Naphthali, Dan and Manasseh was lopped off and
uselessly handed to Syria Israel
most of fertile, well-watered Galilee whence came the
chief Zealots and patriots of the Roman wars.
Mincing no words, Colonel Wedgwood wrote that this first jettison
of the patrimony of Israel
Outraged by what he also considered an act of unpardonable vandalism,
President Wilson rose from his sick bed and cabled the following protest to the
British Cabinet: "The Zionist cause depends upon rational northern and
eastern boundaries for a
THE MANDATE BY THE LEAGUE
99
self-sustaining, economic development of the country. This means on
the north, Palestine Litany River Paris
indispensable."
This was in the Spring of 1920. Procrastinating, sugaring the Zionists
with promises, London Jordan
The logic of this inexplicable indifference to British interests became
clear later when the Zionists began to get a glimpse of what was in the back of
the bureaucratic mind. Even at the sacrifice of desired territory, they wanted
to make certain that Zionism could not succeed. A Zionist Palestine
They proceeded cautiously. Time was in their favor.
Bols and the Generals had been dumped overboard. To show good faith
a hand-picked Jew, Sir Herbert Samuel, had been appointed first High
Commissioner under the coming Civil Administration . Of this change, Colonel
Patterson commented grimly: "Bols went, but the system he implanted remained.
The anti-Semitic officials that he brought with him into the country
remained . . ." it
CHAPTER VIII
A MAN NAMED SAMUEL UNDER THE
CHAPTER VIII
A MAN NAMED SAMUEL UNDER THE COLONIAL OFFICE
The Military Administration was over. Anxious, but still unresisting,
the Zionists discovered that the Palestine
The country was now being directly governed by the Crown Colony
Code and by a bureau which by the very nature of its experiences and interests
could not fail to be opposed to the Mandate. This type of administration is
maintained almost solely for the control of uncivilized tropical or
sub-tropical races. The English themselves were later to admit that it "is
not
a suitable form of government for a numerous, self-reliant,
progressive
people, European for the most part in outlook and equipment, if not
in race." 1 The evolution of self-rule even in backward India
The worst of its features is the unwritten law of the Colonial that
the Colony exists chiefly to supply cheap raw material to, and to buy
manufactured goods from, the mother country. It is his business to discourage
industrial development, which might eventually offer substantial competition to
the factories at Glasgow Lancashire . The perfect example
of desirable condition was that offered by Indian and Egyptian cotton, which
after being hauled over half the globe to England Egypt India
The Colonial Office, caring nothing about developing a body of
officials acquainted with the needs of the country, actually does the reverse.
It wants no functionaries even remotely identified with the territory they rule;
hence it rotates these officials from one colony to the other.
100
A MAN NAMED SAMUEL
101
Typical of the men who were to interpret the needs of Zionism were
Police Chief R. B. G. Spicer, late Police Chief in Kenya Sierra Leone Palestine
Supreme Court, formerly Assistant District Commissioner of the Gold
Coast; and Sir John Chancellor, High Commissioner of unlamented memory, who
came from Southern Rhodesia where he had kept the
peace with rifles.
These were all career men, suffering invariably from an ingrown sense
of superiority; some of them educated and clever, others recruited from the
backwash of the English slums. They were taught an attitude of cold reserve, a
system of playing native factions off expertly against each other, a technique
of incitement, and a calloused disregard for everything not connected with the
spirit of the Crown Colony Code.
Under this set of regulations, created to serve settlements of Englishmen
marooned among easily subdued or barbarian natives, the Zionists found that
even the slightest trivialities had to be referred to some bureaucrat in London Jerusalem London
give some details on the bizarre workings of this Code in Palestine
Native-born Jews and immigrants holding public office could not
cooperate financially or as a matter of formal association in the development
of the country. The Crown Colony Code forbade it. A judge was denied the right
to participate in what was hoped to be an important financial institution for issuing
mortgages and bonds on Jewish property. The reason given was the Crown Colony Code.
Another official was refused permission to aid in the development of so
unprofitable a
venture as the Hebrew Opera Company. The reason? The Crown Colony
Code .2 Even though there is only a scant handful of English school-children in
the area, under the Code, Palestine British School
Just what rights the Crown Agents had in a mandated area
102 THE RAPE OF PALESTINE
was never made clear. But the Zionists were not to be bothered by formalities.
They had a colossal disrespect for politics.
They declared that what they wanted was to `build up the country' and
let politics take care of itself.
A JEWISH RULER AFTER TWO THOUSAND YEARS
Sir Herbert Samuel arrived in due course, dressed for the occasion in
gold braid and a resplendent white uniform. Throughout the Jewish world he had
been trumpeted as the new Moses, the man of destiny. When he at last arrived in
Jerusalem
Samuel was an impressive man, handsome and soldierly looking as he
clicked his heels before the welcoming cameras; though closer inspection was
not so reassuring, revealing a moody face whose whole expression was searching
and suspicious.
He had been Home Secretary in the British Government during the War
and "had a reputation for treating Jews in a way that would not redound to
the credit of a liberal gentile administrator." 3 The famous `Tay Pay' O'Connor had
briefly described him as having an "utter disregard for all the
occupations and prizes of life except those to be found in politics." 4
His inability to understand even the most obvious conditions under
which the masses of Jewry lived is shown by an incident occurring in the Fall
of 1919 when Samuel was functioning as leader of a British Committee of
Investigation in Poland Warsaw
the protection of minorities?" When this had been affirmed he
inquired conclusively: "So you consequently do not want to be a
nationality but a religious group?" Whereupon the Zionists broke up the
negotiations as hopeless and stalked out of the room. 5
The heavens were almost covered with omens in reference to
A MAN NAMED SAMUEL
103
the mettle of Mr. . Samuel; but nevertheless the Zionists allowed
themselves to be hoaxed into accepting him. Acting on a polite hint
from high British quarters, they actually sponsored him; and officially his
appointment was the result of their direct demand.
Ruefully, Weitzman was later to admit: "Perhaps 1 am
responsible for this chapter `Samuel.'" our - History will undoubtedly
look on the man Samuel with wonder, as a striking commentary on his times. His
first official act was to throw the brave Jews, jailed for their part in the self-defense
during the riots, into the same class with Arab rapists by magnanimously
pardoning both, all in the same breath and the same document?
Shortly after his arrival he held a reception for the members of
his staff. The reaction, blurted out of the mouth of one of them was: "And
there I was at Government House, and there was the Union Jack flying as large
as life, and a bloody Jew sitting under it." 8
Sir Herbert was surrounded from the first by anti-Zionist subordinates,
whom he was afraid to offend by appearing to favor the Jews. Horace Samuel
declares that throughout his whole tenure of office Sir Herbert suffered
acutely from the consciousness of being a Jew, causing him to pivot right
around to an actual pro-Arab attitude.
The important Political Department of the Secretariat was assigned to
an officer who labored under an intensive and fanatical hostility to the
declared policy of His Majesty's Government in Palestine Richmond Palestine
the most violent anti-Jewish articles to such journals as the Edinburgh
104
THE RAPE OF PALESTINE
whose influence was reduced to little. In the subordinate jobs, particularly
on the Police Force and Intelligence Department, nearly all the key non-British
positions were filled by Arabs, who were quick to respond to the cue given them
by their superiors.
The situation became so obvious that a number of Jewish officers of
the Administration threw up their jobs "with the statement that they were
doing so because there did not seem to be room for Jewish officials in the
National Home.""
It is no exaggeration to say that every subterfuge used to obstruct
Zionist advance in future years, originated with Samuel.
Characteristic of the man was this statement attributed to him "If
the Jews really want Palestine Dead Sea concession for the
Jews. He had deliberately held it up, not considering it seemly that Jews should
get such a valuable concession .13
Incongruously enough, Sir Herbert was so religious that he believed
it a sin for Jews and non-Jews to intermarry. He deliberately snubbed a senior
Christian official who had married a Jewish girl, remaining stiffly rude to
both man and wife, even on those occasions when the duties of His Majesty's
service made it impossible to avoid him.
THE POGROM OF 1921
The result of Samuel's policies was a pogrom. Only a scant year had
passed since the previous massacre of Jews in Jerusalem
Once again the lust for blood asserted itself in the narrow streets.
As usual, the riots were timed with a major change in British policy, soon
after to be announced.
It was the end of April. The Moslems were celebrating their annual festival
of the Prophet Moses . This fiesta at which howling creatures with quivering eyes and distorted features worked
themselves into a lather, had been the starting point for
A MAN NAMED SAMUEL
105
trouble the year before . Each year, as the Moslems carried on their
wild dances in the streets, anxiety spoke from the faces of the Jews until the
Nebi Moussa festival was over . Notwithstanding this, the British Commandant of
Police was conveniently away. The few Jews on the police force had been
mysteriously taken off duty for the day.
"Bolsheviki ! Bolsheviki! The Zionists are flooding the country
with Bolsheviki!" This ugly cry had reverberated from many throats,
Christian and Moslem alike, for a long period of months. With tacit consent the
Authorities had given sullen approval to the accusation that "every Jew is
a Bolshevik."
This malignant propaganda had been carried on openly under the eye
of the Administration until the saturated minds of every section of Palestine
Suddenly during the Festival the mad shout arose that "the Mosques
were being attacked by the Bolsheviks" (Jews).
At Jaffa Jaffa 15 In many cases the observance of a
benevolent neutrality was insufficient, and the police gave full vent to their patriotism
by shooting at Jews, directing the mob and plundering Jewish shops.
A howling horde led by uniformed policemen armed with rifles, bombs
and ammunition stormed the Zionist Immigration Depot. Thirteen newly arrived
immigrants were butchered amid horrible scenes of rape and looting. The
water-front workmen, huge ruffians armed with long boat-hooks, ran through the
streets impaling Jews on their weapons. Respectable looking Arabs with
well-ironed fezzes, polished shoes, wellcreased pants and starched collars,
rushed into stores and helped
themselves to all kinds of merchandise. 16
The conflagration immediately spread beyond the Jaffa
In Tel Aviv the disarmed Jews courageously formed a self-defense,
holding the `patriots' at bay with hastily mustered sticks and stones. On May
5, the settlement of Petach Tikvah was attacked by thousands of armed fellaheen
from nearby villages. 6
THE RAPE OF PALESTINE
The assault was delivered in military formation, "directed by
a gentleman with binoculars." 17 Hopelessly outnumbered the colonists
fought with desperate courage for their lives. The colony Kfar Saba was
destroyed and Rehovoth and Hedera badly damaged. Everywhere Arabs ruined
beautiful
fruit orchards, the work of a lifetime, burned homes and carried off
movable property and cattle. Only the circumstance that almost all Jewish
workers were former soldiers prevented the Jewish National Home from being
consumed in one grand conflagration."'
The most revolting spectacles had taken place. Defenseless old
people and little children alike had been cut to ribbons and mutilated beyond
recognition. Women were dragged out into the open street and outraged before
being murdered. Bedlam shrieked all over the land of Moses
observes bitterly that the Government "refrained from
publishing the number of the Arabs who had been killed in the attack on Petach
Tikvah, for fear presumably of unduly depressing and discouraging Arab
susceptibilities." 19 The property damage was incalculable.
All Palestine England Holy Land , the wife of the Labor leader Philip Snowden
fixed the responsibility on "the activity of certain British subjects in Palestine England
with the British `Black Hundreds.' The visiting American clergyman,
Dr. Dushaw, speaking to an English soldier in the infested area, asked him what
his orders were and received the reply: "I must not shoot." 22 The
policy of the police can be judged from the case of Shakeer Ali Kishek, one of
the Bedouin chieftains who had led the attack on Petach Tikvah. Subsequently arrested,
he "was immediately released on bail as a
A MAN NAMED SAMUEL
107
graceful gesture; while . . . the chief notable of the colony, one
of the most respected Jewish colonists in the whole of Palestine Jerusalem
As a token of its displeasure the Government plastered a punitive fine
on the villages that had attacked Hedera, which the Arabs never bothered about
paying. Warrants were issued against some individuals living in the notorious
Tulkarm district who were identified as having been involved in the murderous assaults,
but "no efforts were made to execute the warrants." 24
The Authorities refused pointblank to make any investigation, so
the Zionist Commission together with Judge Horace Samuel and Mr. . Sacher
engaged the services of a British enquiry agent, "who, immediately after
he had gotten on the track, was promptly ordered by the military authorities to
leave the Jaffa
According to the principal Medical Officer the total number of
casualties in the pogrom were 95 killed and 290 wounded. 26
Lending a ghoulish touch to the after-performance, while the Jews
were bowed in mourning for their dead, General Storrs, Governor of Jerusalem
The insurrection of 1921 marked a variation of Administration technique.
It constituted a precedent for the principle - observed by all ensuing
Administrations with almost religious scrupulousness - that every outbreak of
armed Arab violence was ipso facto to be rewarded with political concessions
and to be followed by a Commission of Inquiry whose importance was to be in
proportion to the scale of the revolt.
The Haycraft Commission was appointed to investigate and fix
responsibility for the terrible events which had just passed.
One of its three members was Harry Luke, the man whom Palestine Palestine
108
THE RAPE OF PALESTINE
body finally ended by finding guilty the `Bolshevik' Jews who had
been coming into the country and who had aroused the patriotic Arabs by their May
Day demonstrations.
Within forty-eight hours of the Jaffa Jaffa
Samuel went so far as to offer the Arabs complete control over
immigration, a tender they foolhardily refused. Reduced to simple
terms, what they demanded was the enforced return of the Jews to their pre-war
status as a tolerated minority without political rights.
This was the same Samuel who had asserted in 1917 that Jewish
immigration must be regulated by the responsible Jewish body in Palestine Palestine
Samuel retreated backward as far as he could go.
THE GRAND MUFTI
Implicated in the disturbances of 1920 was a political adventurer named
Haj Amin al Husseini .31 Haj Amin, a leering ruffian with misshapen ears and
close-cropped scanty beard, was descended from an Egyptian family known for its
turbulence and penchant for intrigue . In a general housecleaning under
A MAN NAMED SAMUEL
Log taken to appease the Jews at the San Remo Syria
as London Jerusalem
Haj Amin was not in the literal sense an Arab patriot. He considered
Western Nationalism a work of the devil. His ideal was the old Muslim
particularism functioning in an area without boundaries, where none but the
Faithful would be allowed to remain with bowels. Beyond that, he was somewhat
stupid,
honest in his way, ambitious, and a fanatical hater of Jews.
During the war he had been an officer in the Turkish Army.
With a pardon from Sir Herbert tucked up his flowing black sleeve,
this man who had fled Palestine
Despite the opposition of the then Moslem High Council, which
regarded him as a parvenu hoodlum of the most unsavory stripe, Haj Amin was
appointed by the High Commissioner as Grand Mufti of Jerusalem
Moslem notables with his displeasure and ordered them to accept the
reprieved convict as their religious leader.
This was only the beginning. Samuel was determined to go whole hog
in anchoring this son of the Husseini in the seat of power. He created the
`Supreme Moslem Council,' which was presumably authorized to elect its own
leadership by democratic vote. In the balloting the Government candidate, Haj
Amin al Husseini, polled only nine electoral votes against nineteen, eighteen
and twelve for his three rivals . This fact, however,
weighed little with the High Commissioner, who forced the
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THE RAPE OF PALESTINE
chosen candidate, Sheikh Hussam ed Din Effendi Jarallah, to step
aside, and made Haj Amin President. Soon after, the Mufti was created Reis al
Ulema, president of the religious (Sharia) courts, thus concentrating in his
hands the highest posts of distinction and power Palestine
Few men have had such benefactors as Haj Amin discovered in Sir
Herbert Samuel. In his person he now combined the headship of the Church and
the Law, so closely connected in the Islamic religion. Under the Turks the Wakf,
or religious bequests, were under rigid State supervision from Istanbul
These were now handed over to the Mufti free of all control by the
State. He was given complete authority over all Wakf or other charitable
endowments, as well as the Mohammedan courts and educational institutions,
including even the Industrial School Jerusalem
As if to make the anti-Jewish lineup airtight, Sir Herbert took the
pet scheme of the Generals, the Moslem-Christian Union, under his wing.
Although a large number of Arabs objected, he gave it semi-official standing.
Under his generous patronage it soon developed strong roots.
THE CHURCHILL WHITE PAPER
In June 1922, Samuel drew up a long document, deadly in its import
to the Jews, which when signed by Winston Churchill became known as the
Churchill White Paper. The Papal Secretary, Cardinal Gaspari, annoyed by the
procrastination in formulating Article XIV of the Mandate, regulating the Holy Places,
had put up an outright demand that this Article be clarified and acted upon. Whitehall Palestine
A MAN NAMED SAMUEL III
document it issued to accomplish this purpose constituted a bold
reinterpretation of the Balfour Declaration . With carefully chosen
words it smashes at the legal base for Zionist repatriation, arriving at the
remarkable conclusion that the terms of Balfour's Declaration "do not
contemplate that Palestine Palestine
In phrases unctuous with sophistry the White Paper attempts to
explain away Britain Palestine Palestine
Thus in two short years Samuel had changed from an impassioned
advocate of the reborn Jewish State, to a pleader for "a national
Jewish home in Palestine
country to the advantage of all its inhabitants." Thus, in a sentence,
the 2ooo-year old Jewish dream, the unbroken hope for which countless
generations of martyrs fought and prayed, is reduced to a philanthropic scheme
for improving the economic
112
THE RAPE OF PALESTINE
nomic position of the Palestine
of able, enterprising Jews.
Buried in the Churchill-Samuel White Paper was a neat little paragraph
holding that while Jews had every right to return to their homeland freely,
this immigration must not be so great in volume "as to exceed whatever may
be the economic capacity of the country at the time to absorb new arrivals."
This sounded very nice and sensible; but it was to prove the formula which
future anti-Semitic administrations utilized to justify their depredations by
principle.
Included also was a scheme for an elective Legislative Assembly to
be composed of a trinity of Arabs, Jews and British officials, who would
presumably spend their time in the subtleties of reciprocal intrigue. Samuel
had originated this as bait for the Arabs, who were mortifying His Excellency
by referring to the Administration as `that Jewish Government. . .'
Ably the White Paper juggled words, hemmed and hawed, to make it
clear that Palestine
The Zionists were in an uproar. The White Paper had been sprung on
them out of the clear sky, a few days before the terms of the Mandate were to be
published in their final form.
Fuming with indignation, the Zionist Executive balked. At this,
Churchill called in the ever reliable Weitzman and pointed out to him that the
tenor of the Memorandum was a reflection of British needs in the Near East . Britain Egypt India
Churchill, the friend of Zionism, pleaded with Weitzman and his
colleagues, the friends of Great Britain, to accept the Memorandum and to trust
that Britain, realizing why they had accepted it, would make ample amends at
some future date .32
Having reminded Weitzman of the obligations of British patriots, the
clever English statesman drove his arguments home by
A MAN NAMED SAMUEL
113
threatening to cancel the entire Mandate if the Executive did not
agree in twenty-four hours. 33
Weitzman hurriedly called a meeting of his colleagues, most of whom
wanted desperately to call Churchill's bluff. The fact was that the only method
by which the projected revision of Jewish status in Palestine
There can be no doubt that the largest share of the Zionist acquiescence
to this move rested on an exaggerated loyalty to the interests of their friend
and patron, Britain Levant . Had they stood their
ground, any coercive tactics used against them would have reacted infallibly
against the schemers in London Jerusalem
The French still wanted Palestine Britain
Acceptance of the White Paper at the same time placed the Zionist
stamp of approval on another outrage even more deadly to their hopes.
SEVERANCE OF TRANSJORDAN
On the second anniversary of the Balfour Declaration Samuel had
quite rationally declaimed that "you cannot have numbers without area and
territory. Every expert knows that for a prosperous Palestine Jordan
114
THE RAPE OF PALESTINE
indelibly over every part of its hills and plains. It was the permanent
home of two of the Twelve Tribes, as well as the half tribe of Manasseh. The
five cities of the plain were Trans-Jordanic . Two of them, Nebo and Pisgah,
are like household words.
Between 1918 and 1921, when the creation of a Jewish National Home
was being negotiated with the Zionists by the British Government, there was no
question of a Palestine Jordan River or East of the Jordan River .
The Balfour Declaration embraced both sides of the Jordan
the Zionist spokesmen mentioned the eastern boundary of Palestine Palestine Palestine
This whole area was embraced in the British Mandate largely because
of London Palestine Syria Palestine Palestine London Palestine Manchester
viewpoint Trans-Jordan was an organic part of the Holy Land .
the East, but the military clique was not satisfied as long as
there
was a Gallic foot on that part of the globe.
A MAN NAMED SAMUEL
115
Feisal, puppet of the British generals, had just been driven out of
Syria
In March of 1921 the so-called Churchill Conference took place in Cairo Iraq Iraq
Abdullah, gathering an army of his wild nomads, marched out of the Hejaz and headed north for Syria Amman
Samuel again grew jittery. He had to curb the Military or face the
possibility of the French attacking Abdullah in Trans-Jordan
It seemed necessary to placate him in some fashion-and Sir Herbert
had a brilliant idea : he invited the little Arab to a conference to `talk
things over,' and suggested that he park a while in the territory of the Jewish
National Home. Abdullah, gaping at this unexpected chance for power, thought
that this would be very nice. He took over the administration of Eastern Palestine "for a period of
six months," ostensibly to restore order 38 - a rather comic provision
since the only disorder in the territory was that created by Abdullah and his
Sherifian Army itself.
Stroking his chin quizzically at Samuel's droll move, Churchill waited
for the Zionists to blow the roof off. For once Winston Churchill, master of
bluff and stratagem, was nonplussed. The Zionists had been gagged by Samuel's
threat of still further restrictions, and their silence was token of
acquiescence.
Secure in the knowledge that Jewish spokesmen would not prove
troublesome, London Eastern Palestine from the rest of the
country.
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THE RAPE OF PALESTINE
The earlier drafts of the Mandate all contained twenty-seven paragraphs,
none of which mentioned a separate Transjordan .
The final text, sprung with the quickness of legerdemain, consisted
of twenty-eight paragraphs. The new one, number twentyfive, empowered
the Mandatory with the consent of the Council of the League of Nations , "to withhold or
set aside, in the territories between the Jordan River and the eastern
boundaries of Palestine Britain
pacified and made suitable for European settlement. It must be pointed
out that this article, though it stipulates for the first time a difference
between East and West Palestine , nevertheless considers
the former an integral part of the Jewish National Home and in no sense even
infers its right to separation; its carefully chosen words merely `entitling'
the Mandatory to meet temporary emergency conditions, as they might arise, in a
special manner - that is by "postponing and withholding" the
application of the Mandatory provisions for the Jewish National
Home. 39
Right after the Zionists, cringing under Churchill's empty threat,
ratified the White Paper, Abdullah and his invaders were installed as masters
of Eastern Palestine . In July the terms of the Mandate for Palestine League of Nations , and in the same month
Abdullah was formally instated as Emir of Transjordan . Adding insult to
injury, the Palestine
the beginning of a long list of generous subsidies paid out of the
A MAN NAMED SAMUEL
11 7
treasury of the Jewish National Home. Sonorously Sir Herbert declared
"in the name of the British Government . . . that Great Britain Transjordan under Emir
Abdullah." This was a polite euphemism since Transjordan was ruled directly
through a British Resident acting on behalf of the High Commissioner.
The second brutal rape of the territory of the Jewish National Home
was now all but accomplished. Transjordan henceforward became
the only territory in the world to all intents and purposes JUDENREIN (free of
Jews). It was the first country to prohibit
Jews from even practicing a profession or owning land.
Its ban on them was complete.
Beyond whimpering a little, the Zionist Executive kept its peace,
and actually covered up this gigantic theft of the Jewish patrimony by a new
festival campaign "for the Jewish National Fund." As late as October
1934, Dr. Weitzman was with gentle self-abnegation declaring that "we do
not wish to change the status of Trans-Jordan by applying the Balfour
Declaration there. . ." 40
SAMUEL IS REPLACED
Probably no man was so cordially detested by his own people as this
latter-day Herod called Herbert Samuel. In any other community this deep-seated
resentment would have flared up in periodic attempts at violence. Jews, who
have an instinctive abhorrence of lawlessness as a method of settling their
problems, kept their peace but hardly hated him the less.
Among his public acts was the matter of the allotment of the Crown
lands, which under the Mandate were to have been placed at the disposal of the
Zionists. The story of their distribution is amazing.
The cream of these Government lands were in the Beisan area, in the
fertile region known as the Ghor Valley
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THE RAPE OF PALESTINE
low intelligence to be receptive to any suggestions for improvement
of their housing, water supply or education . . . There were no trees, no
vegetables. The fellaheen, if not themselves cattle thieves, were always ready
to harbour these and other criminals. . . The Bedu, wild and lawless by nature,
were constantly at feud with their neighbors on both sides of the Jordan
His Excellency had visited Beisan, chief marketing town of this section,
and had been "received with hostility and contumely" by the ruffian
population, a Transjordan tribe of nomads who had
pitched camp there for the winter.
Nettled, Samuel returned to his earlier technique of placating the
tribesmen with gifts. He immediately announced that he was giving the Beisan
lands to the same truculent nomads who had insulted him. All told, the
Government gave these Arabs almost four hundred thousand dunams (a dunam is
about a quarter of an acre) 41 of the best land in Palestine
Immediately these lands became the subject of the most cynical
speculation. Tribesmen were not interested in the hard work
cultivation requires and most of them were given far more acreage than they
could handle by themselves. The net result was that the major part of the soil
was immediately offered to the Zionists at fancy prices . Even more sardonic,
much of the land given to these Bedouins was resold later to the Government at
a profit of some 500 percent, to be used for the resettlement of so-called
displaced Arabs .43 Everywhere Arab speculators entered, scenting a middleman's
profit. Many of the
tribesmen sold at inflated prices and disappeared into Transjordan and Iraq
The Government was now in fact compelled to tackle a new problem:
that of preventing the Beisan lands from subsequently falling into the hands of
land-hungry Jews, who were willing to offer almost any price.
A MAN NAMED SAMUEL 119
It was during Sir Herbert's regime that Arab opposition to the Jews
took definite form and grooved itself. The entire Administration was
honey-combed with anti-Semitic officials who made the Executive Offices a nest
of pro-Arab activity.
Samuel, masking himself behind a screen of `liberalism,' made not the
slightest move to interfere.
When in 1925 Sir Herbert Samuel was relieved by Lord Plumer, Jewish
Palestine
FIELD MARSHAL LORD PLUMER
When the hated Samuel finally packed his duffle and left for England
Article IV of the Mandate makes it clear that the Jewish Agency has
certain powers, that it should be consulted concerning the appointment of any
High Commissioner. The Bureaucrats destroyed the vestigial remnant of this
section of England
Compared to Samuel, Plumer was a vision of fair delight.
By any other reasonable criterion he was a total loss. The Field
Marshal was a hard man, iron-willed, who ruled with a clenched fist. He was the
only High Commissioner who held his Jew-baiting subordinates within reasonable
check. The best that can be said for him is that under his rule there were no
pogroms.
When the Arabs, persisting naively in the same tactics which were
so successful under Samuel, approached him in delegation, warning that if a
planned procession of Jewish war veterans were held, they "would not be
responsible for the peace of Jerusalem
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THE RAPE OF PALESTINE
you to be responsible .. I am the High Commissioner and I will be
responsible." The Arabs never tried that trick again as long as the Field
Marshal remained in Palestine
However, the old policies continued unchanged. Typical of his
regime is the loan of f 20,000 to the Beersheba
A whole succession of carefully developed ordinances directed
against Zionist penetration marked his regime. Despite this, the Zionists, with
good reason fearful of his unknown successor, were sorry to see him go.
When he resigned, a sudden outburst of Jewish energy brought
General Smuts, Zionist friend and incorruptible executive, under consideration
for the post. Smuts declined, obviously not caring to accept the burden of
reconciling his conscience with the policies of the Colonial Office.
Page 135
CHAPTER IX
THE WHITE PAPER BARRAGE
THE THIRD HIGH COMMISSIONER
The soldier Plumer was succeeded in 1928 by Sir John Chancellor.
Chancellor was an unfortunate choice for the Jews.
He had the general appearance of the Shakespearean actor who, with
a certain forgivable pompousness, loves to play the great man. His graying hair
and regular features were imposing; but his countenance was too complacent and
unwrinkled for a man his age, giving an impression of appalling smugness. His
contempt for Jews was so deliberate as to appear ostentatious.
It was under this man that the bloody outbreak of 1929 took place.
When these excesses brought on an unlooked-for wave of world indignation that
threatened to swamp his regime, he issued an hysterical statement condemning
the Arabs in terms of unbridled virulence. When he saw the Zionists disinclined
to press their advantage and yielding to British blandishments, he maneuvered
the placing of political responsibility onto Jewish shoulders.
Chancellor was hardly equal to the standards of shrewd manipulation
set by the Colonial Office . When he retired in July 1931, he became an
anti-Zionist spokesman in London
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