Arab-Palestinian and Israel Conflict: THE RAPE OF PALESTINE by WILLIAM B. ZIFF

THE RAPE OF PALESTINE by WILLIAM B. ZIFF - Part 2

THE RAPE OF PALESTINE - Part 2

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 and America .

Among them were the `new thinkers' who, enveloped in a cloud

of Marxist pharisaism, saw the projected return to Zion as a reactionary

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, issued a public attack on the `political char-

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acter' of the Zionist demands, asserting that the Jews were only

a religious community and not a nation . "The granting of a

charter for Palestine to the Jews," it declared heatedly, "would

be a disaster for all Jewry, since the equal status of the Jews with

the other citizens of different States would thereby be risked ."

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 objection

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 Office,

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 had already

submitted to the Government a formal "program for a new

administration of Palestine and for, a Jewish resettlement in accordance

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

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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 under a

protection to be established at the conclusion of peace, following

upon the successful issue of the War .

"H. M. Government regards as essential for the realization of

this principle, the grant of internal autonomy to Palestine, freedom

of immigration for Jews, and the establishment of a Jewish

National Colonizing Corporation for the resettlement and economic

development of the country.

"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" for the previous wording, "the

establishment of the Jewish National Home in Palestine." 12

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 of a National Home for the Jewish people, and

will use their best endeavors to facilitate the achievement of this

object, it being clearly understood that nothing shall be done

which may prejudice the civil and religious rights of existing non-

Jewish communities in Palestine, or the rights and political status

enjoyed by Jews in any other country .

"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 to make it a self-annulling docu-

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ment, 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 with guns

and was known as `Bloody Balfour' in consequence, could hardly

be accused of suddenly developing a philanthropic complex in

favor of Jews.

The benefits immediately accruing to the Allied cause need

hardly be argued . Certainly the tremendous number of Jewish

THE BALFOUR DECLARATION

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 . Nor the stirring effect

of the Jewish Legion, fighting to right the oldest wrong in history,

on the imaginations of Jewry and the world . Nor the fillip

it gave the Allied claims when Palestine, the first conquered territory,

was trumpeted to all humanity as newly liberated .

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

adopted and cabled a Resolution "greeting with satisfaction the

fact that the British Government has recognized in an official

declaration the right of the Jewish people to a national existence

in Palestine." In fact, after the British announcement, the Central

Powers did all they could to win the Zionist movement over

to their side. They formulated a rival proposition, involving a

chartered company with a form of self-government and the right

of free immigration into Palestine ; and "by the end of 1917 it was

known that the Turks were willing to accept a scheme on those

lines ." 15

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

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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 were exiled so many centuries ago ." Even in

faraway China, Wang, Minister of Foreign Affairs, assured the

Zionists that "the Nationalist Government is in full sympathy

with the Jewish people in their desire to establish a country for

themselves." 17

In America, echoed by practically every official of public importance,

President Wilson wrote that "the Allied nations, with

the fullest concurrence of our own Government and people, are

agreed that in Palestine shall be laid the foundations of a Jewish

Commonwealth." In gratitude the American Jewish Congress

cabled H. M. Government, on November 2, 1917, its desire that

Great Britain should be given the trusteeship, "acting on behalf

of such League of Nations, as may be formed, to assure the development

of Palestine into a Jewish Commonwealth . . ." In

the United States Congress, members expressed general accord

with "the British Declaration in favor of a Jewish State in the

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 as the Mandatory

for 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 extended its mighty hand in friendship to

the Jewish people to help it to regain its ancient national home

and to realize its age-long aspirations ." Said Lord Robert Cecil

"Our wish is that Arabian countries shall be for Arabs, Armenia

for the Armenians and Judea for the Jews ." And on another

THE BALFOUR DECLARATION

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 i goo 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 with Jerusalem as the capital.

. . The British cabinet has pronounced in favor of Zionism."

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 as a living factor among

the nations .

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 all the 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 Uboat

blockade . Everywhere Jewish brains, money, valor and

enthusiasm were placed wholeheartedly at the service of the

Allies .

BRASS BUTTONS AND STUFFED SHIRTS 65

In Palestine itself, as a result of their commitment to the Western

Powers, Jews were tortured, executed and deported. When

the final truce came, fully half of them were dead or had fled

abroad.

In 1915 Palestinian refugees in Egypt had organized the Zion

Mule Corps under the leadership of dashing Captain Trumpledor,

a one-armed veteran of the Russo-Japanese War . Colonel Patterson,

the British officer who led these men in the ill-fated Gallipoli

campaign, declared : "I have been in the army a long time,

but I never saw anything like the way those Zionists picked up

the art of soldiery ." For the first time since Roman days, the

Zion Mule Corps fought under the proudly floating Jewish ensign,

the blue and white Mogen David (Shield of David) .

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 .

London was groggy with excitement . The official propagandists

did not miss this glamorous opportunity to exploit the

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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 The Judeans were joined by Colonel Patterson's

seasoned campaigners, the Zion Mule Corps . The Jewish national

anthem rang in their ears as they marched, and over their

heads waved the Jewish flag .

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 Jews, whatever their national

States, into the British Army . . . Practically the whole

available Jewish youth of the Colonies . . . came forward for

voluntary enlistment in the Jewish Battalions ."

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 front against Allenby, and on this decisive

sector of the front not the Arab Army fought, but the Jewish

Legion ." 1 It was the Jews who took the fords of the Jordan,

thus opening the way for the passage of the British Army and

contributing in great measure to the brilliant victory at Damascus.

This was amply confirmed by General Chaytor, leader

of the Australian and New Zealand cavalry and Commander-in-

Chief of all troops in the Jordan Valley, who emphasized

publicly "the facts of the heroic struggle made by the 38th and

39th Fusilier Battalions," who had marched on to conquer Transjordan

and had thus contributed heavily to the victory over the

Fourth Turkish Army.2

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 Arabs were, as we shall see, either apathetic or directly

hostile.

Spiritedly the Palestinian volunteers addressed themselves to

Colonel Patterson when he landed with his Jewish boys : "We

are convinced that Britain's victory is ours and our victory

Britain's. This war and Balfour's declaration have made us a

sister nation of England. We hope to convince by our fighting

that the soul of the Macabees has not dried up and that we

know how to countersign Balfour's declaration with our own

blood." 4

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

was to be recognized as the Jewish National Home . . . The

Jewish population present and future throughout Palestine is to

possess and enjoy full national, political and civic rights. . .

The Suzerain Government shall grant full and free rights of

immigration into Palestine to Jews of all countries . . . The

Suzerain Government shall grant a charter to a Jewish Company

for the colonization and development of Palestine, the Company

to have the power to acquire and take over any concessions for

works of a public character . . . and the rights of preemption

of Crown lands or other lands not held in private or religious

ownership, and such other powers and privileges as are usual in

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

THE RAPE OF PALESTINE

Palestine a National Home for the Jewish People . What do we

understand by this ? We mean that those Jews who voluntarily

come to live in Palestine, should live in Palestine as Jewish nationalists

. . . You are bound together in Palestine by the need

of building up a Jewish nation in all its various aspects, a national

center for Jewry all over the world to look at ." a

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's word implicitly .

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, were sent to

Arabia to foment an insurrection there if possible .

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 some Arabs of

vaulting ambition had formed Nationalist Committees, but the

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 4 5ooo a month to insure his neutrality .

To make the argument more pointed, Britain politely withheld

the annual donation from Egypt to the holy cities of Mecca and

Medina, threatening the 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,

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 Office,

for example, bucked the traces completely and gave encouragement

to Ibn Saud as the logical leader of the rebellion .,,

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 which had been harassing

British communications off the 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, Sir Henry

McMahon, tried his hand . He found Hussein a good horse trader,

non-committal and holding out for the highest bidder .

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 i q i 6, reads that "The

Government of Great Britain agrees to furnish this Arab Government

with all its needs of arms and ammunition and money

during the War ." What this transaction was like is more than

explained in the wireless received by McMahon's confidential

assistant, Sir Ronald Storrs, just before the `rebellion' broke out.

It read : "Foreign Office has approved payment of £ io,ooo to

Abdullah and C So,ooo to Sherif o f Mecca. But this latter payment

only in return for definite action and i f a reliable rising

takes place." 10 All told, the English handed over to the Sherif

BRASS BUTTONS AND STUFFED SHIRTS 71

a cool J i 1,ooo,ooo in materials and money, and stimulated his

patriotism with grandiose promises of personal power ." Nothing

else than this flood of gold, writes Lawrence cynically,

"would have performed the miracle of keeping a tribal army in

the field for five months on end ." And C. S. Jarvis, English

Governor of 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, out of sheer pique, "orders that from time to time

jeopardized the cause ." 13

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's understanding of this preference

dictated his whole strategy of irregular warfare . Colonel Wilson,

the English representative at Hussein's court, contemptuously

refers to them as "a cowardly and undisciplined rabble" ;

and Lawrence makes no bones about their cowardice under

Turkish fire . 14 "Lawrence knew," says Jarvis, "that if his

Arabs suffered heavy casualties in a direct attack they would

never recover from the effect and would disseminate into thin

air." 15

Lawrence states, moreover, that "it was impossible to mix or

combine tribes, since they disliked or distrusted one another .

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

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, they lost

their wits completely and "were as ready to assault friend as

foe." 18 Without exception, every observer comments that they

invariably broke off in the middle of an engagement to disappear

into the desert with their captured gains . There is actually

no recorded instance of an Arab accomplishment in the way

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 cautioned his men frankly

before an excursion into the desert "that there was no need to

worry about the Turks, but every need to worry about our

allies, the Bedouins ." 20 Nor would he instruct his tribesmen

in the handling of the high explosives used to cripple the Turkish

transportation system, afraid that they "would keep on playfully

blowing up trains even after the termination of the war ." 21

The whole Lawrence legend in itself has been sadly exaggerated.

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 northward

along the Pilgrim railway .22 Most of the inhabitants of 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 the Arabs took almost no part

whatsoever in the fighting, and always were to be found on the

winning side. Now with the Turks, now with the British, loot

was their principal object . Blood-curdling eyewitness accounts

tell how Turks and Englishmen alike were murdered for their

small possessions . Unfortunate prisoners had their bellies

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 is concerned, the

Arab contribution to its conquest was indirect and trifling . Not

a single Arab was employed in the conquest of Cis-Jordan . In

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's

Arabs were far away in the desert engaged in butchering and

looting fleeing men, fellow-Arabs of the Turkish army, who had

been routed by British guns and airplanes . The soldier, Duff,

his blood turned cold by these activities, describes their "strange,

twisted mentality. . ." 26

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 Arabs to assist

in any way, described them as "sunk in almost animal brutishness,

moved by no spirit of personal liberty or freedom for their

native land ." A study of Lawrence's Seven Pillars o f Wisdom

reveals that his levies were all desert tribesmen except for ten

Syrians, of whom six `ratted' and four deserted . No Palestinian

Arab is mentioned by Lawrence . The British, who were later

to speak pompously of Arab nationalism in Palestine, were of

quite a different sentiment in 1918 . British Peace Handbook

No. 6o declares briskly that "they have little if any national

sentiment . . . The Moslem Effendi class . . . evince a feeling

somewhat akin to hostility towards the Arab movement . . .

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 with whom the British could

negotiate . With their experiences still fresh in English minds,

the Peace Handbook repeats Burton's jibe that these Levantines

"hide their weapons at the call of patriotism ."

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 should become

Arabic had not even been contemplated . It is certain that during

Lawrence's campaign Feisal and his principal henchmen had

their eye upon Syria, not upon Palestine, and that the rank

and file were interested in money and loot and nothing else .

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

was to be included in the Arab area ; and in Commons on

July 11, 1922, Winston Churchill, then Secretary of State for

the Colonies, declared : "No pledges were made to the Palestine

Arabs in 1915 . So far as I am aware, the first suggestion that

Palestine was included in the area within which His Majesty's

Government promised to recognize and support the independence

of the Arabs, was made . . . more than five years after

the conclusion of the correspondence on which the claim was

based." The promise to Hussein was in any case crazy ; for, as

Sidebotham points out, he was not in a position to pledge the

Arabs outside the 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

and wriggled out of joining the 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,

chased Hussein off to exile in Cyprus, and henceforth styled

himself King of the Hejaz and Sultan of Nejd .

While the Sherif was engaged in this death struggle with his

ancient enemy, Britain stepped in and demanded that he place

Maan and the Red Sea port of Aqaba under British Mandate .

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

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 19o6, 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 on Mt. Scopus.

Throughout Arabia the chiefs were for the most part distinctly

pro-Zionist ; and in Palestine the peasantry were delighted at

every prospect of Jewish settlement near their villages . They

let few opportunities slip to proclaim in flowery oriental rhetoric

the benefits that Jewish colonization was bringing them .

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 were well represented .

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 was to be the Jewish sphere of influence and development.

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 as the necessary foundation

to a greater 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 i 919 representing the Arab

cause, the Zionists submitted their plans to him . Both Feisal

and Lawrence approved of them, and early in i 9 i 9 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 and the coming

Jewish Commonwealth of Palestine . National boundaries were

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 ; and the Arabs

agreed to facilitate the carrying into effect of the Balfour Declaration

and to "encourage and stimulate immigration of Jews

into Palestine on a large scale ." 33

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 is fully acquainted

with the proposals submitted yesterday by the Zionist

Organization to the Peace Conference and we regard them as

moderate and proper . We will do our best, insofar as we are

concerned, to help them through . We will wish the Jews a

most hearty welcome home ."

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 .

Lawrence was the official translator at almost all of them . Officially,

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 . It is only a fact that an English general

led the attacking forces, much as Marshal Foch commanded

the Allies on the Western Front .

BRASS BUTTONS AND STUFFED SHIRTS 79

When with pennants flying, Sir Edmund Allenby made his

historic entry into Jerusalem on 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 . As he victoriously entered, Allenby

was flanked on one side by M. Francois Georges-Picot and on

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 coincided exactly with the Feast

of Chanukah, which commemorates the recapture of the Temple

from the heathen Seleucids by Judas Maccabeus in the year

165 B.C. Lending color to this coincidence, General Allenby

said on entering : "We have come not as conquerors but as deliverers

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 until 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 and

Egyptian papers . The amazed Zionists suddenly discovered

that "the Military Administration . . . was anti-Zionist and

perhaps anti-Jewish ." 34

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 the consuls of almost every country

were, out of courtesy, newly appointed Jews . The official

British Peace Handbook on Zionism, giving on the highest possible

authority the Government's conception of what it had

agreed to, read : "Jewish opinion would prefer Palestine to be

controlled for the present as a part, or at least a dependency, of

the 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's orders. In this they were obviously

abetted by headquarters in Cairo which, in addition to

holding the direction of military operations, contained a staff of

political observers . For reasons which will be discussed later,

the Military considered the Jews to be dangerous Bolsheviks

who were conspiring to upset the Empire . Moreover, the

rivalry with the French was now going on full blast and the

Generals hoped to exclude them from Syria altogether . Sir

Arthur Money, who took over the administration for Allenby,

in high elation reported that he had interviewed a number of

`Syrians' and that "their idea of Government for Palestine was

that we should govern it ; the idea was pure bliss to them ." In

BRASS BUTTONS AND STUFFED SHIRTS 81

his mind's eye he already considered Palestine a British colony

from which Jews were to be excluded.

The Zionists were put in their place with a bang . Despite

the Jewish majority in Jerusalem, "the Army . . . appointed

two-thirds of the Jerusalem Corporation Arab and only one third

Jewish ." 37 General Money decided that all tax forms and

receipts should be printed in English and Arabic only ; and the

Military Governor of Jaffa declared insolently that he was going

to address Jewish delegations in Arabic .

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 and elsewhere - why England has capitulated

to the Zionists, but none of them has been able to give me

a straight answer ." He came to the amusing conclusion that

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,

of a medical official "who quite frankly and with barely

concealed relish announced that Jew-baiting had been the sport

of kings for centuries and centuries ." 39 All told, the British officers,

quite apart from any question of higher politics, "regarded

the Balfour Declaration as damn nonsense, the Jews as a

damn nuisance, and natives into the bargain ; and the Arabs as

damn good fellows." 40

HANDRUBBING STATESMEN

It was tragic for the hopes of Zion that the spirit of the Ghetto

still stared from the brooding eyes of Jewish leaders . With a

few notable exceptions, they carried with them into the new

movement the spirit of philosophic resignation, the unworldly

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 at once . The

Bolshevik horror alone could have supplied such a number of

weary refugees who would have been eager to migrate to the

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

which had been the great center of Zionism . The Bolsheviks,

coming into power, had outlawed the movement on the grounds

that it was a tool of the Imperialists and a betrayal of the Jewish

masses. Quoting the master, Marx, to show that Jews were

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 a Jewish Commission had been arranged for, ostensibly

to take over the business of developing the country

under the protecting arm of the Military . Headed by Dr.

Weitzman, it arrived July 24, 1918, equipped, with the authority

of the British Government, to advise the Palestine Administration

on Jewish affairs . As head of this essentially political

body, Weizmann's first act was to warn his hearers to beware

of treacherous insinuations that Zionists were seeking political

power.42

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 .

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 and Egypt to abstain from any concessions to the

Jews. It formed the Moslem-Christian Association and used it

as a weapon against the Zionists on the slightest pretext . It instructed

astonished Arab young-bloods in the technique and

tenets of modern nationalism, in order to resist Jewish `pretenses.'

And in London it contacted reliable anti-Jewish elements,

to form a liaison which has endured to this day .

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 Congress (timed

to coincide with the British plot to force the French out of the

Near East altogether) that the 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 back on

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, had a long-hooked finger in the

pie. On Bastille Day, during the sessions of the Peace Conference,

when the Tri-color flag was run up at Sidon, a chill went

down the spines of the military gentlemen in Jerusalem .

The Generals aimed at one big Arab state or federation of

states, to include the Hejaz, Iraq, Syria and Palestine, which was

to lie, as Egypt had lain, in the political and economic pocketbook

of Britain. For this consummation to be realized it was

essential that the population of Palestine should be so anti-

Zionist and the population of Syria so anti-French that with the

best will in the world, bier entendu, it would be impossible to

put into force a French control of the 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 and England over this continuous stream of intrigue

finally reached a point where a breath would have precipitated

it into armed conflict . The French statesman M . Barthou

sharply protested . With its tongue in its cheek, London blandly

forwarded the protest to Palestine, abjuring the Generals to behave

themselves .

Matters came to a head in I92o when Feisal staged a revolt

against the French in Damascus, with money and ammunition

supplied by the British General Headquarters .44 He had been

proclaimed King by a `Syrian Congress' which included Palestinians,

and which asserted the principle that Palestine was a

part of Syria and could not be cut off from it . Almost simultaneously,

in order to show how impossible it was to implement

the Balfour Declaration in the face of native hostility, the Generals

arranged a pogrom in Jerusalem. They hoped it would

mean the end of Zionism, that the 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 .

THE RAPE OF PALESTINE

POGROM AND WORLD HORROR

The Governor of Jerusalem was General Louis Bols . Chief

of Staff to Bols was Colonel Waters Taylor, whose ideal polity

was a military government in perpetuity, and who later became

an anti-Zionist organizer in 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 that very day in order to warn Weitzman of the danger,

urging him to oppose Bols' appointment with might and

main. In reply Weitzman informed Patterson that his fears

"were really exaggerated, as he had just had a two-hour conversation

with Bols and had found him a very nice man ." Despite

Weizmann's optimistic appraisal, the result of Bols' appointment

was soon to be written in Jewish blood.

Ominous incidents crowding fast on the heels of the intensive

propaganda which followed the crowning of Feisal in Syria, had

caused a number of saner Zionists to warn the Government . It

responded by ordering the disarming of the population, enforcing

the order only insofar as the Jews were concerned .

The riots of April 1920 broke on the heads of the astonished

Jews like a clap of thunder . Misled by the naivete 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 . The usual

frenzy of chants and wild dances was driving them into a dangerous

emotional delirium . Propaganda of the wildest sort was

being circulated ; and whispers went through the crowd, which

was going rapidly berserk.

Now agitators were addressing this churning mass, urging

BRASS BUTTONS AND STUFFED SHIRTS

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,' a walled section of Jerusalem

where the bulk of the Jews resided. Totally unopposed

and making a directed attack from three different parts of the

town at the same moment, the mob rushed into the Jewish

Quarter, brandishing knives and clubs .

Shrieking madness covered the Old City. The most horrible

and repugnant scenes took place . Amongst other manifestations

of patriotism, some elderly Jews were locked in a house

which was set on fire, while a number of women were subjected

to rape.

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 with a

cordon of police and troops, preventing Jabotinsky's boys from

going to the assistance of the defenseless Jews, giving them over

for three days to murder, loot and rape before the authorities

raised a hand to interfere .45

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

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 : "They [the

Jews] are very difficult to deal with . . . They are not satisfied

with military protection, but demand to take the law in their

own hands."

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

the knightly Captain Trumpledor was killed with nine of his

men, murmuring as he fell, "It is good to die for one's country ."

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

fifteen 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 conBRASS

BUTTONS AND STUFFED SHIRTS 89

demnation 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 were offered

to them.

The English were in a tight spot . They stood morally condemned

before the world . The precious life line to India was

in danger.

Here was another shining opportunity laid right in the Zionists'

laps. The functionaries in Whitehall were in rapid retreat .

To show their good faith they severed the heads of the top administrator

of Palestine together with his Chief of Staff, and

served them up on a platter for the edification of the French

and the Zionists. The Jews at this moment could have named

their own price . They were now top-dog in a situation that

had reversed itself . But Zionist leaders continued to temporize

and placate . With no conception of the moment for swift, decisive

action, they settled down to ponder their old vaporous

ideas.

Page104

CHAPTER VII

THE MANDATE BY THE LEAGUE

WEIZMANN OBLIGES

At the Peace Conference, held at Versailles in February i q I g,

the historic opportunity for which Herzl had built and struggled

had suddenly come to a head. The Allies were tired and in a

generous mood. The hysteria founded on the claim that the

`War was fought for democracy' was still much in evidence.

Jewry was, moreover, reckoned as a world force whose good will

could count powerfully in the reconstruction period which was

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 .

Poland was being handed whole sections of Germany and the

Ukraine to satisfy its `economic needs' as well as the ideals of

democracy. Other nations similarly were fighting for and securing

their share . The Jews could have demanded and received

not only the present boundaries of Palestine, but a large

part of the rich Lebanon Valley, the fertile Hauran, and the

vast uninhabited territory to the east . This area was practically

vacant ; and the signs were already written on the heavens that

Israel must soon evacuate 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 . 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 would mean placing a

majority under the rule of a minority ; it would therefore be

contrary to the first principles of democracy. . ."

THE MANDATE BY THE LEAGUE

Both at Versailles and later, the chief Jewish negotiator,

Weitzman, maintained the mild demeanor of humanist and philosopher

. Asked what the Zionists wanted, he contented himself

with the remark : "Ultimately, such conditions that Palestine

should be just as Jewish as England is English ." 1 Lloyd

George commented that "Weitzman was the only modest man

at the Peace Conference . . . who was decent in his demands" :

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, holding the economic future of 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 should become

a Jewish State." 3

The frank of America on this proposal was tantamount to its

acceptance by the Conference . With the exception of some

demurrage from the Catholic Church, which wanted to make

doubly sure that its own interests in the 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 a

"League of British Jews" led by the important Claude G . Montefiore

was formed to lobby against the proposition . In America

three hundred representatives of Jewish moneybags, led by the

Reform Rabbis, forwarded a protest to the Peace Conference

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 . The British realized that they had made a bad

bargain, and now this Treaty came back to haunt them . They

had allowed oil, trade, potential rail-heads, and with them a de

facto control of the route to India, to slip through their fingers .

Able tacticians, they pointed out that the Balfour Declaration to

which Paris had agreed, invalidated the Sykes-Picot Agreement .

The French, secure in the largest military establishment on

earth, already almost at war with England over Lloyd George's

support of the ill-fated Greek invasion of Asiatic Turkey, countered

by claiming Palestine as an integral part of Syria, over

which they held traditional rights of protection .

Though the Kaiser was chopping wood somewhere in Holland,

and Generals Hindenburg and Ludendorff were now just

two harmless old boys out on probation, the old German dream

was still very much alive . The English had quietly taken it

over as part of their profit in the war they had just fought for

humanity . If it was to be put into operation they needed Palestine

desperately.

The French stood pat . They wanted Palestine, but were

willing to accept a condominium . The British were aghast .

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

there was nothing either in the Balfour promise or in the negotiations

at Versailles which assured Great Britain of the Mandate.

It was still very much open to the Powers to appoint

anyone they pleased . The only positive commitment was that

Palestine was to be a National Home for the Jews .

The Zionists, prompted by London, now went into action .

In the name of the Jewish people the American Jewish Congress

solemnly pleaded with the Powers for the appointment of Great

Britain as Mandatory because of her "peculiar relationship to

the return of the Jews to Zion ." Similar action was taken at

congresses representing the millions of Jews in Poland and

the Austro-Hungarian Empire . Now at the Versailles Conference

the Zionist Organization formally asked that the Mandate

should be entrusted to Great Britain under the sovereignty of

the League of Nations . This request was made in an elaborate

statement on the future of Palestine, in which the word `Commonwealth'

reappears as a synonym for the Jewish `National

Home.' This determined demand for English stewardship left

nothing for France to do but gallantly withdraw her claim . She

had been checkmated by a master tactician, and she took her

licking gracefully.

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 to go through the motions of ratifying the

Mandate. World indignation over the pogrom inspired by the

Generals was blazing at white heat . 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 . It was

still possible for Herzl's followers, enjoying the powerful French

and American support, to upset the British applecart by demanding

another mandatory . Weitzman, however, still believed

implicitly in English honesty and good faith . He again

THE RAPE OF PALESTINE

reiterated the demand that England be confirmed as the trustee

for the Jewish estate .

The reaction of the Arabs to the San Remo decision was extremely

friendly . Representatives of the Arab territories welcomed

the idea of the Jewish State which was soon to rise up in

their midst . King Feisal of Iraq wrote a cordial letter congratulating

the Zionists on their triumph .

London's delight knew no bounds . At a public demonstration

to celebrate the grant and its inclusion in the peace treaty

with Turkey, Lord Balfour, reminding the Arabs that they had

been handed vast areas on a gold platter, hoped that "remembering

all that, they will not begrudge that small niche - for it

is no more than that geographically . . . being given to the

people who for all these hundreds of years have been separated

from it - and who surely have a title to develop on their own

lines in the land of their forefathers ."

A few months later the matter was clinched for England .

The Treaty of Sevres was signed between Turkey and the

Western Powers. It reiterated the decisions of the Nations,

ceding Palestine with the proviso that the "Mandatory will be

responsible for putting into effect the Declaration originally

made on November 2, 1917 by the British Government and

adopted by the other Allied Powers in favor of the establishment

in Palestine of the National Home of the Jewish People ."

Secure in the knowledge that the overlordship of this coveted

territory was now theirs, London sprang a series of new surprises

on the Zionists . It quibbled on words, seeking to reduce

the content of the Mandate by a wearing down process before

producing it in its final form .

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 that the Jews of Palestine,

at a conference in Jaffa, appealed to the Allied and Associated

Powers "to nominate Great Britain as their trustee, and to

confer on her the government of Palestine with a view to aiding

THE MANDATE BY THE LEAGUE

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, the Treaty of Lausanne, was

signed in 1923, that the Mandate, adroitly mutilated, was accepted

in its final form .* The Jewish Agency, originally conceived

to be a chartered colonizing body like the 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 wanted . Also

inserted in its phraseology at the last moment was an innocuous

little paragraph which the Zionists paid but scant attention to .

It provided that in the territory east of Jordan, the Mandatory

could postpone such provisions of the Mandate as might be inapplicable

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 - only the Jews

were consulted . It is also remarkable that the word `Arab'

never once occurs in the whole document as apart from the recognition

of Arabic as one of the official languages of the country.

A most casual reading makes it plain that the League had

* See Appendix `A,' p . 571 .

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. The Balfour Declaration and its consequence,

the Mandate for Palestine, ushered in a new concept

of international law, widening the scope of the law itself . While

in all other cases it is the actual inhabitants of the countries in

question who are dealt with, as being too backward to govern

themselves, under the Palestine Mandate it is the Jewish people

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 . The Preamble concludes

that "recognition has thereby been given to the historical

connection of the Jewish people with Palestine and to the

grounds for reconstituting their National Home in that country,"

certainly implying that the future Palestine should be as

Jewish as the Palestine of the Bible .

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 became one of

THE MANDATE BY THE LEAGUE

the contracting parties to this international arrangement . This

treaty, known as the American-British Mandate Convention on

Palestine, recites verbatim all the terms of the Mandate worked

out by the League of Nations. In the correspondence relating

to the several draft treaties submitted, it is plainly evident

that the American Government considered England only as the

temporary custodian for what was soon to be a Jewish State and,

for this reason only, allowed herself to relinquish the special

capitulation rights she had enjoyed under the old Turkish regime.

The final draft of this agreement guarantees that "the

United States and its nationals shall have and enjoy all the rights

and benefits secured under the terms of the Mandate to members

of the League of Nations and their nationals, notwithstanding

the fact that the United States is not a member of the League of

Nations."

The determination of America to safeguard this arrangement

from the conniving hand of European political vandalism is

stated in Article VII . It reads : "Nothing contained in the present

Convention shall be affected by any modification which may

be made in the terms of the Mandate, as recited above, unless

such modification shall have been assented to by the 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 ." 8 As conceived at the time by the

Plenipotentiaries, Palestine was to comprise a minimum of some

sixty thousand square miles, bounded on the north by Syria, on

THE RAPE OF PALESTINE

the southwest by Egypt, on the east by Iraq and Saudi and on

the south by Saudi and the Hejaz . The English viewpoint, embodied

in British Peace Handbook No. 6o on Syria and Palestine,

even contended that Damascus itself could very well be included,

asserting that the whole "portion of the center of Syria

that lies to the east of Jebel esh-Sharki may easily be separated

from northern Syria and associated with Palestine ." To the

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 ." s

With the San Remo decision tucked comfortably away in

its waistcoat, 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 serenely yielded, without the

slightest objection, every area on which the future economy of

the country was to be based .

Since the coming Hebrew Commonwealth had no visible fuel

supplies of its own, it appeared to be vitally dependent upon

water power for industrial expansion . Of essential significance

to its future industrial growth was the River Litany in the north

and the watershed lying directly south of Mount Hermon . This

strategic sector, as well as the lands of Naphthali, Dan and

Manasseh, was lopped off and uselessly handed to Syria. Also

trimmed away was the Hauran, ancient granary of Israel, and

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 had been actuated by a fit of

sheer pique to annoy the Jews.'°

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

self-sustaining, economic development of the country. This

means on the north, Palestine must include the Litany River and

the watersheds of the Hermon, and on the east it must include

the plains of the Jaulon and the Hauran . Narrower than this is

a mutilation. . . I need not remind you that neither in this country

nor in Paris has there been any opposition to the Zionist

program, and to its realization the boundaries I have named are

indispensable."

This was in the Spring of 1920 . Procrastinating, sugaring the

Zionists with promises, London finally amended the Franco-

British Convention to recover a few square miles of the headwaters

of the Jordan and ignored further protest . The area of

the Jewish National Home had now been shrunk to some 44,000

square miles : approximately 1o,ooo square miles west of the Jordan

and 34,000 to the east .

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 regarded

as a new Ireland in embryo, a development even more fraught

with trouble for the Empire .

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

unprotesting, the Zionists discovered that the Palestine Mandate

had been incomprehensibly shifted to the Colonial Office for

implementation . There were some among them who knew what

this move meant, but the Zionist leadership as a whole was far

too inexperienced and trusting to do anything about it .

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 left this stage behind in i9oq .

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

or the mills of 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,

was retransported to Egypt and India and sold at a handsome

profit in the shape of cotton goods.

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

100

A MAN NAMED SAMUEL

ioi

from one colony to the other . Typical of the men who were to

interpret the needs of Zionism were Police Chief R . B. G. Spicer,

late Police Chief in Kenya Colony ; Chief Secretary Mark Aitchison

Young, previously Colonial Secretary for Sierra Leone ; Michael

Francis Joseph McDonnell, Chief Justice of the 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 for decision . The

plans for a hotel in Jerusalem not only had to be submitted to

the Department of Public Works but that department had to refer

the plans and specifications to London . De Haas and Wise

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

must pay for special British School Inspectors.

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, the

whole majestic symbolism of the event fairly staggered the imagination

of Jewry everywhere . Jews went hysterically wild

with joy.

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 1 q 1q when Samuel was functioning as

leader of a British Committee of Investigation in Poland . Failing

to reach an agreement after eight days of negotiations with

the Warsaw Zionists, he asked in order to obtain a result : "Do

you then accept the paragraphs of the Peace Treaty aiming at

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.'" r -

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 selfdefense

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, one E. T. Richmond. Richmond who had referred in

a signed article in the Nineteenth Century to "that iniquitous

document known as the Mandate for Palestine," 9 was fairly

representative of the body of officialdom . These men made no

secret of their antipathy to the policy of the Balfour Declaration,

which they had been appointed to carry out, contributing

the most violent anti-Jewish articles to such journals as the

Edinburgh Review, the Nineteenth Century and the Fortnightly

Review.10 There was only one officer in Samuel's entire

retinue who could even remotely be described as pro-

Zionist. That was the gentle-mannered Sir Wyndham Deeds

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 they will pay more for it than

it is worth ." At the Fifth Session of the Permanent Mandates

Commission he stated that it was "the fundamental intention of

the Government" to deal with the Arabs "as if there had never

been a Balfour Declaration." 12 Samuel's interference almost

lost the important 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's population literally dripped with

the poison .14

Suddenly during the Festival the mad shout arose that "the

Mosques were being attacked by the Bolsheviks" (Jews) . At

Jaffa, starting point of trouble, the Arabs went on an orgy of

murder and pillage "under the official protection and assistance

of a substantial number of Jaffa police ." 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 district.

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 viiio6

THE RAPE OF PALESTINE

lages. 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, Isaiah and Jesus . Forty

Jews had been killed and countless others injured on the first day

alone, before the iron hand of official censorship made all other

casualty figures a pure matter of conjecture. Horace Samuel

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 believed that British officials had prepared the

disturbances behind the scenes .20 Returning to England after

her visit to the Holy Land, the wife of the Labor leader Philip

Snowden fixed the responsibility on "the activity of certain

British subjects in Palestine and certain English politicians in

England." 21 Arab politicos openly boasted of their alliance

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, Abraham Shapiro, was arrested by order of the same

officers, not on any charge, but administratively, and carted off

to Jerusalem in a motor lorry." 23

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."

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

district ." 25

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, arranged gay parades and interesting literary

lectures as if celebrating some festival occasion.27

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 Jewry was to hold responsible for the terrible excesses

of 1929, when Jewish Palestine almost went up in smoke. This

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 massacre, Samuel, shivering

in his pants, phoned the Governor of Jaffa, instructing him

to announce to the Arabs that in accordance with their request,

immigration had been suspended .28 Though this prohibition

was a general one in its official terms, it was interpreted to apply

only to Jews. Immigrants who were non-Jews were not affected

by it . The most ludicrous stories are told of the way

this ordinance was applied, Arab officials often compelling incoming

immigrants to expose themselves physically in order to

prove that they were not Jews, before they would allow them

to land.29

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, and not by the Government ; and who had

declared on the second anniversary of the Balfour Declaration

that Palestine must become "a purely self-governing community

under the auspices of an established Jewish majority ." 30 Sir

Herbert was now thoroughly scared . Sir Wyndham Deeds,

the only pro-Zionist in his Cabinet, was shunted off, to be superseded

by one Sir Gilbert Clayton . Like a disturbed crustacean

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 underA

MAN NAMED SAMUEL

log

taken to appease the Jews at the San Remo Conference, he had

been sentenced by a British court to fifteen years at hard labor,

as a dangerous gang leader and agitator. Conveniently allowed

to escape by the police, Haj Amin was hiding out in neighboring

Syria, a fugitive from justice . This was the gentleman whom

Samuel now recalled from exile and appointed to one of the

most important positions the Government had to offer . Just

as London controls the Eastern Moslems through the acquiescent

Agha Khan, so it was now planned to harness the Western

Moslems by setting up a counterpart to the defunct Western

Caliphate, in 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 Moslem 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 as a common felon, now

returned to find himself one of the key figures in the Administration.

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 for life . Meeting in

secret conclave the Moslem bigwigs rejected his nomination by

an overwhelming vote . Stiffly Sir Herbert acquainted the discomfited

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

110

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 had to offer a Moslem .

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 Wak f, 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 Wak f

or other charitable endowments, as well as the Mohammedan

courts and educational institutions, including even the Industrial

School in Jerusalem . In addition he was provided with a handsome

salary out of the public funds ; and a staff of two hundred

and fifty paid assistants was allowed the Supreme Moslem Council

to superintend the six hundred men employed in the various

Wak f departments.

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 chose this occasion for another

of its flank attacks on the Zionist position in Palestine .

London's principal objective now was covertly to cut off the

Zionist Organization from any share in the Administration . The

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 as a

whole should be converted into a Jewish National Home, but

that such a Home should be founded in Palestine ."

In phrases unctuous with sophistry the White Paper attempts

to explain away Britain's pledged word and the commitments

on which the Jewish National Home was based . The purpose

of the Declaration, it now discovers, "is not the imposition of a

Jewish nationality . . . but the further development of the existing

Jewish community, with the assistance of Jews in other

parts of the world, in order that it may become a centre in which

the Jewish people as a whole may take, on grounds of religion

and race, an interest and a pride . But in order that this community

should have the best prospect of free development and

provide a full opportunity for the Jewish people to display its

capacities, it is essential that it should know that it is in Palestine

as of right and not on sufferance . That is the reason why it

is necessary that the existence of a Jewish national home in

Palestine should be internationally guaranteed, and that it should

be formally recognized to rest upon ancient historic connection."

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 ." As a trial balloon for

the Colonial Office he had already reinterpreted the Declaration

to mean that "these words [National Home] mean that the

Jews . . . should be enabled to found here their home, and that

some amongst them, within the limits fixed by numbers and

the interests of the present population, should come to Palestine

in order to help by their resources and efforts to develop the

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 eco112

THE RAPE OF PALESTINE

nomic position of the Palestine Arabs by bringing in a leavening

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 was in future to be considered

like any other non-Jewish country, under certain conditions

willing to accept a given number of Jews and even to grant

them a certain specious autonomy-but no more. Herzl's

dream had been permanently laid in moth balls .

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 had to go slow . Her

situation in Egypt and India was critical in the extreme .

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

11 3

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 could be accomplished legally, was

with the consent of the Jewish leaders. But Weitzman wheedled

and cajoled, and his associates finally agreed, signing the

death warrant of their own movement in one of the most astonishing

capitulations to high pressure salesmanship on record .

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 . They were told

that this was merely a temporary makeshift to pull British administrators

through a bad spot in the Levant. Had they stood

their ground, any coercive tactics used against them would have

reacted infallibly against the schemers in London and Jerusalem .

The French still wanted Palestine, and the only title Britain had

there was vested in her Jewish wards .

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 an adequate territory beyond the Jordan is

indispensable ." Yet it was Samuel who cut off Trans-Jordan

from the Jewish National Home and handed it to some foreign

Arabs for a private pasturage .

Palestine east of the Jordan comprised some two-thirds of the

entire mandated area - by far the best part of it, well-watered,

fertile, and as empty as the American West when Daniel Boone

crossed over from Carolina . The history of Israel is written

IIq

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 West

of the Jordan River or East of the Jordan River. The Balfour

Declaration embraced both sides of the Jordan. When one of

the Zionist spokesmen mentioned the eastern boundary of Palestine

he was informed that there was no eastern boundary because

in the east Palestine bordered on the desert .34 It is important

also to recall that in the Zionist proposals presented to

the Peace Conference in February I9I9 (the text of which, like

that of all Zionist political documents of the time, had first been

seen and approved by the British Government) Trans-Jordan

was as a matter of course included in the boundaries of Palestine.

This whole area was embraced in the British Mandate largely

because of London's insistence on "a good eastern frontier for

the Jewish Government in Palestine ." Argument had arisen as

to whether Syria or Palestine should get the territory . Unanimously

the British papers pounded the drums for its inclusion

lest Palestine be unforgivably mutilated by letting the French

have it. The London Times insisted that Palestine without

Trans-Jordan was a travesty on good sense ; 35 the Manchester

Guardian alleged that both from a historical and economic

viewpoint Trans-Jordan was an organic part of the Holy Land.

Downing Street had demanded Trans-Jordan in the name of

"the forthcoming Zionist Government," 36 and the French finally

conceded the issue . Under the Leygues-Harding Agreement,

signed December 23, 1920, in Paris, this territory was relinquished

by the French in favor of the Palestine Mandate

Agreement . Britain now had a solid land bridge to Iraq and

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 by French rifles. His brother, Abdullah, a plump,

bearded little man, strikingly like a dark edition of Lenin in appearance,

was approached by the Military, who were still looking

for a tool with which to pull their chestnuts out of the fire .

In March of 1921 the so-called Churchill Conference took place

in Cairo, where it was decided that Feisal, rejected by the

French, would get the throne of Iraq and that his brother Abdullah

who had been crowned King of Iraq during Feisal's

`reign' in Damascus, should be quietly supported in one last

attempt at ousting the French .37

Abdullah, gathering an army of his wild nomads, marched out

of the Hejaz and headed north for Syria . He got as far as

Amman in Trans-Jordan, when the French quietly let it be

known that they had had just about their belly full of English

intrigue.

Samuel again grew jittery . He had to curb the Military or

face the possibility of the French attacking Abdullah in Trans-

Jordan and remaining there . But Abdullah refused to budge .

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 began searching for a basis to

further separate Eastern Palestine from the rest of the country .

x16

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,

the employment of such mandate agreements which are

found to be inapplicable because of local conditions," certainly

an innocent enough appearing proviso. It was explained on the

basis of Britain's anxiety lest Jewish life be sacrificed if colonization

were attempted before this turbulent, lawless area was

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

Great Britain had no rights in this territory which enabled

her to dispose of it . Article V of the Mandate stipulates that

"the Mandatory shall be responsible that no Palestine territory

shall be ceded or leased to, or in any way placed under the

control of the Government of any foreign power." Certainly

the act of handing it over to these invaders from the Hejaz was

a clear violation of both the spirit and letter of this provision .

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 were approved by the League of Nations,

and in the same month Abdullah was formally instated as

Emir of Transjordan . Adding insult to injury, the Palestine

exchequer handed him f i 8o,ooo to cover his initial expenses -

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 is willing to recognize the independence of 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

Arab-Palestinian and Israel Conflict

Monday, March 16, 2015

THE RAPE OF PALESTINE by WILLIAM B. ZIFF - Part 2

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