I REPRODUCED FROM THE ORIGINAL, PUBLISHED IN JERUSALEM ( BY THE JEWISH AGENCY fOR PALESTINE, MARCH 1946 MEMORANDUM
SUBMITTED TO THE ANGLO-AMERICAN COMMITTEE OF INQUIRY
by THE JEWISH AGENCY FOR PALESTINE
Jerusalem, March 1946 THE JEWISH AGENCY FOR PALESTINE CONTENTS
PACE INTRODUCTION 3 CHAPTER i: The International Recognition of Zionism 4 ii: The Historical Connection of the Jewish People with Palestine 5 iii: The Position of the Jews in the Diaspora 10 iv: The Rise of Modem Zionism 18 v: The Balfour Declaration and the Palestine Mandate 27 vi: The Breakdown of the Mandate 31 vii: Jewish Development under the MandatP. 38 viii: The White Paper and the War 41 ix: The Jewish Commonwealth 48 CONCLUSION 51 INTRODUCTION HE ISSUE which, in its broad framework, forms the subject of the present inquiry, is one upon which the T political tribunal of the world passed judgment twenty eight years ago. It is a problem of ancient origin. It sprang from the destruction of the Jewish State by Roman power and the consequent exile of the Jewish people from Palestine. It persisted through the centuries, everywhere affecting the rela tions between Jew and Gentile, creating· at all times conditions of malaise, and culminating, time after time, in mass expul sions and massacres. The background against which the present inquiry is set is but the latest phase of the homelessness of the Jewish people. If consideration of the problem is confined to the present plight of what is left of European Jewry, if that tragic experience is considered in vacuo, a historic opportunity will be missed for attacking the evil at its root. Realisation that the Jewish problem is deep-rooted in time and world-wide in scope is vital if the quest is to be for an enduring solution. 2. The Jewish people itself has never been in doubt as to the true solution. Faith in its ultimate restoration to its ancient home gave it strength to survive its tribulations. That faith has inspired a long chain of practical attempts to return. It stands. vindicated by the Jewish effort of reconstruction of the past sixty-five years. The energy released by contact with an cestral soil has transformed the vision into a creative reality. Zionist reconstruction in Palestine is to-day the most significant fact in Jewish life.
3. The true character of the Jewish problem was realised by leading democratic statesmen at the end of the first World War. It led them to the Zionist solution. The recognition of the right of the Jews to return to Palestine, there to re-establish their nationhood, was embodied in the new international order.
3 CHAPTER I
THE INTERNATIONAL RECOGNITION OF ZIONISM
4. On the 2nd November, 1917, the British Government issued the Balfour Declaration, by which it pledged itself to use its best endeavours to facilitate "the establishment in Palestine of a national home for the Jewish people." The Declaration was hailed by Jews throughout the world as the charter of their national restoration. It was endorsed by the French and Italian Governments and by the President of the United States. On the 25th April, 1920, the Supreme Council of the Allied and Associated Powers, at its meeting at San Remo, allotted the Mandate for Palestine to Great Britain with the express pro· viso that it was to be responsible for giving effect to the Balfour Declaration. In the Palestine Mandate, approved by the Coun cil of theLeague ofNations on the 24th July,1922, theBalfour Declaration was recited in full in the Preamble, which added that '"recognition has thereby been given to the historical con nection of the Jewish people with Palestine and to the grounds for reconstituting their national home in that country." The British Government was made responsible "for placing the country under such political, administrative and economic conditions as will secure the establishment of the Jewish Na tional Home" and, with this end in view, was enjoined to "facilitate Jewish immigration" and "encourage... close settle ment by Jews on the land." The Mandate had previously been submitted to the United States Government, and on June 30th, 1922, a joint resolution in support of the policy was adopted by Congress. By the Anglo-American Convention of December 3rd, 1924, the United States adhered to the Mandate, which was not to be modified without its consent. 5. The policy of the Balfour Declaration was thus ratified by the fifty-one Member States of the League of Nations and by the United States. The Balfour Declaration, originally a defi nition of British policy, had evolved into what Mr. Churchill, then Secretary of State for the Colonies, described in the House of Commons on March 9th, 1922, as "a great world-wide pledge" which formed the basic condition upon which His Majesty's Government was entrusted with the Mandate for 4 Palestine. Speaking in the House of Lords on June 27th, 1923, the Colonial Secretary, the Duke of Devonshire, stated: "The Mandate is not merely a national obligation; it is an in· ternational obligation, and the Balfour Declaration was the basis on which we accepted from the Principal Allied Powers the posi· tion of mandatory power in Palestine." In a despatch dated October 4th, 1923, after quoting the Bal four Declaration, the Colonial Secretary went on to say: "It (the Declaration) formed an essential part of the conditions on which Great Britain accepted the Mandate for Palestine, and thus constituted an international obligation from which there can be no question of receding." (Cmd. 1989 (1923), p. 3, para. 2.) Two years later, at the seventh session of the Permanent Man· dates Commission, the Accredited British Representative said: "The Commission should remember that it was, after all, the Bal- · four Declaration which was the reason why the British Govern· ment was now administering Palestine". 6. The Balfour Declaration was conceived by its authors as an act of historic reparation. It was described in the Preamble to the Mandate as having given recognition to the historical connection of the Jewi~h people with Palestine. That attach· ment, with the cumulative weight of history behind it, has never beeu more alive than it is to-day.
CHAPTER II THE HISTORICAL CONNECTION OF THE JEWISH PEOPLE WITH PALESTINE 7. The association of the Jewish people with the land of Pal estine is a unique historical phenomenon. The Jews were not the only people of the ancient East whose independence was crushed by the might of Imperial Rome. But no other nation paid so heavy a price for its loss of statehood. The Romans did not as a rule drive into exile the nations that fell under their sway. If the latter accepted the conquest and the political and spiritual implications of the "Pax Romana", they were allowed to stay in their land. The Jews, because of their deep· rooted monotheistic tradition, found themselves incapable of abandoning their "Law" and becoming immersed in the melt- S ing pot of the Roman-Hellenistic civilisation. The last phase of the Jewish Commonwealth was an almost uninterrupted chain of revolts against Roman rule. The great rising, known as the Judaean War, was, according to Roman records, one of the fiercest national struggles which the Roman Legions ever had to face. After a three years' bitter campaign, Jewish re sistance was overcome, Jerusalem reduced and destroyed, and the central sanctuary of the nation laid in ashes. Sixty years later the Jews rose again in a national insurrection led by Bar Kochba, and for three years defied the Roman forces. Over 1,000,000 Jews are said to have perished in the Judaean War, nearly 600,000 in Bar-Kochba's revolt. Jerusalem was tran~ formed into a Roman colony, and the name of Judaea officially abolished. No Jew was allowed to live in the former capital nor even to visit it on pain of death. The Roman Governors ruthlessly exterminated all those suspected of complicity in past revolts or of potential leadership in future risings. Large numbers were compelled by political suppression and economic exhaustion to leave their native land. Tens of thousands W':;re sold into slavery. A considerable population, however, stub bornly clung to the ancestral soil, and for several centuries after the Destruction Jewish communities survived in town and country. 8. If the Jews paid for their stubborn monotheism and pas sionate nationalism with the loss of their country, it was that tenacity and the never dying hope of eventual return which on the other hand enabled them to maintain their national identity in exile. Before the dispersion began, the spiritual leaders had enshrined the Law and the memory of Zion so deeply in re ligious and institutional life that Palestine remained a living reality in the Jewish consciousness. 9. The "love of Zion" was not a mere sentimental attachment. In the theory and practice of Jewish law, as maintained with full rigour throughout the Diaspora, Palestine remained the national centre. In saying his prayers, the Jew, wherever fate had exiled him, turned to the Holy Mount of Moriah. Jewish liturgy was permeated with supplications for the gathering of the exiles and the rebuilding of Jerusalem "speedily in our days". At the midnight hour the devout Jew would rise, sit on 6 the floor, cover his head with ashes to mourn the destruction of Zion and pray for her redemption. The days of fasting and mourning of the Jewish calendar are nearly all memorials of national disasters in Palestine. "Next year in Jerusalem" is the hopeful note upon which conclude the solemn rituals of the Passover night and of the Day of Atonement. At birth, marriage and death, symbolical rites were in practice as con· stant reminders of the Destruction. Through the ages, the Jew continued to pray for rain and dew in the seasons when the soil of Palestine needed them. And whatever magnificent synago gues he might build in distant lands, they were but "temporary sanctuaries", while the ruin of the Wailing Wall in Jerusalem remained for him the holiest site on earth. 10. Similarly, in the Hebrew literature of the Exile, from the early mediaeval liturgists, right through the Golden Age of Hebrew letters in Spain, to the modern Hebrew revival in the middle of the nineteenth century, Zion and the longing for the Return formed the central theme. The finest gem of mediaeval Hebrew literature is the classic "Elegy to Zion" of Rabbi Ye· huda Halevy of Toledo (about 1150), who voiced the national longing in songs and philosophical writings which reveal how deeply the aspiration was alive among the prosperous Jewry of Spain, who at that time suffered no persecution and took an active part in the intellectual hfe of their Arab environment. In the same way the theme of the return to Palestine dominated Jewish law, religious and secular. A man could not force his wife to leave Palestine, but could divorce her if she refused to accompany him to the Holy Land. A contract for the purchase of property in Palestine might be concluded even on the Sab bath. Elaborate treatises were written in far-off lands on the law of the first fruits and the gleanings, of the tithe and of the seventh year, of the heave-offering and the shekel dues. Truly could it be said by Disraeli: "The vineyards of Israel have ceased to exist, but the eternal law enjoins the children of Is rael still to celebrate the vintage. A race that persists in celeb· rating their vintage, although they have no fruits to gather, will regain their vineyards." ("Tancred"). 11. The characteristic feature of this attachment was its realism; it was never of the merely visionary type. To the Jew, 7 Zion was not merely a site of sacred memories, as to Christians and Moslems, but the hearth and home of his exiled people, a lode-star in all its wanderings and its eventual haven of refuge. In every century of the long exile there were efforts to return. There were the Rabbis from France and England at the begin ning of the thirteenth century, Italian pilgrims in the fifteenth, the Spanish exiles in the sixteenth, the mystics of the seven teenth, the several waves of immigration from Eastern Europe in the eighteenth and, finally, the almost uninterrupted flow of immigrants from Russia, Poland, the Balkans, North Africa, the Yemen and the Middle East throughout the nineteenth century. Throy.gh all its ups and downs the flow was kept alive by Messianic longings which at times flared up with fierce ecstasy. Such movements as those of Moses of Crete in the ·fifth century, Serenus of Syria and Abu Isa of Ispahan in the eighth, David Alroy of Baghdad in the twelfth, Abulafia of Messina in the thirteenth, :<\.sher Lemmlein of Istria in the fif teenth, David Reubeni and Solomon Molcho in the sixteenth and, finally, the truly gigantic Messianic movement inspired by Shabbatai Zevi of Smyrna in the seventeenth, which shook the whole Jewish Diaspora to its foundations, revealed the ever-present readiness of Jews to abandon what they regarded as their merely temporary homes, relinquish their possessions and embark on the perilous journey to the land of their destiny. The continuity of Jewish settlement in the country was never broken. A remnant always remained. 12. Conditions in Europe and Palestine alike prevented a mass return, but faith in the final ingathering never wavered. "Individual Jews, or even here and there a Jewish community, might have found a sheltered anchorage; but the Jewish people was still in exile. Jews might have lived for generations in Poland or Russia, in Italy, Spain, or the Rhineland; but Pales tine was still the Land of Israel. The exile might or might not be in itself endurable; the life of the Dispersion was in any case but an episode. So long as it lasted, the Jewish spirit was in thrall. Sooner or later the exiles would be redeemed and the people restored to its land. Then, and then only, would the spell be broken. To the Jews of the Middle Ages-· and for the Jews the Middle Ages did not end until well into the eighteenth century - all this was axiomatic. Save in a few 8 exceptional cases, it never occurred to them, any more than it occurred to their neighbours, that they had a place in the per manent fabric of the societies among which they dwelt. The part they were permitted to play in those soc.ieties might, in its degree, be useful or even dignified. But through good and evil days alike, Palestine remained the desire of their hearts. In the ease and security of Andalusia, hardly less than in the gloomy recesses of the ghetto, they stretched out their hands to Palestine- sang of it, prayed for it, wept for its fallen majesty, and patiently awaited the hour of redemption."* 13. The expectation of the eventual return of the Jews to Palestine was widespread even among Gentiles. The re-admis sion of the Jews to England by Oliver Cromwell was linked with that belief. The conviction lived on in the writings of Milton and Newton and of numerous British' theologians and scientists of the eighteenth century. Among its continental pro tagonists were the Dane Paulli, the French priest Jurieux and the Prince de Ligne. In the nineteenth century the idea was championed by many writers, especially in England. It was popularised in the "Hebrew Melodies" of Lord Byron and in the novels of Benjamin Disraeli and George Eliot, who pleaded for "a Jewish polity, grand, simple, just, like the old; ... an organic State; a heart and brain to watch and guide and exe cute; the outraged Jew shall have a defence in the Court of Nations". In America, too, the idea found sympathetic support in high places. John Adams, the second President of the United States, was one of its warm supporters. In ·a letter addressed to Major M. M. Noah, he wrote: "I really wish the Jews again: in Judaea, an independent nation."*·*
14. Modern Zionism translated this enduring attachment into an organised political movement directed to practical effort. The pent-up energies of centuries of exile found a creative out let. Yet historical attachment alone could not have produced the present effort. Its compelling reason was the untenable posi tion of the Jews in the Diaspora. It was the danger of national and physical extinction which gave birth to the new Judaea.
* Leonard Stein: ''Zionism", pp. 19-20. u N. Sokolow, "History of Zionism", p. 59. 9 CHAPTER Ill
THE POSITION OF THE JEWS IN THE DIASPORA
15.. The Jews were too strong and tenacious a group to dis solve in the melting pot of the ancient world and during their migrations and tribulations in the Middle Ages. On the other hand, their religious non-conformity, their homelessness as a nation and their ubiquitous minority status ren.dered them ever ready targets of incitement and victims of oppression. They survived the brutality of mediaeval persecution, but their num bers dwindled. At the time of the Destruction they numbered about 4,500,000. By the end of the fifteenth century, they had been reduced to about 1,500,000, which figure remained al most stationary for 200 years. 16. Their migrations took them from Palestine to Mesopo tamia, Egypt, Syria and the Yemen, and later to Greece and ltaly whence they followed the Roman legions into France, Germany and England. In the wake of the Arab conquest they came to settle in the borderlands of the Western Mediterranean, enjoying a brief spell of prosperity under Moslem rule in Spain. In Western Europe, though from the outset inferior in status, they were until the era of the Crusades tolerated as use ful middlemen in the primitive economic structure of France, England and Germany. Denied access to the land and the in dustrial guilds, they became the merchants and bankers of the :early Middle Ages, Christians being forbidden by the canon law to engage in money-lending. Christian rulers encouraged the settlement of Jews in their domains as they provided an easy object for financial extortions, but this odious privilege only served to inflame their primitive neighbours against them. 17. The Crusades were marked by a wave of persecution all over Western Europe which, in the end, led to the expulsion of Jews from England and parts of France. As a Christian class of merchants arose after the Crusades, the expulsion of the Jews spread further. Oppression increased in severity during the 14th and 15th centuries. The massacres which accompanied the Black Death drove large numbers of Jews from Central and Western Europe to Poland and Lithuania. The Inquisition ushered in an era of intense suffering which culminated in the 10 expulsion from Spain of all Jews who refused to embrace Christianity. The refugees found shelter in the Netherlands, in Italy and the Mediterranean and Balkan provinces of the Ottoman Empire. The end of the Middle Ages thus saw a con· centration of European Jews in Poland and Russia, on the one hand, and in the Near East on the other. This concentration continued until the end of the nineteenth century, when the per· secution of the Jews in Czarist Russia and Rumania caused a wave of migration back to Western Europe and a mass exodus to America. 18. From the later Middle Ages until the French Revolution, the Jews of Europe lived under & regime of disabilities. In Italy and Germany they were confined to ghettoes, compelled to wear a yellow badge and exposed to mob violence. Expul sions from one city to another were frequent. In Poland, where the Jews fulfilled an important economic function, there were no ghettoes, but degradation assumed other forms. A Cossack rising in the seventeenth century led to a fearful massacre of the Jews of the Polish Ukraine. After Poland fell under Rus sian control, their position gradually deteriorated. During the final stage of the Czarist regime, the Jews were restricted to a "pale of settlement" and subjected to numerous disabilities. The mass of the Jews in Czarist Russia iived in grim poverty. In the eighties of the nineteenth century and again in the first decade of the twentieth, pogroms broke out at the secret insti· gation of the Russian authorities, who tried to deflect popular wrath from the Czar's autocratic rule and vent it on the de· fenceless Jews. 19. In Western and Central Europe the French Revolution had emancipated the Jews. After the fall of Napoleon there was a reaction, but by the middle of the century the Jews had everywhere been conceded full civic rights and were taking an active part in economic and cultural life. The era of emanci pation was, however, of short duration. An anti-Semitic move ment set in, first in Germany and then in other parts of Central and Western Europe. The pan-German agitation of the eighties an<.! the Dreyfus case in France in the nineties exemplify this phase of Jew-baiting, which was to reach its peak half a century later in the German National-Socialist movement. 11 20. An.ti-Semitism is deeply embedded in the sub-conscious mind of the European nations. Its primary source is the dis trust and hatred of the "stranger", which is part of the herd instinct*. The Jews came to Europe as strangers, and for many centuries remained strangers because of their different religion and culture, traditions and occupations. Unlike every other people, they had no land of their own. Yet, to the mediaeval mind, that very dispersion and homelessness made them ap pear uncanny. "Men," wrote Pinsker, "are always terrified by a disembodied ghost, a soul wandering about with no phy sical covering; and terror breeds hatred."** 21. To this basic strain of xenophobia was added, from early mediaeval days, the anti-Jewish attitude of the Christian Church. The refusal of the Jews to accept the divinity of Christ placed them outside the pale of civilised humanity. "The Jew as he is encountered in the pages of the fourth-century writers is not a human being at all. He is a 'monstrosity', a theological abstraction, of superhuman cunning and malice, and more than superhuman blindness."*** Yet it has been suggested that the basic source of this "Christian" anti-Semitism was not Jewish
* The elements of that psychological complex have been well brought out in Rudrard Kipling's poem "The Stranger":- The Stranger within my gate, He may be true or kind, But he does not talk my talk - I cannot feel his mind. I see the face and the eyes and the mouth, But not the soul behind. The men of my own stock, They may do ill or well, But they tell the lies I am wonted to, They are used to the lies I tell; And we do not need interpreters When we go to buy and sell. The Stranger within my gate, He may be evil or good, But I cannot tell what powers control - What reasons sway his mood; Nor when the Gods of his far-off land May repossess his blood. "'* L. Pinsker: "Auto-Emancipation", 1882. *** J. W. Parkes: "The Conflict of the Church and the Synagogue'', p. 158. 12
( rejection of the Christian message, but, on the contrary, its forceful imposition on the pagan nations of Europe. Analysing the instinctive sources of the Nazi creed, Arnold Zweig writes: "A yearning for the old-native gods is inextinguishable in the group-mind of the Germans . . . When Christianity compelled the Teutonic and Slav peoples to pass beyond the childish stage (of their native creeds), though they had no inner yearn ing to do so, the roots of a hidden hatred... were planted in their minds." It could not vent itself against the real originator of the conflict, the author goes on, "that Western Christian civilisation which by-then was already dominant in the world. With savage instinct they sought and found a substitute enemy -the Jew, because in their detestation of his figure they could best conceal their enmity to the new doctrine. * 22. Economic competition became in time a powerful irri tant. The Jews were excluded from agriculture and basic in dustries. They were possessed of a deep-seated feeling of in security which put a premium on cash and easily realisable possessions. They crowded into the towns- and into middle men's careers, from petty trade to high finance, into small handicraft and later into the liberal professions. These became the traditional Jewish pursuits. In many a country the Jew enjoyed at first a virtual monopoly of them, but in due course the inevitable clash came. As new classes arose in the indi genous population to claim the economic positions held and (lften created by the Jews, the "strangers" had to quit. "This competition need not be general; it is sufficient for Jewish com petition to be felt in a few occupations for hatred of the Jews to be unloosed. The crowding of the Jews into the professions, which began some fifty years ago, has brought economic dis advantage only to a small section of the Christian population, but the exasperation produced in this section was sufficient for the launching of tremendous propaganda against the Jews which aroused much wider circles of the population." ** 23. These several trends combined to aggravate relations be tween the Jews and their neighbours from the middle of the nineteenth century onwards. In the economic sphere, the emer-
" A. Zweig: "Insulted and Exiled", p. 223. ** A. Ruppin: "The Jewish Fate and Future", London 1940, p. 211. 13 gence of the lower middle class everywhere increased the pressure on Jewish positions. In the political sphere the reac tionary forces which became dominant on the European con· tinent after the rise of the new Germany, found in anti-Semit ism a handy instrument for combating the progressive cause and deflecting popular discontent to the Jewish minority. The result was a wide network of political disabilities and eco nomic restrictions in various centuries of Europe, and an atmo sphere of hostility in the civil service, the judiciary, the schools, the universities and the whole fabric of social and economic life. 24. The process of economic elimination was accentuated by the aftermath of World War I. In Poland, which in the inter war period accounted for over a half of the European Jewish population outside the Soviet Union, it assumed catastrophic proportions. The loss of the Russian hinterland to the Polish textile trade hit the Jews more than it did others owing to their preponderance in that branch. The rise of the Polish peasant class spelt the ruin of the Jewish middle-man. The measures of economic rehabilitation and social reconstruction adopted by . the new Polish State offered no compensation to the Jewish community for its losses; they only served to aggravate its lot. Whenever the State took over a branch of commerce or an in dustry, the Jews formerly engaged in it lost their livelihood. The State employed no Jews in the nationalised service. The spread of cooperative trade at the expense of private enterprise led to similar consequences. The cruel paradox was that just the progressive trends such as nationalisation and cooperative enterprise proved fatal to the Jewish economy because of its precarious structure. As a result of the operation of economic and social forces-quite apart from any deliberate anti-Sem itism-the Jew found himself doomed. But the period of eco· nomic dejection also saw the unleashing of the fury of Jew hatred in Poland. The State schools became impregnated with it. In the universities a virtual numerus clausus and "ghetto benches'• for Jewish students became the rule. Social ostracism of the Jew prevailed throughout Poland. Outbreaks of phy sical violence were of frequent occurrence. Pre-war Polish Jewry lived in a state of perpetual and deepening gloom. On economic grounds alone, over one-third of it was adjudged )1 •'superfluous"- unreabsorbable in the country's economic fa.bric. ' 25. The same conditions prevailed in varying degrees in most countries of Eastern Europe, where the bulk of the Jews were settled. The minority treaties signed under the Versailles settle ment proved futile. In Hungary the "White Terror" was guilty of the most cruel outrages against the Jews. Hungary was the first country after 1918 where anti-Jewish laws, such as numerus clausus in schools and universities and other dis abilities, were introduced. In Rumania, Jews were frozen out from trades and professions. Students took a lead in anti Jewish excesses. Masses of Jews were deprived of their citizen ship. In Imperial Germany, the Army, the Civil Service, the higher Judiciary and the teaching profession had been barred to the Jews. "The Jews were thus compelled to flock to certain professions like medicine and the bar; but when they distin guished themselves there, they were accused of choosing easy work and shirking the other occupations. Socially they re mained for the most part isolated and dependent on each other; hut at the same time they were reproached for their seclu sion."* Under the Weimar Republic, "as far back as 1926 it was almost impossible for a young Jew to obtain employment in any of the larger banking institutions, or in one of the big industrial concerns. Boycott of Jews in the economic life of the country was unmistakable .. . The year 1933, therefore, represents more a drastic continuation than a beginning of the decline of German Jewry" .** 26. The Nazi regime~ during its initial phase, merely inten· sified policies that were already in vogue. Hitler turned anti· Semitism into a comprehensive system of st1lte policy. The ·'Nordic race" theory, elaborated by anti-Semitic agitators and pseudo-scientists for half a century, was elevated into a state doctrine. Having attained the mastery of Germany, he used anti-Semitic agitation as a means for undermining democracy both in Europe and in overseas counhies. "'Anti-Semitic propaganda in all countries' (he said to Rausch ning) , 'is an almost indispensable medium for the extension of * E. Frankenstein : "Justice for My People", p. 28. •• S. Adler-Rude}: "The Agony of a People" (in "The Future of the Jews", London 1945, p. 31). 15 our political campaign. You will see how little time we shall need in order to upset the ideas and the criteria of the whole world, simply and purely by attacking Judaism ... ' Anti-Semit· ism was beyond question the most important weapon in his propagandist arsenal, and almost everywhere it was of deadly efficiency." " "Active anti-Semitism . . . is the means by which the first effective propaganda groups are set up all over the world. We can readily see the share anti-Semitism hl!-d in France, together with the campaign against Freemasonry, in producing Hitler's success. So it was in Poland, in Czecho-Slovakia, and in Aus tria. Everywhere anti-Semitism was the starting point of the process of sowing dissension, breaking up political unity, work· ing on business jealousies, and preparing the way for a revolu tionary attack on property."** This was the application to a particularly favourable poli tical and psychological situation- Germany's defeat and impoverishment- of a method which had been successfully used against Jews by tyrants and demagogues since time im· memorial. As long as the Jewish people remains in its dis persed and helpless position, it will be exposed to the same perils. "Had France in 1918 suffered defeat, and not Ger many," observed a modern historian, "new Derouledes and Drumonts would have arisen, and not Hitler."*** 27. The psychological effects of the anti-Semitic agitation were marked not only in the countries where it was officially sponsored, but even where the Jews enjoy full equality. The following analysis of the position of the Jews in Europe is all the more significant as it was written in England and is based on present-day experience in that country: "In most countries some Jews have been allowed, at one period of history or another, under this or that garb, to rise to the highest offices and honours, to attain rank and power: as in· dividuals, not as Jews. Yet there has hardly been one among them who at some stage in his career did not feel, closing on him and enveloping him, the miasmatic, choking film of that mysterious, undefinable 'Jewish problem', so unlike anything his neighbours have to encounter ... "Not even in this country does the Jew enjoy the same moral freedom to express his views, especially in politics, as the non-
• H. Rauschning: "Hitler Speaks", p. 233. "'* H .Rauschning: "The Beast from the Abyss", p. 37 . ... L. B. Namier: "Conflicts", p. 131. 16 Jew. If a Socialist, he is suspect of Bolshevism; if a Conser vative, he is a 'bloated capitalist' ... "Most of the peculiarities with which the Jew is taunted (and sometimes tainted) are the result of deeper malai.se. Har ried, he is blamed for being restless; kept out or kept down, he is described as pushing and assertive; hurt, he searches for compensations and is called vain, blatant, or self-indulgent; in secure, he yearns for standing, power and wealth: which some times protect him, but more often expose him the more to at· tack ... "He is self·conscious and embarrassed, and his company be· comes exhausting. In public life he is too patriotic a!ld public spirited (for he continually pays entrance fees and ransom) ; or, having experienced social injustice, he becomes the spokes man of the injured and aggrieved- a part we have often play ed, and for which we have almost invariably paid the penalty. At present the Jew is, if not a 'refugee', at least a perpetual evacuee from a non-existing home ... "I eschew speaking here of countries where the flood of anti-Semitism has broken all dams, where insulting the Jew is the law of the land, and killing him no longer murder . . . I eschew speaking even of milder forms of anti-Semitic action, such as prevailed in pre-war Poland or Rumania. I speak of countries where the Jews experience nothing worse than discreet relegation or special advertency, and suffer of malaise and not of persecution; where the Jews congratulate themselves on their luck, and the non-Jews on their generosity; but where, none the less, anti-Semitism is like a dark c.loud on the horizon, and friends come to the Jew with worried faces to tell him how much they are disturbed by the rapid growth of anti-Semitism which they have noticed recently. And this is usually said with a faint suggestion that the Jew can, and should, do something about it; although he can do about as much to deal with the rising storm, if it does rise, as men in a foundering barque can to assuage a raging sea ... "Whenever some specially unpleasant or provoking incident occurs, Jews, who by no stretch of imagination could be con nected with it, murmur: 'I hope to God the fellow is not a Jew' ... Without the least power to control individual members of our race, who frequently have lost all touch with us, we are expected to achieve in discipline what a totalitarian dictatorship could hardly undertake."*
28. The tidal wave of anti-Semitism which began to rise throughout the Western world less than half a century after * L. B. Namier: "Conflicts", pp. 122-131. 17 the granting of emancipation has proved conclusively that the dispersion and assimilation of the Jews do not generally pro duce a mode of life which enables Jews and Gentile to live to gether in complete harmony. "We Jews in the cultured coun tries which have become anti-Semitic", wrote Theo~ore Herzl fifty years ago, "wanted to assimilate, but our very attempts to do so have produced modern anti-Semitism. It will be so, it must be so, everywhere. When the Jews are few, assimilation is demanded of them; when their numbers increase, their assi milation is viewed as a national peril." It was this analysis which led Herzl to Zionism.
CHAPTER IV. THE RISE OF MODERN ZIONISM 29. The Jewish national renaissance began, like that of many other peoples, in the cultural sphere: the second half of the nineteenth century witnessed a remarkable Hebrew literary re vival in Eastern Europe. Hebrew had at all times been alive among the Jews as the language of prayer, of religious, philo· sophica] and scientific literature and of personal correspon, dence. Its re-emergence as a medium of secular poetry and fiction marked a turning point. The revival was from its early beginnings permeated with the national strain. It opened with novels on Biblical subjects, written in Biblical Hebrew and instinct with a passionate attachment to Palestine. The new outlook was soon translated into political thought. Among its protagonists were both distinguished rabbis and pronounced secularists- Rabbi Hirsh Kalischer and Rabbi Yehuda Al calay, on the one hand, and Moses Hess, the socialist author of "Rome and Jerusalem", on the other. Their forms of ex· pression might differ widely, their basic outlook was identical: the Jews were a people with all the attributes of a nation ex cept a land of their own; they were entitled to free develop ment and political independence; they should be re-established in their ancient home. 30. The first few idealists, glowing with the dream of a mass return and the restoration of statehood, went to Palestine in 1880. The pogroms which broke out in Russia later in that 18 year and in 1881 laid bare the precarious state of masses of Jews th'roughout Eastern Europe. To most thinking Jews exo dus seemed the only solution. Mass emigration to America started almost at once. But many saw salvation only in Pales tine. Societies of would-be pioneers sprang up all over Rus sia and Rumania. Among the first to go was an inter-univer sity group of students called "Bilu", who left Russia for Pal estine early in 1882. Laurence Oliphant, an English pro Zionist who met them in Constantinople, tried hard but in vain to obtain for them a grant of land from the Sultan. The "Bilu" were the prototypes of the present "Halutz" movement. Service for the people and the redemption of the land were their motto, and their original statutes excluded any form of private gain. al. Shortly after, there appeared a pamphlet entitled "Auto· E~ancipation", published by Dr. Leo Pinsker of Odessa. It stated the new outlook with rare clarity and vigour. Pinsker traced the Jewish problem to the homelessness of the Jews as a people. "The Jewish people," he wrote, "has since its exile lacked the essential attributes of nationality. True, we have not ceased even in the lands of our exile to be spiritually a distinct nation; but this spiritual nationality, so far from giv ing us the status of a nation in the eyes of other nations, is the very cause of their hatred for us as a people." To nations living in normal conditions, the Jewish people presented "the eerie figure of a corpse wandering among the living." This "ghost phenomenon" inspired fear, a sort of ghost-terror. "Judaeophobia", he diagnosed, "is a psychosis. As a psychotic condition it is hereditary, and as a disease which has been transmitted for 2000 years, it is incurable." The Jewish posi tion had become degrading and intolerable. "To be plundered as a Jew or to be protected as a Jew, is· equally shameful and equally painful." Anti-Semitism was directed against all Jews without distinction of class. "Thus the Jew is a corpse to the living, an alien to the native, a tramp to the indigenous, a beg gar to the well-to-do, an exploiter to the poor, a man without a country to the patriot, a hated competitor to all classes." As they had no country or state, the Jews were utterly defence less. "We do not count as a nation among other nations, and we have no voice in the council of the peoples even in matters that concern ourselves. Alien countries are our fatherlands, 19 dispersion is our unity, the world's hostility to us constitutes our solidarity. Our weapon is humility, our defence is flight, our originality is adaptability, our future is tomorrow. What a contemptible role for a people that once had its Macca bees!" Civil emancipation, Pinsker insisted, had not given the Jews real freedom. It had been conceded merely in deference to abstract postulates of logic, right and interest, but did not represent the true feelings of the Gentile world. The ab normal position of the Jewish people could be remedied only by "their emancipation as a nation among nations, and by the acquisition of a home of their own" - a liberation to be achieved by their own efforts. 32. In response to Pinsker's call there was established the society of the "Lovers of Zion." It originated in Russia and gradually spread to Western Europe, finding support among leading English Jews. It rallied to the support of the new Jewish settlements in Palestine. During the eighties and nine ties a number of Jewish villages were set up in J udaea, Samaria and Galilee. The settlers presented an entirely novel type of Jew; they were neither pilgrims nor, for the most part, vic tims of pogroms. They came to Palestine with the deliber ate purpose of working for the redemption of the Land and the People. The task was formidable. Few of them had had any agricultural experience. Their financial resources were meagre. The country was in a most primitive state -no com munications, no public services, a corrupt administration and perpetual insecurity. Malaria was rampant and took a terrible toll of the newcomers. Yet no people rooted for cen turies in its native land could have clung to the soil with greater tenacity and indifference to hardship than did these town-bred men and women. Their efforts aroused keen interest among the Jewries of the Diaspora. At a critical stage, Baron Edmond de Rothschild of Paris came to their assistance and, for about two decades, made himself responsible for financing and guiding the colonisation effort. By 1900, twenty-two agri ~ultural settlements had been set up with a population of some 5,000. A practical beginning had been made, which renewed the bond of the Jewish people with Palestine and created in it a living focus of national hope. lt was towards the end of the century that the movement experienced a new surge which 20 brought it out from a corner of Jewish life into the broad day light of world affairs. Zionism emerged as a political move ment of world-wide scope and intense appeal. 33. The founder of political Zionism was Dr. Theodore Herzl, of Vienna, originally not associated with Jewish affairs. As a correspondent of the "Neue Freie Presse" in Paris he attended the trial of Captain Alfred Dreyfus on a trumped-up charge of high treason, and witnessed the frantic outburst of anti Semitic hostility which accompanied it. This revealed to him in a flash the depth of the Jewish tragedy. "The Dreyfus case", he wrote, "embodies more than a judicial error; it embodies the desire of the vast majority of the French to condemn a Jew, and to condemn all Jews in this one Jew. Death to the Jews! howled the mob, as the decorations were being ripped from the Captain's coat. .. Where? In France! In republican, modern, civilised France, a hundred years after the Declara tion of the Rights of Man. The French people, or at any rate the greater part of the French people, does not want to extend the rights of man to Jews. The edict of the great Revolution has been revoked." It was under the influence of this searing experience that Herzl wrote in 1896 "The Jewish State: An Attempt at a Modern Solution of the Jewish Question." It was a powerful analysis of the position of the Jews in the Diaspora leading up to the plea for the establishment of a Jewish state which would remove the scourge of homelessness from the entire race. 34. "The Jewish question", Herzl wrote, "exists wherever Jews are found in larger numbers. Where it does not exist it is brought in by immigrating Jews. We. move naturally toward those areas where we are not persecuted; our appearance in those areas is followed by persecution. This is and must remain true even in highly developed countries- France proved it as long as the Jewish question is not solved politically . . . It is a national question, and in order to solve it we must transform it into a world issue to be answered in the council of the civil ised nations. We are a people, one people. We have every where tried honestly to disappear among our environ111ent and to retain only the faith of our fathers. We are not permitted to do so. In vain do we show our loyalty, and in some cases
21 display an exaggerated patriotism. In vain do we bring the same sacrifices of blood and gold as our fellow citizens. In vain do we exert ourselves to increase the glory of our father lands by achievements in art and science, to increase their wealth by our economic contributions. In countries where we have lived for many centuries, we are denounced as strangers, frequently by those whose forefathers were not yet in the land when ours were already settled there... The ancient prejudices against us are rooted deep in the people. In order to get at the truth of the matter it is only necessary to listen where the people expresses itself authentically and simply: the legends and proverbs of the simple folk are anti-Semitic... The dis tinctive nationality of the Jewish people cannot, must not, and will not he submerged. This has been demonstrated in 2000 years of frightful suffering." 35. From this analysis Herzl inferred the imperative necessi ty of a Jewish state. It would relieve the problem of Jewish op pression, for, apart from improving the lot of those who emi grated, it would transform the position of those who stayed behind. It would free them from the stigma of vagabondage and re-establish their dignity and self-respect. The realisation of his scheme the author visualised through the medium of a chartered company which would organise the great transmigra tion and establishment of the settlers in their new home. He would leave the choice of the homeland to Jewish public opinion, hut insisted that Palestine was a magic name. "Pal estine is our ever-memorable historic home. The very name of Palestine would attract people with a force of marvellous potency. The new state should he neutral; it would remain in contact with all Europe and should he placed under the inter national guarantee of the European states." 36. The hold plea electrified the Jewish world. The author, a member of the Viennese Jewish upper class who until then had had little contact with the mass of Jewry, found himself transformed overnight into a national leader and hero. Within a few months Zionist groups sprang up all over the world, old societies_of "Lovers of Zion" joined the new movement, and a year later a Zionist Congress met at Basle under Herzl's chair manship, the first representative political assembly of the 22. J~wish people since its dispersion. By the time it was convened, popular reaction had convinced Herzl that Palestine was the only choice. The Congress founded the World Zionist Organi !'ation and formulated the so-called Basle Programme: "Zion· ism strives to create for the Jewish people a home in Palestine secured by public law." The essential advance of the new mo,·ement beyond its precursors lay in its assertion that na tional salvation could not be achieved by the piecemeal process of setting up isolated settlements, but only by securing full political autonomy, internationally guaranteed. Herzl's orien tation was pro-British. " England the great, England the free", said Herzl in his inaugural speech at the first Zionist Congress, "England, whose gaze sweeps over all the seas, will understand us and our aims." :37. The initial efforts of the leader were directed towards obtaining a charter of settlement from the Turkish Sultan, to be guaranteed, it was hoped, by the Great Powers. For five years, Herzl conducted .negotiations to thjs end, but failed to produce concrete results. During this peri.od a great advance was made in winning over Jewish opinion to Zionism and in organising the machinery of the ~ovement. The Zionist Orga ni:;;ation was set up on democratic lines, its basis a Congress elected by the adherents of the movement throughout the world, meeting every other year and electing in its turn an Executive Committee and General Council responsible for the direction of its affairs. A " Jewish Colonial Trust" was est~b li shed in London as the fi nancial instrument of the Organisatjon, while a '·Jewish National Fund", likewise registered in England, was to provide funds for the purchase of land as the inalienable property of the nation. Both institutions owed their financial support mainly to the contributions, small but constant, of common Jewish folk in Eastern and Central Europe. Few of the more prosperous Jews of Western Europe were to be found among the early supporters of Zionism. :38. In 1903 the British Government, at the instance of Mr. Joseph Chamberlain, then Colonial Secretary, offered the Zionist Organisation some territory in British East Africa. At an earlier stage, Chamberlain had shown his interest in Zion· i::m by supporting a project for the establishment of a Jewish 23 settlement near El-Arish in the Sinai Peninsula. Chamberlain's new offer was an encouraging mark of British sympathy and an indication that the young movement was being taken seriously.* It came at a moment when all efforts to obtain a charter from the Turkish Government had proved futile and when the in tense urgency of the Jewish question was again being demon strated by the pogroms in Russia. Yet, significandy enough, it was the Russian Zionists who were solidly against the scheme. They expressed gratitude to the British Government for its magn animous offer, but to them the solution of the Jewish problem was unthinkable out?ide Palestine. Without the inspiration which only the historic homeland could supply, the enterprise would be doomed to failure. The acceptance of the offer would be a betrayal of the faith maintained through all the martyr dom of the dispersion. In the end the Congress nevertheless authorised the sending of an expedition to East Africa to in vestigate the proposed area. The Russian Zionists, however, supported by other Zionist groups, maintained their opposi tion. The report turned out to be unfavourable, and the project was dropped. The controversy revealed the intense attachment to Palestine of the mass of East European Jews- that very Jewry whose catastrophic position called most urgently for a remedy. Another result of the Uganda issue was hardly less instructive. A group of Western Zionists, headed by Israel Zangwill, seceded and formed the Jewish Territorial Organisa tion for the purpose of promoting Jewish colonisation outside Palestine. The JTO explored a large number of projects in various parts of the world, but none of them materialised. Led by prominent public men, but unable to gain mass support nor to show anything tangible for' its efforts, it was finally dis solved by its founder in 1918. 39. The rejection of the East African project had yet a further important sequel: it turned the Zionist Organisation from mere political activity towards constructive work in Palestine. Ori ginally, the movement had been averse to gradual and small scale colonisation, but as the prospect of a colonising charter receded, a policy of abstention from practical work became • The official letter from the Foreign Office conveying the offer contained tbt passage that the Foreign Secretary had studied the question "with the interest whlch His Majesty's Government must always take in any well-considered !'Cherne for the amelioration of the position of the Jewish Race".
24 untenable. Accordingly, in 1908, the Zionist Organisation es tablished in Jaffa a "Palestine Office" under the direction of Dr. Arthur Ruppin, designed to promote settlement activity. The office initiated the establishment of a Jewish garden sub urb adjoining Jaffa - the nucleus of present-day Tel Aviv. It formed the ":Palestine Land Development Company", for the acquisition and amelioration of land. It set up the first work men's agricultural settlements and founded an Agricultural Experiment Station. 40. This period witnessed a further large wave of Jewish im migration, mainly from Eastern Europe. Its outstanding feature was the emergence of a new social type- young in tellectuals determined to create a Jewish working class, with· out which the national structure would lack a solid base. They, set out to prevent the Jews of Palestine becoming merely land owners, with the Arabs as hewers of wood and drawers of water. They sought to give manual labour a new dignity in the life of a people divorced from it for centuries. This spirit animated both the hired agricultural labourers on existing plantations and the new agricultural communes which were then founded. In these, the striving of the new pioneers for social justice in everyday life found full scope. 41. A further important development of the period was the revival of Hebrew as a spoken language, initiated by Eliezer Ben Yehuda in 1880. It became the language of agriculture and trade, of workshop and factory, of kindergarten and col lege. It gave the immigrants from different countries a cul tural cohesion and a new self-respect. In 1913 a Technical College was built on the slopes of Mount Carmel, and in 1914 a site on Mount Scopus, facing Jerusalem, was acquired for the Hebrew University. 42. When the war broke out in 1914, the new Jewish settle ment could look back upon three decades of development. Forty-three agricultural settlements had been set up, all inter· nally self-governing, with a population of 12,000 and an area of 100,000 acres. Their annual output included 90ro of the country's wine and 30% of its oranges, and formed one-half of the exports from Jaffa. In the towns, too, the Jewish popu lation had grown. In Jerusalem, the Jews formed the majority, 25 having increased from about 14,000 in 1881 to 45,000 in 1913. In all, the Jews of Palestine at the outbreak of the war numbered some 85,000, of whom recent settlers formed about one-half. In no other country was the percentage of Jews in agriculture so high. Palestine had proved that urban European Jews could become farmers and had in them the capacity for community building. "What gave the new settlement an im portance out of all proportion to its size was the distinctive quality and flavour of its corporate life. Invigorated by con tact with the soil of Palestine, the Jews were already beginning to emerge as an organised and articulate society with a well marked character of its own .•. in which their fellow Jews else where saw, with hope and pride, the promise of a Jewish re naissance." * 43. The war raised the hope of liberation from Ottoman rule and of a decisive advance towards the Zionist goal. While the effort led by Dr. Weizmann in London and supported by Zion· ist leaders in America was aiming at a political decision, a movement arose for the formation of Jewish legions to fight on the side of the Allies in the conquest of Palestine. A "Zion Mule Corps", originally intended for the Sinai campaign, fought in Gallipoli. As the advance into Palestine began, thousands of Jewish volunteers from England, the United States, Canada, the Argentine and Palestine itself joined the Jewish Battalions of the British Army (the 38th, 39th and 40th Royal Fusiliers). The Foreign Office Handbook on Syria and Palestine reports that after the conquest of southern Palestine "practically the whole available Jewish youth of the colonies and many of the townsmen of military age came forward for voluntary enlist ment in the Jewish Battalions", and that "the initiative in favoilr of the recruiting movement took place as the result of the demand of the Jewish population itself, rather than from any desire or even encouragement from the British authorities". 44. It was the progress of Jewish work in Palestine and the spread of the Zionist idea that paved the way for the Balfour Declaration. * L. J. Sttin: "Zionism", p. 61).
26 CHAPTER V. THE BALFOUR DECLARATION AND THE PALESTINE MANDATE 45. In the Balfour Declaration and the Palestine Mandate Zionism attained the international endorsement for whicli it had long striven. The covering letter to the Declaration de ::cribes it as a declaration of sympathy "with Jewish-Zionist aspirations". Its ultimate purpose, as ~nderstood by those who framed it, was the re-establishment of the Jewish Common wealth. "It is obvious", wrote the Royal Commission, "that His Ma· jesty's Government could not commit itself to the establish· ment of a Jewish State. It could only undertake to fa.cilitate the growth of a Home. It would depend mainly on the zeal and enterprise of the Jews whether the Home would grow big enough to become a State. Mr. Lloyd George, who was Prime Minister at the time, informed us in evidence that: 'The idea was, and this was the interpretation put upon it at the time, that a Jewish State was not to be set up immediate· ly by the Peace Treaty without reference to the wishes of the majority of the inhabitants. On the other hand, it was contemplated that when the time arrived for according re· presentative institutions to Palestine, if the Jews had mean· while responded to the opportunity afforded them by the idea of a national home and had become a definite majority of the inhabitants, then Palestine would thus become a Jew ish Commonwealth.' "Thus His Majesty's Government evidently realised that a Jew ish State might in course of time be established, but it was not in a position to say that this would happen, still less to bring it about of its own motion. The Zionist leaders, for their part, recognised that an ultimate Jewish State was not precluded by the terms of the Declaration, and so it was understood else· where. 'I am persuaded', said President Wilson on the 3rd March, 1919, 'that the Allied nations, with the fullest concur rence of our own Government and people, are agreed that in Palestine shall be laid the foundations of a Jewish Common· wealth.' General Smuts, who had been a member of the Im· perial War Cabinet when the Declaration was published, speak ing at Johannesburg on the 3rd November, 1919, foretold an increasing stream of Jewish immigration into Palestine and 'in generations to come a great Jewish State rising there once more'. Lord Robert Cecil in 1917, Sir Herbert Samuel in 1919, 27 and Mr. Winston Churchill in 1920 spoke or wrote in terms that could only mean that they contemplated the eventual establishment of a Jewish State. Leading British newspapers were equally explicit in their comments on the Declaration." Significant, too, is the statement made by Mr. Churchill to the Royal Commission regarding the Palestine White Paper of 1922, for which he had been respons1ble. "There is nothing in it," the Commission found, "to prohibit the ultimate establish ment of a Jewish State, and Mr. Churchill himself has told us in evidence that no such prohibition was intended." 46. As explained by the Royal Commission, time was bound to elapse and further efforts were to be made by the Jewi!'h people before the Jewish Commonwealth would come into being. Meanwhile, a legal and administrative framework had to be established as an interim regime to promote that end. This was the purpose of the Palestine Mandate. Its provisions had no precedent in international law, nor any parallel in other Mandates. They embodied two novel concepts. Firstly, the Administration was charged, over and above its general task of good government, with the development of a new so ciety- the Jewish National Home. Secondly, this obligation was undertaken in favour of the Jewish people as a whole, on whose behalf the Jewish Agency for Palestine was to cooperate with the Mandatory Administration. 47. As regards the first, the basic provision is in Article 2, which makes the Mandatory " responsible for placing the coun try under such political, administrative and economic condi tions as will secure the establishment of the Jewish National Home". The term "placing" clearly points to active interven tion on the part of the Mandatory, and not merely to its play ing the part of an arbitrator. Similarly, under Article 6, the Administration is required to "facilitate" Jewish immigration and to "encourage" close settlement of Jews on the land, and not merely to permit them. Commenting upon his article after doubts had arisen as to the construction put upon it by the Mandatory, the Prime Minister in his letter to the President of the Jewish Agency of February 13th, 1931, observed: "The obligation to facilitate Jewish immigration and to encourage close settlement by Jews on the land remains a positive obliga tion of the Mandate." 28 48. In addition to these creative injl}nctions, the Mandate con tains a number of protective clauses designed to safeguard ex isting rights and interests (Arts. 2, 9, 15, 16, 23) . These guar antee to all inhabitants of Palestine full civil and religious rights, respect for the personal status of the various peoples and communities, recognition of their holy days as legal days of rest and the safeguarding of the right of each community to maintain its own schools in its own language. Furthermore, in facilitating Jewish immigration and encouraging land settle ment, the Mandatory is to ensure that the rights and position of other sections of the population are not prejudiced. It is these safeguarding clauses which gave rise to the erroneous concep tion that the Mandatory is under dual obligations which are of equal weight, and that the protective provisions neutralise the positive ones. "Merely to sit still", wrote Mr. Churchill, "and avoid friction with Arabs and safeguard their civil and religious rights and to abandon the positive exertion for the establishment of the Jewish National Home would not be a faithful interpretation of the Mandate."*. An American in terpreter of the Mandate expresses the same view. "In the course of time", he writes, "it was claimed that the Mandate placed upon Great Britain an equal obligation to the Arabs and to the Zionists... It required, however, a transposi tion of the terminology of the Mandate by the transfer of sec ondary and subordinate clauses into primary positions to give real duality to the instrument. The plain sense of the document was inescapable. It sought to foster the establishment of a Jewish national home, while safeguarding, so far· as might be compatible with that purpose, the rights and well-being of the non-Jewish population." u The verdict of the Royal Commission on the point is explicit. "Unquestionably", it wrote, "the primary purpose of the Man date, as expressed in its preamble and its articles, is to pro mote the establishment of the Jewish National Home." (Report, p. 39). . 49. As for the second fundamental feature, the Mandate ac cepted the rights in regard to Palestine of the Jewish people as a whole. In a Colonial Office letter to the Palestine Arab • Quoted in "The Jewish National Home", edited by P. Goodman, London, 1943, p. 66. ** P. L. Hanna: "British Policy in Palestine", published by the American Council on Public Affairs, 1942, Washington, D.C. 29 Delegation embodied in the Palestine White Paper of 1922, the Balfour Declaration is described as "a pledge made by the British Government to the Jewish people." Similarly, the letter addressed by the Prime Minister to Dr. Weitmann on Februa· ry 13th, 1931, recognised "that the undertaking in the Man date is an undertaking to the Jewish people and not only to the Jewish people of Palestine." It may be permitted to quote also from the speech of Mr. Winston Churchill in the debate on the Palestine White Paper of 1939: "To whom was the pledge of the Balfour Declaration made? It was not made to the Jews of Palestine. it was not made to those who were actually living in Palestine. It was made to world Jewry and in particular to the Zionist associations. It w~s in consequence of and on the basis of this pledge that we received important help in the war, and that after the war we received from the Allies and Associated Powers the Mandate for Palestine. This pledge of a home, of refuge, of an asylum, was not made to the Jews in Palestine, but to the Jews outside Palestine, to that vast, unhappy mass of scattered, persecuted, wandering Jews whose intense, unchanging, unconquerable de sire bas been for a National Home." The instrument through which the Jewish people was to exer cise its rights in regard to Palestine was the Jewish Agency. Its general function was that of "advising and cooperating with the Administration of Palestine in such economic, social and other matters as may affect the establishment of the Jew ish National Home and the interests of the Jewish population in Palestine." The Jewish Agency was also "to assist and take part in the development of the country'', and, more specifical ly, to cooperate in the "close settlement by Jews on the land", as well as in "public works, services and utilities" and the development "of the natural resources of the country". 50. The Balfour Declaration thus became an alliance be tween Britain and the Jewish people; formed to carry out a great joint enterprise. This was no mere marriage of con venience, born of war-time needs; behind it lay a long period of British sympathy for Jewish hopes, and of Jewish admira tion for Britain. The bond was strengthened by common in terests. It has recently been suggested that the political ar· rangement laid down in the Declaration was of a one-sided c..:haracter which ignored the existence of the Arabs. To main- 30 tain this is to forget that it was only one part of a comprehen sive Middle Eastern settlement which lavishly endowed the Arabs with independence in vast parts of the former Ottoman Empire, conquered by British arms. The task was clear and the framework for it had been set up by the Mandate.
CHAPTER VI. THE BREAJ(DOWN OF THE MANDATE 51. It was one thing to enunciate a great policy of reconstruc tion. It was another to translate it into the humdrum terms of administrative routine. The task was without precedent. To govern a country not only in the interests of its present inhabit ants, but with a view to the absorption of a continuous stream of newcomers and the progressive evolution of a new society, called for administrative statesmanship of the highest order. The Colonial Office had no tradition of active develqpmental policy in the countries under its control. Nor had the Palestine Administration received any training or ·clear guidance for its novel task. It was recruited largely from officers who had ~erved in the War. Many were without any administrative experience, all without preparation · for this unprecedented responsibility. A good many had begun their association with the Middle East in Arabic-speaking countries. Others were accustomed to dealing with subject peoples, and felt ill at ease in handling a complex community, mainly of European origin. Not a few showed lack of sympathy with the Great Design or scepticism of its practicability. There were, indeed, some lead ing figures imbued with the spirit of the new policy, but they were too few to change the general orientation. The Admini stration deserves full credit for having, within a relatively short period, built up on the ruins of the primitive Ottoman regime, a modern machinery of government, and for having constantly striven to improve it. Yet its conception of its duties was essentially static, in the sense that it considered itself mainly responsible for the well-being of the existing popula tion and not for the promotion of further growth. The result was that, while adherence to the standards of the Colonial Of fice produced improvements in various fields and some notable 31 technical achievements (such as the construction of the Haifa harbour,. the building of main roads, the laying of the Jerusa lem water pipe line, afforestation and agricultural experi· ments), the provisions of the Mandate for the active promo tion of the Jewish National Home remained largely in operative. 52. The lack of sympathy of the Administration for the task entrusted to it could not fail to be noted by the Arabs. They inevitably interpreted it, to quote the Royal Commission, "as showing that the British determination to implement the Bal four Declaration is not sincere" (p. 363). This was bound to encourage opposition which had been latent from the outset. The Zionist leaders had always realised the importance of securing Arab goodwill and made repeated attempts to estab lish contact with the Arab world. When, early in 1918, a Zionist Commission was sent out to Palestine to advise the British authorities, it defined one of its tasks as that of "aiding and establishing friendly ·relations with the Arabs". 53. How Dr. Weizmann then sought out the Emir Feisal and later reached with him an agreement for cooperation between the Arab State and Palestine, is described in the Royal Com mission's Report (p. 26). As it was, the Arab State did not, at the time, come into being, for reasons which had nothing to do with Palestine or the Jewish National Home. But it is pertinent to point out that the Arabs have since attained their independ ence throughout the area of the proposed "Arab State". The condition thus set by the Emir Feisal for honouring his agree ment with Dr. Weizmann has been fulfilled. Speaking of these negotiations many years later, at the 17th Zionist Congress in 1931, Dr. Weizmann said: "Many years have passed since then, but in all these years, I have never neglected an opportunity, whenever one offered it self, whether in Palestine, in London or elsewhere, of coming into touch with Arab and Moslem leaders, and of exploring for myself all possible avenues of cooperation. The blame for the exiguous success of these endeavours does not lie with me." 54. The Zionist movement has never allowed even armed attack and provocation to deflect it from seeking the coopera tion of the Arabs or from acknowledging Arab rights and wel fare as fundamental. In 1922, after the 1929 riots, and again 32 in 1936, this principle was firmly and publicly stated. In September, 1936, for instance, at a session of the Administra tive Committee of the Jewish Agency in London, the following resolution was adopted: "Months of terror have not destroyed the bonds of a common origin, of many centuries of a common civilisation, and of the common interests of tht; Jewish people and the Palestine Arabs in the uphuilding of Palestine. Our desire is to live in peace and cooperation with the Arabs, in accordance with the prin ciple that neither Jews nor Arabs shall dominate or be domin ated."
55. It was anticipat~d that, with the development of the coun try, common economic and social interests would mitigate the political conflict and lead to cooperation in wider fields. Actual developments lent support to these expectations. The tissue of identical interests and neighbourly relations grew steadily, never entirely interrupted by outbreaks and always resumed on the restoration of peace. One example of such normal relationship is the association of Jewish and Arab orange growers, shown in joint representa tions to the Government and in common efforts to open up foreign markets. Another is the existence of certain Arab trade unions established with the help of the Histadrut (Jewish Labour Federation) and linked up with it in the Palestine Labour League. It was in no small measure due to the efforts of the Histadrut that Arab workers on the Railways, in the Port of Haifa and in various undertakings financed by inter national capital, secured an eight-hour day and improved working conditions, superior to those obtaining in Arab States. Similarly, the initial measures of labour legislation in Pales tine, designed for the benefit of Arabs and Jews alike, were due to the efforts of Jewish labour. In the municipalities of some of the mixed towns, notably in Haifa, Arab and Jewish councillors cooperated with fair smoothness. 56. Rural life likewise offered a wide field for intercourse. Arab farmers have learnt from the example of their Jewish neighbour~ and the work of the Jewish Agency's Agricultural Research Institute. Jewish agricultural settlements throughout the country have made every effort to maintain friendly rela- 33 tions with neighbouring Arab villages. Fellahin bring their sick children to the physicians of the Jewish settlements, re ceive gifts of seedlings acclimatized by the Jews and carry on trade with them. To foster such intercourse, the Jewish Agency has for a number of years maintained a system of resident and travelling instructors in Arabic and held courses in Arab man ners, folklore and traditions. · It is noteworthy that during the pre:war disturbances, attacks on Jewish settlements were usually carried out by armed bands specially sent there for that purpose. As a rule, the local Arab villagers dissociated themselves from these attacks, or even warned the settlements beforehand, at the risk of puni tive reprisals against themselves. 57. Arabic is taught in all Jewish secondary schools and in many elementary and village schools. At the Hebrew Univer sity, the School of Oriental Studies was one of the first Depart· ments to be set up; it has done much research work in Arab history and literature and has produced teachers of Arabic for the Hebrew schools. Valuable pioneer service in the cause of Jewish-Arab friend ship has been rendered by the Hadassah Medical Organisation whose hospitals have always been open to Arab patients and have also been frequented by Arabs from the neighbouring countries. 58. All these developments have meant a greater measure of daily contact than is generally realised abroad. They show. that between Jews and Arabs, as human beings, there is no innate hostility. They also indicate the acceptance by the Arabs of the Jewish immigrants, once they are settled. Al though this does not in itself resolve the present political dif ficulty, it is the most hopeful omen for the future.
59. The Jewish Agency has never minimised the difficulty. Zionist representatives have at every opportunity explored the chances of political agreement with the Arabs. The failure of these efforts (an account of which cannot here be rendered) has been mainly due to the denial by the Arab leaders of the basic Jewish claim for freedom of entry, subject to the pre sent inhabitants not being harmed. The Arab leaders strive to 34 keep Palestine a predominantly Arab country and want the Jews to accept a minority position in it. 60. The Arab leaders, in their opposition to the Mandatory regime, have resorted from time to time to organised mass violence, in which they played upon irrational fears, fanned religious fanaticism and exploited foreign influences - as in the disturbances of 1936-1939, when Arab terrorism was as· sisted by the Axis. Though the .risings were eventually put down, a premium was put on violence in the form of political concessions. That resistance from the Arabs created serious difficulties for the Administration cannot be doubted. But it is the belief of the Jewish Agency that, if the Mandatory had firmly adhered to the Balfour Declaration and had speeded up the development of the Jewish National Home, there would have been more hope of Arab acquiescence and political re· orientation. As it was, a converse process took place. Succes sive strategic withdrawals from the Balfour Declaration policy encouraged rather than diminished the resistance to it. 61. The subversion of the Mandate proceeded by stages. The first breach was the exclusion of Transjordan from the scope of the Jewish National Home. With one stroke the major part of the original area of Palestine was closed to Jewish immi gration and settlement. But even in Western Palestine the Jew ish National Home policy was not actively pursued. Except for the Electricity and Potash concessions, little specific action was taken by Government to promote the Jewish National Home. As regards immigration, the numbers for most of the period feil below the absorptive capacity created by the Jews them· selves. Jewish settlement on the land was not encouraged. Practically no agricultural State lands were set aside for it. The agrarian and fiscal systems were not helpful to Jewish colo nization. In short, the building up of the Jewish National Home by the efforts of the Jews themselves was first merely tolerated and then deliberately checked. A grave revelation of this trend was the Passfield White Paper of 1930, which was substantially revoked in the Prime Minister's letter to Dr. Weiz mann of February 1931. The menace of the Nazi and Fascist regimes and their agitation in the Middle East gave new im petus to the anti-Zionist drift. 35 62. The Report of the Royal Commission sent out in 1936 marked a new departure. It established that the original inten tion of the Balfour Declaration was an eventual Jewish Com monwealth. It accepted the claim of the Jewish people to ~tate hoo~ and recognised that only territorial sovereignty in Pales tine could meet its case. On the other hand, it limited that pro posed sovereignty to a fraction of Palestine - one-fifth of the country west of the Jordan, one-twentieth of the territory ori ginally covered by the Balfour Declaration. The Mandatory Government promptly announced their acceptance of the scheme in principle, but in the process of working out its prac tical details , the Woodhead Commission reduced it to an ab surdity. Finally, to meet the Axis challenge and win the sup port of the Arab States in the looming struggle, the Briti~h Government, in the White Paper of 1939, sacrificed altogether the central idea of the Mandate which had been the main raison d' etre for its control of Palestine. 63. In November, 1938, the Government invited Jewish and Arab repres~ntatives to a Palestine Conference which met in London in February 1939. In addition to the Palestine Arabs, representatives of the Governments of Egypt, Saudi Arabia and Iraq were also called in. Though the Jewish Agen cy had always denied that the Arab States had any locus standi in the affairs ofPalestine, save as States Members of the League of Nations, it accepted the invitation in order not to obstruct the attempt at an agreement. But, owing to the refusal of the Palestine Arab leaders, the Conference did not take the origin ally intended form of a round table meeting between theBritish, the Arabs and the Jews, and separate series of meetings were held. · During the final stage of these discussions, the Govern ment produced a new policy subsequently embodied in a White Paper which was published in May, 1939.
64. The White Paper limited Jewish immigration to Pale~tine to a total of 75,000, after which it was to be subject to Arab acquiescence; it empowered the High Commisioner to prohibit the transfer of land to Jews in specified areas; it provided for the establishment within ten years of a Palestine Government based on the actual population of the country, in which the Jews were not to exceed one-third of the whole. In February, 36 1940, Land Regulations were enacted under which the Jews were completely debarred from acquiring land in 637o of the area of Palestine and restricted in another 32%. In brief, the policy denied the rights of the Jewish people as such in regard to Palestine and relegated the Jews already settled there to a permanent minority status and a territorial ghetto. Thus the conception underlying the Balfour Declaration and the Man date of a freely growing Jewish community, eventually deve loping into a Jewish Commonwealth, had been stultified. "The notion", wrote Mr. Lloyd George in his analysis of the Peace Treaties, "that Jewish immigration would have to be artifi cially restricted in order to ensure that the Jews should be a permanent minority never entered into the heads of anyone engaged in framing the policy. That would have been regarded as unjust and as a fraud on the people to whom we were appeal ing."* Similarly Mr. Noel Baker, now Minister of State, stated in Parliament: "For him (the Colonial Secretary), the primary purpose of the Mandate is no longer the establishment of the Jewish National Home, but the protection of a new right which he has invented, the right that the Arabs shall be a ma jority forever.. . By inventing this new Arab right to be in a majority, he has utterly destroyed the purpose and meaning of the Mandate." 65. The Permanent Mandates Commission held unanimously that the White Paper was incompatible with the construction put on the Mandate in the past by the Mandatory itself. The ptajority of its members declared that the new policy was not in conformity with any construction which might properly be put on the Mandate, any contrary conclusidn being "ruled out by the very terms of the Mandate and by the fundamental in tentions of its authors". (Minutes of 36th Session, June 1939, page 275). In Parliament, the White Paper was denounced by Mr. Churchill, Mr. Amery and the whole Labour front bench as "a plain breach of a solemn obligation", as "a repudiation of the Balfour Declaration", as "a cynical breach of pledges given to the Jewish people and the world, including America", as "a breach of faith and of British honour". 66. The psychological effects of the White Paper were of the gravest character. It seemed that Jewish self·restraint during "' D. Lloyd George: "The Truth About the Peace Treaties", Vol. II, pp. 1138-9. 37 the trying years of the disturbances had been penalised, and Arab aggression rewarded. The inference that violence was the surest method to achieve political success was inescapable. The sinister lesson sank deep into the consciousness of Arabs and Jews alike. It was to be fraught with most serious con sequences. CHAPTER VII. JEWISH DEVELOPMENT UNDER THE MANDATE 67. The retreat from the Mandate is in sharp contrast with the advance achieved under it in Jewish colonisation. In spite of official unhelpfulness and Arab obstruction, the record of the last twenty-five years is one of organic growth. The slender beginnings under Turkish rule have expanded into the framework of a civilisation. Successive waves of immigrants from Europe and the Middle East have increased the Jewish population of Palestine from under 60,000 in 1919 to nearly 600,000. A distinctive feature of the past decade has been the number of Central European settlers. There has also b~en a small flow of immigrants from Anglo-Saxon countries. While labour immigrants were prominent during the early stage, a growing number of middle-class settlers entered the country from the middle twenties onwards, bringing with them con siderable capital and wide technical and business experience. Without any major difficulty all these elements have fused into a single national community. Their energies were pooled in one great effort of development. 68. The major achievements were in citriculture and mixed farming on the one hand, and in industrial growth on the other. The Jewish citrus crop in the last pre-war season amounted to 10,000,000 cases, or 65% of the total. Jews pioneered in the cooperative organisation of the orange growers and the dis covery of new markets. The rapid extension of mixed farming covered the creation of modern dairying and poultry-keeping, evolution of new breeds, introduction af new crops and fruit trees and of a scientific crop-rotation, progress of sheep-raising and bee-keeping. Whereas citriculture was developed mainly by middle-class settlers on privately owned land, mixed farm ing was carried on by the labour sector on national soil. Near- 38 ly 550,000 dunums were concerned in drainage works in vari ous parts of the country, apart from the Huleh which still awaits development. The quest for water has opened up un dreamt-of possibilities of irrigation. The area of irrigated Jewish land increased from 12,000 dunums in 1922 to 260,000 in 1944. The typical farm unit is becoming one of 25 dunums of intensively cultivated land, instead of the former unit of 250 dunums under cereals. Large afforestation schemes were car ried out, particularly iq the hill areas. In this sphere, as in certain others, Jewish example was followed by Government. 69. In no field was Jewish enterprise more marked than in that of industry. Important landmarks were the harnessing in 1927 of the Jordan and Jarmuk by the Palestine Electric Cor poration and the commencement in 1930 of the Palestine Potash Company's work on the Dead Sea. The growth of Jewish in dustry is reflected in the foil owing table:
Year Number of Establishments Persons Employed 1926 583 nearly 6,000 1937 1,556 22,000 1944 over 2,000 45,000 Among Palestine's industrial products are textiles, leather goods, machinery, glass, cement, foodstuffs, chemicals, phar maceutics, artificial teeth, cosmetics and a variety of other articles. A recent addition is a diamond polishing industry, founded mainly by Jewish refugees from Holland. and Bel gium. In 1945 it employed 4,000 persons and exported polish ed diamonds to the value of LP.6,000,000. 70. Organised labour holds an influential position in the econ omic and political life of the country. There is no sphere of Jewish activity on which it has not left its mark. Its contribu tion has been particularly impressive in agriculture, where it has evolv.ed new forms of cooperative effort and collective liv ing. The Jewish Labour Federation (Histadrut) today runs fac tories and workshops, building and transport companies, banks and cooperative credit societies, large-scale supply and market ing organisations, a country-wide health insurance society with hospitals, out-patient departments and convalescent homes, schools and institutions for adult education. Other, smaller 39 labour organisations have also a record of constructive work to their credit. 71. In general, the new Yishuv represents a reversal of the Jewish social pyramid in the Diaspora. In Palestine, Jews are not concentrated in a limited number of trades and professions. Theirs is the economy of a normal society ranging from the roughest kinds of manual labour to the highest professional and managerial positions. In 1943, as against 55% employed in physical work, only 11% were engaged in commerce, which for centuries has been the main Jewish occupation. 72. As the country's natural resources are limited, consider able attention has been paid to research. Agricultural develop ment owes a great deal to the work of the Research Station of the Jewish Agency; industry receives assistance from material testing stations and industrial laboratories; the Hebrew Uni versity, t}_!e Sieff Institute and the Hebrew Technical College have helped to solve numerous scientific and technical prob lems. Extension lectures, travelling instructors and vacation courses have distributed the results of research all over the country. The pioneer spirit, cooperation and research are cha racteristic features of the Yishuv's economy. 73. In the cultural sphere there has also been rapid progress. The Hebrew School System now comprises hundreds of ele mentary and scores of secondary schools, kindergartens, teach ers' training colleges, theological seminaries, trade schools, art and music schools and a technical college. The apex is the Hebrew University. "It is remarkable", wrote the Royal Com mission, "to find on the fringe of Asia a university which main tains the highest standards of Western scholarship. On its staff are names well known to Europe and America. Its research work can compare with that of many older institutions." Heb rew is the language of instruction throughout, as it is of life in general. There are numerous Hebrew dailies and periodicals of every type and outlook. The Hebrew theatre is very active. Hebrew literature in prose, poetry and science, both original and translated, is growing. Love of music is wide-spread. The Palestine Orchestra, founded in 1935, has raised the country's musical life to a new level. "All in all", wrote the Royal Com mission, "the cultural achievement of this little community of 40 400,0000 people is one of the most remarkable features of the National Home.". 74. As the break-up of European Jewry progressed, Palestine became the beacon of hope in the lives of millions of Jews. Hebrew school systems on the Palestinian pattern developed in the inter-war period in Poland, Lithuania, Latvia and Ru mania. The study of Hebrew as a living language made great strides in other countries. Throughout Europe, as· well as in England and America and in some Oriental centres, "Halutz" (i.e. "pioneer") organisations sprang up, whose members, young men and women, were training for eventual immigra· tion to Palestine. As the various communities of the Diaspora came to be represented in Palestine by ever-increasing numbers of their OWf! people,. the living connection between the Jewries abroad and Palestine, made up of innumerable personal ties, grew stronger. The Yishuv (Palestine Jewry) itself became more and more aware of its responsibilities towards the Diaspora. All these achievements were felt to be but a beginning. They were a sign-post to future growth, outlined against the grim background of events in Europe.
CHAPTER VIII. THE WHITE PAPER AND THE WAR 75. If the White Paper policy was out of keeping with the possibilities of Palestine, it was even more blind to Jewish needs. The blow came to the Jewish people at a time when the Nazi Government was intensifying its campaign against the Jews. But even the outbreak of war and the capture of over 3,000,000 Polish Jews produced no change of heart. 76. Before hostilities commenced, the Jewish Agency asked for the immediate admission of 20,000 children from Poland and 10,000 young men from the Balkan countries, the latter to reinforce manpower in Palestine. These requests were re· jected; it was, apparently, feared that at such a pace the quota of 75,000 would be used up too quickly. The Polish-Jewish children went to Maidanek and Auschwitz instead, while of the young Jews in the Balkans many died and many were 41 forced to work for Hitler. The fear of impending massacres expressed by the Jewish Agency at the time was written off as spurious. So the hopeless tug-of-war continued: the Jewish Agency trying to rescue Jews as quickly as possible, the Gov ernment trying to dole out the quota as slowly as possible. 77. After the holders of pre-war permits had been admitted, a ban was imposed on all further immigration from enemy countries, ~n the ground that Nazi agents might come in. In May, 1940, the Jewish Agency appealed for the exemption of children and of certain adults of assured identity. The deci sion took m~arly two years. No exemption was then granted in favour of adults. The concession regarding children came too late. 78. Meanwhile, groups of Jews had managed to escape from Europe and reach Palestine. Their entry was held to justify a complete suspension of the issue of new permits even to parts of Europe which were not yet enemy territory. Thus quotas were withheld for the half-years October, 1939, to March, 1940, and October, 1940, to March, 1941. The latter period imme diately preceded the German invasion of the Balkans. Only a few hundred emergency permits were granted for Balkan Jew ries at the time, mostly too late. The Government actually ad vised the Jewish Agency to save up permits for post-war use when they could be given to Jews from Germany, who were of a better type than those from the Balkans. 79. The search for boats carrying Jewish fugitives and the prevention of their landing became a major concern of the authorities. In November, 1940, the Government announced that Jews coming illegally from Europe would not be allowed to land, but would be interned elsewhere and not be admitted to Palestine even after the war. As a reaction, the "Patria", with 1771 Jewish refugees on board awaiting deportation, was blown up and sunk in the port of Haifa. About 250 of its pas sengers were drowned and the survivors landed and interned. A further 1700 refugees, who had been landed, were, with a considerable use of violence, re-embarked and deported to the island of Mauritius. From there they were released and brought to Palestine only at the end of the war, after over 100 of their number had died of disease. In December, 1940, 230 42 refugees, including many children, perished when the tramp steamer "Salvador" foundered in the Sea of Marmara. They had hoped to proceed overland from Istanbul, but no visas were available. In March, 1941, 793 refugees, mostly fleeing from the massacres in Rumania, arrived on board the "Da rien". In view of the vessel's condition they had to be landed, but for seventeen months they were kept in detention under the threat of deportation. On the 24th February, 1942, came the "Struma" tragedy. That boat had stood in the port of Istanbul for nearly two months waiting for Palestine visas. In the end only children were allowed to proceed, but the deci sion came too late. The Turkish authorities had turned the vessel back into the Black Sea, where it sank. Of its 764 pas sengers only one survived. 80. "In Palestine", writes an American Jewish author, "over half a million Jews waited with open arms for their tormented and homeless kin ... while over the Mediterranean and Black Seas unclean and unseaworthy little cargo boats crept from port to port, or tossed about on the open waters, waiting in vain for permission to discharge their crowded human cargoes. Hunger, thirst, disease and unspeakable living conditions reigned on those floating coffins. .. There is a list of mass tragedies already available; incomplete though it certainly must be, it is sickeningly long." * 81. After the "Struma" disaster the rules were relaxed. It was decided to admit and gradually release all refugees from Europe who got to Palestine on their own. At the same time it was made clear that nothing would be done to help them get there. In a communication to the Jewish Agency in May, 1942, the British Government said: "In pursuance of the existing policy of taking all practicable steps to discourage illegal immigration into Palestine, nothing whatever will be done to facilitate the arrival of Jewish re fugees in Palestine." It should be borne in mind that at that time no facilities existed in the Balkans for obtaining visas to Palestine. The only way for a refugee to seek legal admission to Palestine was to reach Istanbul and apply to the British Consul there. But at Istanbul he was already considered "illegal" . * M. Samuel: "Harvest in the Desert", Philadelphia, 1944. 43 82. Late in 1942, authentic reports about the wholesale ex termination of the Jews became public. Under their impact the Government, in the middle of 1943, agreed to facilitate the journey to Palestine of all refugees reaching Istanbul. Yet this decision, of which the Jewish Agency was informed con fidentially, was not published, nor was it, for a further nine months, communicated to the Turkish Government. This rob bed it of much of its value. There can be little doubt that substantial numbers who are dead to-day, certainly tens of thousands, might have been alive if the gates of Palestine had been kept open. 83. The land restrictions imposed under the White Paper were not so tragic in their immediate effect as the strangle hold on immigration, but their consequences are grave. First, they restrict the land basis of the Jewish National Home and force the Jews in Palestine to remain mainly town dwellers. Secondly, they introduce a statutory discrimination against Jews. Both strike at the essentials of Zionism and at basic provisions of the Mandate regarding Jewish settlement on the land and full racial equality. The Land Regulations claim to protect Arab peasants and cultivators from dispossession. If this were so, one would expect the restrictions to be more severe where Jews have already acquired a considerable pro· portion of the land. Actually the reverse is the case; in the zone where the Jews have so far only 3%, further transfer of Arab land to them is completely prohibited; where they have 7%, each new acquisition is subject to special approval; where they hold 49%, they are free to acquire the remainder. The real purpose of the Regulations is political: they are in tended to preserve the Arab character of the bulk of Palestine. 84. Administrative practice has gone even beyond the law. Though State lands were expressly excluded from the restric tions, they were, by an administrative ruling, put on the same footing as Arab lands. The Administration has refused to re lax this arbitrary ruling even in favour of Jewish ex-soldiers. 85. The White Paper cast its shadow also over the Jewish war effort. In spite of its bitter fruits, the Yishuv was eager to nght against the common enemy with Britain. When the War broke out, Dr. Weizmann, in a letter to the Prime Min- 44 ister, said: "The Jewish Agency has recently had differences in the political field with the Mandatory Power. We would like these differences to give way before the greater and more pressing necessities of the time." The offer was officially ac cepted, but its execution was crippled. Like any other national group, the Yishuv felt entitled to organise its war effort on a national basis. In fact, it was only on that basis that it could be made really effective. But the British authorities felt that such status would run counter to the spirit of the White Paper. Between fighting Hitler and fighting Zionism a conflict had ansen . 86. The Jewish Agency's offer was immediately followed u:p by a mass registration of Jewish volunteers for war service, which totalled 85,800 men and 50,400 women. In London the Jewish Agency proposed the formation of a Jewish Fighting Force, open to volunteers from Palestine and the neutral coun t.ries. The negotiations for such a formation dragged on. In 1941, the Cabinet took a favourable decision, but, as a result of opposition from the Middle East, it was revoked. The pri vilege of front-line fighting was for a long time denied to Pal estinian Jews - a disability most hurtful to their pride. Nevertheless, under the auspices of the Jewish Agency large scale voluntary recruiting was organised for all fields of active service within the British Forces in which they were required. 87. This recruiting drive found itself continually discour aged. Measures introduced by the Jewish- authorities to re gulate enlistment, according to the needs of essential services and war production, were opposed by the Government. An other obstacle was hostile censorship. Appeals in Zionist terms were frowned upon and even repressed. Although the Army agreed to the formation of all-Jewish units, these were not formally called Jewish. For a long time there seemed to be a conspiracy of silence regarding the Palestinian-Jewish war effort, and the very existence of a considerable number of Jewish units in the Middle East seemed almost a war secret. Jewish volunteers were thus denied what was elementary in regard to any other Allied contingent - the acknowledgment of their national identity. Only late in 1944, largely due to the personal interest of 45 Mr. Churchill, was the long-cherished Jewish desire gratified by the formation of the Jewish Brigade Group, which fought in Italy under the Jewish flag. The Brigade Group is still serv ing in Europe as part of the British Occupation Army. 88. Altogether some 33,000 Palestinian Jewish volunteers (29,000 men and 4,000 women) served in the Army, Navy,
Air Force, and full-time1 local defence. The 26,000 in the three Services have served in Palestine, France, Egypt, Sudan, Eritrea, Abyssinia, Libya, Greece, Crete, Syria, Iraq, Italy, Austria and the Low Countries. Apart from the Brigade Group, there were over sixty units of Royal Engineers, transport, ordnance, electrical. and mechanical service, etc., who, accord ing to numerous reports, ranked high in the estimation of their respective Commands. This record may be compared with the total of 9,000 Arabs who enlisted in Palestine, but who hailed partly from Transjordan, Syria and the Lebanon ; long before the end of the war, this total was reduced by at least one-half through desertions and discharges. 89. Apart from regular military service, selected Jewish civilian volunteers carried out secret raids in the Middle East and parachute missions in enemy Europe. Half of them lost their lives. Here again, a fuller use of such human material was not made because of opposition on political grounds. 90. Even the mobilisation of the economic resources of Jewish Palestine had at first to overcome certain political prejudices. But as war needs becam~ urgent and the ability of the Jewish producers to meet them was demonstrated, the Administration made efforts to utilise local resources to the full. Agriculture, Jewish and Arab, was stimulated by special loans. Citriculture, though not directly part of the war effort, was helped to tide over its war-time crisis. For the first time, Jewish industry be· came an active concern of the Government. Eventually, the Yishuv's economy was fully harnessed to the war machine. This working partnership between Government and Jewish enterprise was a novel experience under the Mandate. Army orders executed by Jewish industry totalled LP.36,000,000. On the scientific and technical side, the Hebrew University in Jerusalem, the Technical College in Haifa, the Sieff Institute at Rehovot, and Professor Goldberg's laboratories in Tel-Aviv 46 performed services of special value. The armed services in Palestine and outside relied on skilled Jewish labour for im portant tasks of construction and repair. In addition to works in Palestine, Jewish contractors, engineers and skilled per sonnel helped to enlarge the oil refineries of Abadan, bridged the Euphrates, covered Syria with networks of roads and camps, and built and maintained aerodromes and plants in Iraq, Bahrein and Cyprus. 91. But for the political resistance which flowed from the White Paper, the Jewish war effort, both military and eco nomic, would have developed more rapidly and on a larger scale. On the other hand, the White Paper failed in its major purpose of ensuring Arab loyalty. Even before the war, the essential background to the disturbances in Palestine were the Munich years - a period in which Axis prestige was mount ing rapidly at the expense of Britain and France. The Mufti of Jerusalem, like shrewd and ambitious men elsewhere, pre· pared to hitch his waggon to this rising star. The White Paper merely confirmed their diagnosis of Britain's weakness. Axis victories in the opening phases 6f the war appeared to put the issue b~yond doubt. As the threat to the Middle East grew, a pro-Axis orientation, active . or passive, predominated throughout the Arab world. The Hitler legend, fostered by skilful propaganda and supported by success, captured the imagination of all layers of Arab society. 92. No Middle Eastern country was willing to come into the war on the Allied side. Behind their grudging neutrality, there were pro-Axis elements poised for an attack from within, to coincide with an assault from without. In Iraq, the rising went off at half-cock. The Mufti fled to Berlin from where he ex horted the faithful. Elsewhere in the Middle East a more ac curate sense of timing prevailed, and there was no more eager ness to come off the fence prematurely. At the end of the war this caution was astonishingly rewarded. Without sacrificing a man or a millieme for victory, the Arab States found them selves amongst the victors, with five seats in U.N.O. and disin genuous tributes. to their friendship. The Jewish people, for all its casualties and contributions, stood on the doormat. Contrary to every expectation, the White 47 Paper remained, even after it had failed to pass the test of war. Bitterly disillusioned, the Jews realised that for them the war was not yet over.
CHAPTER IX. THE JEWISH COMMONWEALTH 93. The motives for entrenching the Jewish people in its own country are more compelling at the end of the second World War than they were at the end of the first. For its lack of a home the Jewish people has paid a terrible penalty. The lesson of the catastrophe is clear: the remnant must be evacuated to Palestine, and statehood must be attained as quickly as pos· sible. The road . to statehood is, primarily, that exodus from Europe. The immigration drive must take account also of the position of Oriental Jewries and of the growing insecurity in other countries outside Europe. Side hy side with this influx must go large-scale development and absorption projects, which will not materialise unless 'the responsibility is entrust ed to those most vitally interested. Political emancipation for Jewish Palestine is rendered all the more urgent by the rising tide of Pan-Arabism. Two questions arise: the character of the State and the pro cess of its establishment. 94. As to the first, a self-governing State is contemplated in which all citizens, regardless of race or creed, shall enjoy equal rights, and all communities shall control their internal affairs. The State will not be Jewish in the sense that the Jews in it wi'll have more rights than the non-Jews, or that its Jewish community will he superior in status to other communities, or that other religions will have an inferior status to the Jewish religion. In what sense will it then he a Jewish State? It will be Jewish because Jews will have a right of entry to it,' not limited by any political consideration; because in it Jews will be free to create a society according to their own way of life; because, in addition to its ordinary function of ensuring the welfare of all its inhabitants, the State will have the special function of serving as the Jewish National Home and pro viding refuge for oppressed Jews; because by its existence it will normalise the status of the Jewish people. 48 95. For the State to achieve these ends, a Jewish majority is essential. The grant of self-government to Palestine based on an Arab majority would prevent further Jewish immigration and wreck the chances of the country's rapid development. In this policy the Arabs of Palestine would count on the support of the surrounding Arab States. The result would be the con version of Palestine into an Arab State and the subjection of its Jewish minority to Arab rule. The converse fear of the Arabs being dominated by a Jewish majority is not warranted. An Arab minority would not have to rely entirely on constitu tional safeguards and international guarantees. Palestine is surrounded by Arab territories. Jews everywhere else, includ ing the Arab States, are in the minority. These two facts can be depended upon to serve as brakes on the abuse of power. Moreover, the Jews are intent on development; they cannot do this successfully without the Arabs sharing in the benefits. 96. In order to attain the goal, the first requisite is a clear decision that Palestine is to become a Jewish Commonwealth. On the basis of that decision, the Jewish Agency should be in vested with powers to conduct immigration and should be granted concessions for irrigation and reclamation works. Its programme would aim, first, at the transfer to Palestine from Europe, the Orient and other parts, of the largest possible number of Jews in the shortest space of time; secondly, at the maximum development of the country's agricultural and in dustrial resources for the absorption of immigrants and the raising of the standard of living of all inhabitants. In the im migration progr~mme, the transfer of homeless European Jews would have to be placed on a special footing. In regard to them, the criteria must be transport and temporary accom modation, rather than immediate economic absorption. The Jewish Agency has worked out plans for the absorption, over a relatively short period of years, of the first one million Jews. Once a Jewish majority has been created, the Jewish State will have been effectively established. 97. It is the belief of the Jewish Agency that, on a long view, the Jewish Commonwealth offers the surest basis for a stable relationship between Jewish Palestine and the Arab world. A Jewish minority in an Arab Palestine would have little to
49 barter for political peace. It would be much easier to oppress it than to negotiate with it. The present boycott of Palestinian Jewish products by the members of the Arab League is a case in point. The boycott was proclaimed in the knowledge that the aggrieved party had no power to retaliate. Palestine as a Jew ish Commonwealth would change the. situation. 98. Although at present collaboration between Jewish Pales tine and the Arab world may seem unlikely, mutual interests are bound sooner or later to bring them closer together. The Middle East is clearly on the brink of far-reaching develop ments. It represents at present a vast, under-developed area with a sparse population living mostly in extreme poverty. Palestine has already become something of a laboratory for this region which is drawing the attention of progressive minds in the countries around. Once the Jewish Commonwealth has been set up, the stimulative effect of its example and technical resources will operate more freely than it does at present, when the Palestine issue is still in the balance. The Jews have much to contribute t~wards the reconstruction of the Middle East - but they can contribute it only as equals. 99. Statehood will not only clarify and normalise the rela tions between Jewish Palestine and the neighbouring states. It is also essential to the relations of the Jewish National Home with the world at large. In the present structure of world so ciety, no kind of special minority status can gain for the Jew ish National Home admission to international councils. The Jewish people is entitled to have a voice in the international discussions which bear directly on its future. But this need for representation cannot be met by a mere token State. Member ship must rest on full-fledged national existence. This implies a substantial population in an adequate territory, which can not be smaller than present-day Palestine. 100. At the extraordinary Zionist World Conference which met in London in August, 1945, the following claims of the Jewish Agency were endorsed: " (a) That an immediate decision be announced to establish Palestine as a Jewish State; (b) That the Jewish Agency be vested with all necessary au thority to bring to Palestine as many Jews as it may find
50 necessary and possible to settle, and to develop, fully and speedily, all the resources of the country - especially land and power resources; (c) That an international loan and other help be given for the transfer of the first million Jews to Palestine, and for the economic development of the country; (d) That reparations in kind from Germany be granted to the Jewish people for the upbuilding of Palestine, and - as a first instalment - that all German property in Palestine be used for the resettlement of Jews from Europe; (e) That international facilities be provided for the exit and transit of all Jews who wish to settle in Palestine." The Conference also confirmed the following resolutions of the Zionist General Council: "1. The Jewish State will be based upon full equality of rights of all inhabitants, without distinction of religion or race, in the political, civic, religious, and national domains, and without domination or subjection. All communities will enjoy full auto nomy in the administration of their religious, educational, cul tural, and social institutions. The Arabic language and Arab schools will enjoy full State rights. Municipal self-government will be developed in all towns and villages. The State will exert all efforts to raise and equalise the standard of living of all the inhabitants of Palestine. "2. The Jewish people will aim at co-operating with the Arabs in Palestine in order to attain the highest degree of develop ment of the country in the interests of all its inhabitants, and will strive for an alliance of friendship between the Jewish State and the Arab peoples in the neighbouring countries, on the basis of collaboration and mutual assistance for the welfare and progress of all countries in the Middle East."
CONCLUSION 101. The Jewish "displaced persons" in Europe are not an isolated problem, to be solved by ad hoc devices. It is a prob lem which can be solved only by territorial concentration in Palestine. Philanthropic attempts to settle Jews elsewhere have failed to elicit a creative response from them. Reconstruction must be based on historical realities. 102. By trial and error, a rich fund of experience has been accumulated which to-day enables Palestine to offer not mere ly a temporary asylum, but a permanent home. What has 51 been achieved has in no way impaired the position of the non Jewish population. The present controversy involves the prin ciple of self-determination on both sides. But the choice is between a constructive and a static approach. To be judged correctly, the issue must be set against a wider background. The Jewish return to Palestine is no challenge to Arab contr.ol over a huge area, no threat to Arab civilisation, no obstacle to Arab progress. On the other hand, the Arab claim to do minate Palestine must be weighed against the human need of millions of Jews and the national need of the Jewish People. 103. The issue is not merely one between Jews and Arabs. It concerns the whole world. Only the re~ establi shment of the Jewish Commonwealth of Palestine can lay the evil spirit of anti-Semitism and offer the Jews that freedom and secuYity , which are the birthright of every people. Issued by Al\-IERICAN ZIONIST EMERGENCY COUNCIL 342 Madison Avenue New York 17, N.Y.