THE RAPE OF PALESTINE - part 2

THE RAPE OF PALESTINE - part 2

CHAPTER IV

THE JEWEL OF THE MEDITERRANEAN

TOPOGRAPHY

The name `Palestine' occurs for the first time in Herodotus.

Like its Hebrew equivalent, Pelesheth (Land of Wanderers), it

meant only Philistia . At first applied to a small section of the

coast it later spread to encompass the entire country . Until the

resurgent Zionist movement brought this area into the sphere of

world politics its identity was largely interchangeable with that

of Syria,' a generic term used to describe the entire region of Asia

Minor but later contracted to cover the confines of Palestine and

the block of territory immediately to the north of it .

With proprietary determination the Jew has always referred

to his homeland as Eretz Israel, The Land of Israel .' The Arabs

call it Esh-Sher (the Land to the Left) since it represented the

northernmost limit of their natural range .

By and large, this territory must be accounted one of the most

stirringly beautiful and, certainly, one of the most remarkable

countries on the face of Mother Earth . It is not to be wondered

by those who have seen it that "some of the finest visions of the

true age of reason have been penned within its borders ." 2

Here in matchless beauty can be found every climate from

tropical to sub-alpine, and a bewildering variety of flora and

fauna to match - all in a half hour's ride . It is possible to pass

through four different zones, from the scotch fir in the hill country

down to the date palm growing in its native soil on the plains

of Jordan.

The valley of the Dead Sea, sultry and depressing, lies thirteen

hundred feet below the level of the Mediterranean . From this

strange salt lake, almost visible to the naked eye is Jerusalem,

twenty-six hundred feet above sea level, where in the sparkling

night air one feels as if he could reach up and touch the cold white

stars . In the north the country rises precipitously to a height of

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46 THE RAPE OF PALESTINE

nine thousand feet above the ocean calmly sunning itself below,

and becomes alpine . On the central range, snow has been known

to reach a depth of nearly two feet . This explains the feat of

Benaiah who went down and slew a lion in the midst o f a cistern

in the day o f the snow . The beast had strayed up the Judean

hills from Jordan and had been caught in a sudden storm .

A fertile plain fronts the Mediterranean for the entire length

of the country except where rugged Carmel reaches down to the

shore . East of this plain, finally giving way to the mountains of

Judea, lie rolling foothills studded with rich valleys . South of

Jerusalem this range gradually fades into a forbidding sandy

waste of desert, what is left of ancient Edom, glowering in the

hot sun . In the north, the historic valley of Esdraelon, ancient

highway between the great land masses of Asia and Africa, splits

the mountain range which spreads across Palestine from Haifa to

Jordan.

Jordan.

In an area but little larger than Vermont this endless variety of

view seems almost theatrical . No other country can begin to

match it. None has a valley like that deep gash called the Ghor,

where bananas droop like lolling odalesques in the shimmering

heat ; nor a roll of iridescent desert like that which falls from the

multi-colored rocks of Judea to the opal shores of the Dead Sea.

Yet in these neighboring hills the climate is so temperate that first

rate apples may be grown ; and on the hottest days the nights are

cool enough to sleep under blankets.

The climate is divided roughly into a rainy and dry season, with

a short period of scorching desert winds called the Humseen.

The rain falling in the three winter months becomes a deluge .

Wild flowers follow each other in stunning confusion . Glittering

like precious gems, anemone, crocus, poppy, wild mignonette,

oleander and narcissus, sparkle in the sun just as they

must have once delighted the Hebrew women in the old days .

Overhead, birds of all kinds make the air gay with their limpid

notes . Whole hosts of harmless lizards of every color dart like

small genii across the banks of hedge and sward . In the wilderness

are tiny gazelles who look as if they had been painted on the

landscape. It is claimed that there are still wolves, hyenas and

THE JEWEL OF THE MEDITERRANEAN

47

jackals in the hills. Tristram speaks of foxes near Nablus ; 3 and a

crocodile is said to have been caught in the River Zerka as late as

the year 1902.

Beyond this eloquent native beauty, which the hand of barbarian

man is not powerful enough to destroy, the country has

been stripped and starved . In parts it is a veritable carcass of a

land.

Travelers gazing on Palestine for the first time, aghast at its

stony hills and deserted valleys, invariably exclaim : "Can this unflavored

country be indeed the Land of Promise, the land flowing

with milk and honey ? "

The great oak forests of Gilead, Bashan and Lebanon are gone,

as are the groves of the Jordan Valley and the date palms of the

maritime plain. The Hebrew laughter which once came down

from the hills lives only in echo . These hills, once covered to

their tops with cornfields and vineyards, are dead . It is hardly

an exaggeration to say that while for miles and miles there is no

appearance of life or habitation in the hills of Judea except an

occasional goatherd, there is hardly a hilltop of the many within

sight which is not covered by the vestiges of some fortress or city

of former ages . Where now only forbidding rocks greet the

eye, the soil on their steep sides was once held securely in place

by ingeniously devised terraces .

The indescribably wild state of the country, before the Zionists

came, is pictured graphically in the chronicles of the last century.

Some of the descriptions given are almost unbelievable . Churton

refers to the plain between Jerusalem and Jordan as "bare as a

desert." 4 Walpole exclaims : "On my road I saw six ruined

towns and only six living persons ." s Mark Twain called it "a

hopeless, dreary, heartbroken land . . . inherited only by birds

of prey and skulking foxes ." 6 And that staunch believer in

Prophecy, the Rev. A. G. H. Hollingsworth, wept that "here is

one of the most remarkable and best situated countries in the

world, without a population, without resources, without commerce."

7

West of the Jordan even the surface ruins of cities have been

obliterated. Only the bare remnants of the once extensive He48

THE RAPE OF PALESTINE

brew irrigation works crumbling on the hillsides, remain to remind

the traveler that once this country was populated by a civilized

people. Standing on the Moab hills and looking east, one

can see nothing but a tired, worn country, as naked of signs of

life as mid-ocean . In Old Testament times it included the fruitful

lands of Moab, Gilead and Bashan . That this vast region was

then one of the most fertile and populous on the globe is amply

proven by the multitude of ruins which dot its surface at the

present day. From a single outlook Merrill counted as many as

forty ruined cities and towns.8 Buckingham described "ruined

towns in every direction, both before, behind, and on every side

of us. . . There was not a tree in sight as far as the eye could

reach." 9

Even in early Christian centuries Trans-Jordan * was so thickly

settled as to be honored with the seat of a bishopric . Many

Greeks drifted in and settled among the Syrian and Roman elements.

After the Fourth Century, the Bedouin Arab inundated

the country and left it a wilderness again, as it remains today .

The tumbling remains of fine marble baths, great columns, evidences

of a cultivated life now hushed in death, are looked upon

by the Arab with uncomprehending eye . Merrill, with the hurt

conscience of a great archaeologist, complained bitterly that these

aboriginals were wantonly smashing the famous ruins.

At Jerash alone are remains unexcelled by the best antiquities

of northern Damascus. Throughout the length and breadth of

the land these relics may be seen, the names of many of them

forgotten. Polla, overlooking the Jordan, once a great city with

castle, colonnades and mausoleums, is now distinguished by only

a few pillars.

Today the very names of these places are forgotten . The

Bedu 10 herd their sheep in these deserted courts and make their

rude beds of grass among their stones . They extract the same

blackmail, and if it is withheld, sweep off the harvests in the same

time-sanctified retaliation . Their frail houses of hair had been

* Trans-Jordan, the territory of the Jewish National Home lying east of the

River Jordan (so designated to distinguish it from Cis-Jordan, the area lying

west of the River Jordan) was later detached by the British as a separate administrative

area under the name of `Transjordan :

THE JEWEL OF THE MEDITERRANEAN 49

there four thousand years before, and are there again today unchanged.

The whole of Eastern Palestine is incomparably more fertile

and better watered than the western third of the country . Draining

it are a number of large rivers, fed by innumerable springs,

filled with fishes and other aquatic life .

Travelers glowingly describe its rich soil and natural beauty .

Irby and Mangles mention "the vast variety of natural flora ; and

downs with verdure so thick as to appear almost turf ." 11 Lord

Lindsay declares that "the whole of the country . . . on the

east of the Jordan . . . is fertile in the extreme ." 12 And Merrill

comments that he has seen men on the plains of Gilead "turning

furrows which were nearly a mile in length, and as straight as

one could draw a line ."

This whole area across Jordan is one of the most favored territories

on the earth. It only awaits the coming of an energetic

and intelligent race to become again everything that it was in the

past.

JEWISH PRE-WAR SETTLEMENTS

Historians agree that there has been no period since the time of

Joshua when there have not been Jews in Palestine . If length of

continuous settlement makes the case, Jewish residence of some

44oo years vastly overshadows any rival claim which can be offered.

The oldest identifiable community whose continuing record

can be established are the Jews of Pekiin, a village in the hills of

upper Galilee near Safed, a group which has not moved in two

thousand years. This settlement is referred to in the Talmud under

the name of Tekoa, and then reappears more than a thousand

years later in the narrative of an early Sixteenth Century traveler .

At Bukeia in the mountains is another ancient community of Jews

who claim to be descended from Israelites living there before the

Dispersion ; and the Samaritans at Sechem are known to have been

there since the days of Nehemiah .

All through the Dispersion, Jews sought to return to their

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THE RAPE OF PALESTINE

homeland . They trickled in from all directions after each catastrophe

in the Diaspora. Most of them succumbed to massacre,

forced conversion and disease . The rest were turned into broken spirited

men whose cowed eyes became hypnotized by mere liturgical

devotions.

The first practical steps for modern colonization were taken

in Russia where Zionism was growing rapidly . About i88o, a

group of students, mostly from the University of Odessa, formed

a group called `Bilu .' 13 They took oath to renounce their studies

and to devote their lives working at common labor for the reconstruction

of the Land of Israel .

Students with soft white hands and determined wills, began to

arrive in small groups . The great-hearted Englishman, Oliphant,

his head full of idyllic schemes for buying the country from the

Sultan, found a number of them stranded in Galilee . He helped

them found what is now the prosperous colony of Zichron Jacob,

near Haifa . Through him, also, the aid of the philanthropist

Baron Edmund de Rothschild was enlisted for the struggling

cause.

Soon at Petach Tikvah a thriving agricultural colony was established.

Jewish resettlement had begun in dead earnest . By

1883, three thousand of these hardy dreamers had landed in Jaffa .

Progress continued quietly and steadily . Arabs attracted by

the magnetizing vitality of the returning Jew began to drift in

from impoverished Syria, from Egypt, and from the desert wastes.

Palestine was making enormous strides . As far back as 19oo, a

British consular report recognized that "there can be no doubt

that the establishment of the Jewish colonies in Palestine has

brought about a great change in the aspect of that country" ; and

in 1904 another consular report reiterates that "the Jewish element

is spreading all over Palestine and represents today the most

enterprising part of the population."

Exports from the port of Jaffa had jumped to 0682,000 in

191 I, from C264,000 in i goo .* A Blue Book issued by the British

Board of Trade in 1911 acknowledges that "the chief feature

* The Palestine Pound is worth approximately the same as the English Pound

Sterling -or about $5 .00 in American money.

THE JEWEL OF THE MEDITERRANEAN

51

of the economic development of Palestine in the past year was

the Jewish immigration."

By 1914 the Jews had increased to over ioo,ooo . There were

now fifty-four agricultural colonies, with a total area of i i o,ooo

acres . New land was being rapidly purchased, garden suburbs

laid out. The all-Jewish city of Tel Aviv was growing out of

its swaddling clothes. The pace of building was feverish . A

great new wave of immigration was gaining momentum . Zionism

had seemingly won its battle and was about to cash in on its

investment of blood, courage, lives and money .

The official British Peace Handbook on Zionism thus describes

the settlements : "The Jewish agricultural colonies, which have

grown up during the past 25 years, show a level of agricultural

and scientific development far ahead of anything else in Palestine

. . . The colonies are inhabited by strong and healthy agriculturists

living in clean, well-built houses and possessing a high

degree of commercial and political organization as well as a distinctive

social life. . . The children think and talk in Hebrew,

and all the colonists possess the newly acquired national consciousness.

. . "

So stood the Jewish effort at reclaiming their homeland, at the

beginning of the World War, when they wholeheartedly threw

their destiny into the balance with that of the Allies . They had

already achieved a solid foundation for a sound national economy.

Soon they were to have the solemn promise of the nations for a

charter which would finally end the tragedy of Jewish homelessness.

CHAPTER

CHAPTER V

THE BALFOUR DECLARATION

PALESTINE AND THE WAR

Indirectly, the World War was fought for possession of the

Near East . The natural route for expansion of the mushrooming

industrial growths of Europe lay in the direction of the great

sluggish masses of Asia where vast consumer needs and untapped

natural riches excited the cupidity of Europe's imperialists .

All great conquerors whose interest was divided between East

and West have considered the possession of the land bridge between

the Mediterranean and the Euphrates essential to their

security. Assyria and Egypt spilled out their life blood for it.

It was pivotal to the empires of Macedon and Rome . Napoleon

made a desperate bid for it when his ambitious eyes stretched

longingly toward the rich mysterious East . It was the `Near

East Question' which lay at the bottom of the plotting and

maneuvering that led to the Balkan and Crimean Wars .

Here Great Britain, Russia, Germany and France engaged in

a sometimes open, sometimes hidden, struggle for the most important

intercontinental routes of this planet, and with them,

world power and influence.

Britain was aiming at complete domination of Asia . She already

held fabulously rich India by the throat . Her interests in

China, and in lesser countries, had grown to gigantic proportions .

The only formidable competitor who developed during this period

was Germany whose great commercial barons were now

looking at the wealthy East with scarcely concealed appetite .

The Kaiser and his entourage realized that here was the path to

power. Moreover, it was here that they considered Britain to

be vulnerable. The whole course of German policy centered

around the Drang nach Osten (Drive to the East), whose undeclared

objective was to cut the lifelines of British communications

with India and the East. Berlin had already established a

52

THE BALFOUR DECLARATION

53

clear pathway through the Balkans . The dying Turkish Empire

was flooded with German generals, engineers, diplomats and

agents. "The Baghdad Railway was pushing rapidly down towards

Mesopotamia . When it got to the Tigris and Euphrates,

it would proceed to Basra, and thence, somehow, to Karachi and

Calcutta and Delhi . Everyone in Whitehall and in The City

knew that, and knew what it would mean ." 1

Here was the most potent threat the British Empire had faced

in generations. If the German plans were allowed to come to a

head, the Reich would be in an infinitely better position to deal

commercially in the East than Britain who held the paramount

political position. It would mean whopping big orders for German

goods of all kinds, from steel down to knickknacks . It

would present the threat of a half million Teuton warriors who

could be transported within a matter of days by train from Berlin

to the very gates of India .

It was imperative to British strategy that the German drive to

the East be halted at the gateway of the Asiatic continent . It

was apparent that Great Britain must control the Near East if

her Empire was to survive . Like two great patient cats England

and Germany watched each other, unspoken challenge, suspicion

and hate staring from their eyes . Another predatory creature,

the Russian bear, as well as minor scavengers, stood by . The

two feline antagonists had stalked each other for a decade, tensely

awaiting der Tag, when the fight was unexpectedly precipitated

by the explosion at Sarajevo which signaled the outbreak of the

World War.

Though the primary struggle was between the rival economic

ambitions of the English and Germans, the French too had their

eye on this strategic sector . In March 1915, Paris made a claim

for the ultimate control of all Syria including Palestine . In November

19 1 5, M. Picot again insisted that the whole of Syria down

to the Egyptian frontier must be assigned to France . Finally in

May of 1916, a secret agreement was concluded known as the

Sykes-Picot Agreement, dividing up the spoils of the `war for

democracy' in advance. Under this agreement Palestine was to

be made International, with the exception of Haifa and neighbor54

THE RAPE OF PALESTINE

ing Acre, which were to go to England . The entire Mediterranean

littoral was to go to France, whose influence was also to

be paramount in Damascus, Aleppo and Mosul .

From 1788 till 1914, Great Britain had fought some twenty

wars to keep the route to India open . Now for this identical

reason, to put a complete end to the German Drang nach Osten,

she was fighting the Great War with Germany . With farsighted

suspicion she saw the friend of today as the enemy of tomorrow,

and looked askance at France and the French demands .

Anxiously the British Foreign Office began casting its eyes around

for some plausible method to forestall the ambition of its powerful

ally .

EVENTS LEADING TO LORD BALFOUR'S COMMITMENT

By the autumn of 19 17, after a startling attack by the Turks on

the Suez Canal, a wholly new idea had taken possession of the

minds of politicians and strategists . It was obvious that a protective

bastion had to be created to buttress the artery of communications

with India . Such a plan made necessary absolute

possession of the Palestinian coast as well as the Judean hills that

command it. Now, reasoned Britain's strategists, would be an

auspicious time to revive the old Palestine. In this way, instead

of the proverbial two birds who were killed with one stone, a

miracle could be maneuvered to make it three . First, an end

would be put to French pretensions to control over this vital

area. Scarcely less important, the enthusiastic support of the

Jews all over the world to the Allied cause could be gained . And

still a third factor, not to be overlooked, was the poverty of Judea

and the surrounding desert . If the Jews would undertake to

form a country here and would invest the necessary money, Britain

would achieve every result it hoped for ; and this ideal fortress

for the imperial lifeline, being self-supporting, would not cost the

Royal Exchequer a penny.

All this sounded too good to be true, and the Government began

putting out feelers to see if it could be finagled through . So

THE BALFOUR DECLARATION

55

potent, in fact, did this new policy appear that already on November

22, 1915 a leading article in the Manchester Guardian stated

that Palestine must be created as a Jewish Nation to act as a buffer

state for Egypt, and concluded quite seriously that "on the realization

of that condition depends the whole future of the British

Empire as a sea empire ."

From a purely military viewpoint, the friends of this idea in

Britain urged that "the only possible colonists of Palestine were

the Jews." Only they could build up in the Mediterranean a

new dominion associated with Britain from the outset in Imperial

work, at once a protection against the alien East and a

mediator between it and England .3

Still other factors of pressing importance were at work . Lloyd

George, wartime Prime Minister, was anxious to bring over the

United States to the Allied side and was attempting to make good

on the propaganda that the War was fought for democracy and

for the righting of old wrongs . There was also the fear that Germany

itself would declare for Zionism . The German Government

was fully alive to the importance of rallying Jewish opinion

to her side . It was suspected that the Kaiser was thinking of following

Napoleon's example in his Eastern campaign . The German

ruler had once declared to Herzl, when the two met in

Palestine, that he was willing to undertake the `mandate' for the

Zionist settlement in Palestine if Turkey would agree .4 News

reached the British Foreign Office that Baron Rosen, German

Ambassador to the Hague, had been in conference with leading

Dutch Jews.

Aside from specifically British questions of policy, the hard-pressed

Allied spokesmen were poignantly aware of the instability

of their ally Russia, in whose army six hundred thousand

Jews were serving, men who were fighting for a government they

hated, and whose success could mean nothing but degradation

for them and their families. The Allies were aware that the

propaganda bureau of the Central Powers was exploiting this fact

for all it was worth . Daily, proclamations were scattered over

the Eastern battlefront informing Jews that German victory

56

THE RAPE OF PALESTINE

meant liberty for them ; s and in all neutral countries adroit advantage

was being taken of the propaganda story which set the

Kaiser's legions up as crusaders in a war of liberation .

Thus in a large sense the alliance of the Western Powers with

Russia was a direct liability, souring any sympathy either Jews or

Liberals might have had for their cause. This the declaration

for a Jewish commonwealth was designed to correct. Said the

British Foreign Office at the time : "The persecuting Governments

became our friends, and Palestine was a most important

factor in the war policy of the Allies ." 6

Among the details is a significant aide-memoirs by the British

Embassy in Petrograd to Sazanov, Russian Minister of Foreign

Affairs, on March 13, 1916, reading

". . . Although as is known, many Jews are indifferent to the

idea of Zionism, yet a numerous, and the most influential, part of

Jewry in all the countries would very much appreciate an offer of

agreement concerning Palestine which would completely satisfy

the aspiration o f the Jews .

"If the above view is correct, then it is clear that by utilizing

the Zionist idea important political results can be achieved .

Among them will be the conversion, in favor of the Allies, of

Jewish elements in the Orient, in the United States, and in other

places, elements whose attitude at the present time is to a considerable

extent opposed to the Allies' cause.

". . . The only purpose of H. M. Government is to find some

arrangement, sufficiently attractive to the majority of the Jews,

which might facilitate the conclusion of an agreement ensuring

the Jewish support."

The rumors that Germany was attempting to get Turkey's

consent to some sort of pro-Zionist declaration crackled along

the grapevine route . President Wilson, raised on Bible Prophecy,

allowed it to be known in London that he would welcome

a British pronouncement in favor of the Zionists .

When the inevitable happened and the great Russian bear began

to collapse, the question of an alliance with Jewry took on

even greater importance . Jewish influence in Russia was supposed

to be considerable . Jews were playing a prominent part

THE BALFOUR DECLARATION

57

in the revolution - but they were greatly divided . "Some were

for peace at any price, some for the maintenance of the alliance

with the Western Powers ; many were utterly uninterested in

Zionism and had found a messiah in Karl Marx . . ." 7 But the

great bulk of the Russian Jews were known to be Zionists ; and

with calculating eye the British computed that the alliance with

Jewry might have permanent value . Zionism became an important

political issue.

Negotiations were instituted with the Jewish leaders to sound

them out on this pressing subject and to determine their demands.

By February 1917 the way had been prepared for a formal meeting

with Sir Mark Sykes of the British Foreign Office . Soon

after, Mr. . Nahum Sokolov, representative of the Zionist Organization,

opened discussion with the French and Italian Governments.

In July the Zionists submitted a memorandum to the

British Cabinet suggesting the formula to be used in an official

pronouncement of sympathy for their cause .

STRUGGLE WITH THE NON-ZIONISTS

If the purposes and aims of the Zionist movement needed

clarification in anyone's mind, a circumstance at once occurred

supplying that deficiency . The intentions of the Government

were no sooner manifest than a loud and violent protest was set

up by certain classes of Jews in England, France and America .

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

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

movement which violated their `deep Socialist convictions.'

Others were the great capitalists, who were afraid that

any declaration in favor of a Jewish State might place their hard-won

social position in jeopardy . Included in this strange gathering

of the clans were the ultra orthodox fanatics who were

awaiting the divine Messiah ; and the Reform Rabbis whose

tissue-paper houses this new movement seemed destined to destroy.

The Conjoint Committee, the most influential of all Jewish

bodies in England, issued a public attack on the `political char-

58

THE RAPE OF PALESTINE

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

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

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

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

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

Immediately the Zionists replied with vigor . The press of the

day was full of the argument, with' the Government and the entire

gentile world solidly on the pro-Zionist side .8

"Under the pressure of Allied needs," says the official British

historian at the subsequent Peace Conference, "the objections of

the anti-Zionists were either overruled or the causes of objection

removed. . ." s At that time the Zionists could have practically

written their own ticket, since there was no subject on which

everyone but the Jews themselves were so unanimously agreed

as the matter of a pro-Zionist declaration . The only powerful opponent

of this course in the Government was the India Office,

ultra-Islamic under a Jewish Secretary of State .

Although the members of the Conjoint Committee had been

hopelessly buried under an avalanche of public ridicule, certain

changes were made in the wording of the Declaration to placate

them.

As early as October 19 16, the Zionist leaders in Britain had already

submitted to the Government a formal "program for a new

administration of Palestine and for, a Jewish resettlement in accordance

with the aspirations of the Zionist movement ."

On February 7, 1917, Sir Mark Sykes communicated with

Weitzman and Sokolov, together with M. Georges Picot, representing

the French Government ." This was the first of a series

of round-table conferences . Its full minutes, as well as those of

subsequent sessions, were transmitted to the American Zionist

Organization by officials of the British War Office .

Throughout the negotiations President Wilson who, as early

as 1911 had made known his profound interest in the Zionist idea,

was intimately consulted ; and all drafts of the proposed Declaration

were submitted to the White House for approval .

The formula accepted in July 1917 by the British Cabinet

read : "H. M. Government, after considering the aims of the

THE BALFOUR DECLARATION

59

Zionist Organization, accepts the principle of recognizing Palestine

as the National Home of the Jewish people, and the right of

the Jewish people to build up its national life in Palestine under a

protection to be established at the conclusion of peace, following

upon the successful issue of the War .

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

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

of immigration for Jews, and the establishment of a Jewish

National Colonizing Corporation for the resettlement and economic

development of the country.

"The conditions and forms of the internal autonomy and a

charter for the Jewish National Colonizing Corporation should,

in the view of H. M. Government, be elaborated in detail and determined

with the representatives of the Zionist Organization ." 11

One of the changes introduced to mollify the anti-Zionist Jews

was the substitution of the phrase "the establishment of a Jewish

National Home in Palestine" for the previous wording, "the

establishment of the Jewish National Home in Palestine." 12

By November 2, 1917, after its wording had been sufficiently

emasculated to suit the `ideals' of Jews all around, Lord Balfour

placed it in the form of a letter to the pro-Zionist, Lord Rothschild,

reading as follows

"I have much pleasure in conveying to you on behalf of His

Majesty's Government the following declaration of sympathy

with the Jewish Zionist aspirations, which has been submitted to

and approved by the Cabinet.

"His Majesty's Government view with favor the establishment

in Palestine of a National Home for the Jewish people, and

will use their best endeavors to facilitate the achievement of this

object, it being clearly understood that nothing shall be done

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

Jewish communities in Palestine, or the rights and political status

enjoyed by Jews in any other country .

"I should be grateful if you would bring this Declaration to

the knowledge of the Zionist Federation ."

Ironically enough, the second part of the Declaration, which

was since construed by Britain to make it a self-annulling docu-

6o

THE RAPE OF . PALESTINE

ment, was inserted on the insistence of the Zionists themselves,

partly to meet the objections of Sir Philip Magnus, Mr. . Claude

Montefiore and other powerful non-Zionist Jews ; and partly as

a symbol of that "nobility of social vision" with which the strangled

ghetto mind was obscured . 13

Written by Achad Ha'am, this proviso was not in any remote

sense considered as a modification of the Declaration but rather

as a polite sop to quiet the fears of the non-Zionist Jews, and an

equally considerate makeweight assurance to the various religious

communities scattered over the Holy Land .

All of these alterations and changes in the British Government's

commitment, says Herbert Sidebotham, then secretary to

Premier Lloyd George, "were inserted in deference to the opinion

of a minority, in the hope of securing complete unanimity

among Jews . . . It was certainly no British interest, either at this

stage or later, that weakened the scope of the promise and infected

it with ambiguity ." 14

The Zionist negotiators, naive and inexperienced, felt that the

introduction of these nice, virtuous phrases in their magna carat

was a fitting and seemly gesture with which to begin their great

adventure . Herzl, who had the gift of seeing beyond his nose,

would have known better .

WHAT DID THE DECLARATION MEAN?

In view of the cool disclaimers which were to come later, it is

interesting to note what interpretation was placed on the British

Government's Declaration to the Jews at the time . Whatever

bearing it might have had on the commendable questions of humaneness

and justice, it could hardly be regarded as a wholly

benevolent gesture. Balfour himself, handsome, clever and icy,

was no mere romantic. He who had pacified Ireland with guns

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

be accused of suddenly developing a philanthropic complex in

favor of Jews.

The benefits immediately accruing to the Allied cause need

hardly be argued . Certainly the tremendous number of Jewish

THE BALFOUR DECLARATION

61

soldiers fighting in the Armies of the Western Powers were fired

by this warm earnest of good faith . Nor can one estimate the

weight of Jewish influence in neutral countries, which dropped

heavily on the Allied side of the scales. Nor the enthusiastic aid

given to the Allenby invasion of Palestine . Nor the stirring effect

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

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

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

was trumpeted to all humanity as newly liberated .

Not only was the effect of this superb piece of propaganda felt

in all neutral countries but it was immediate in its reaction on the

morale of the Central Empires, with their stew of subject races,

accelerating the cleavage then taking place between the subject

nationalities and their overlords . Worthy of note, too, is the

boldness with which the German Zionist Conference in Berlin

adopted and cabled a Resolution "greeting with satisfaction the

fact that the British Government has recognized in an official

declaration the right of the Jewish people to a national existence

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

Powers did all they could to win the Zionist movement over

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

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

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

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

lines ." 15

Wholeheartedly the great and important body of fundamentalist

Christian opinion, hating war for any proclaimed purpose, rose

to the bait. Jannaway expresses this profound conviction in his

book, Palestine and the World, asserting that Biblical Prophecy

was being fulfilled exactly as predicted, thus placing Jehovah

squarely on the side of the Western Powers.

"Indeed," says a semi-official British publication, "support of

the Zionist ambitions promised much for the Allies . . . That it

is in purpose a direct contract with Jewry is beyond question ." 18

This was acknowledged plainly by General Smuts, member of

the War Cabinet, who speaking retrospectively some years later,

asserted that "the Declaration was intended to rally the powerful

62

THE RAPE OF PALESTINE

Jewish influence for the Allied cause at the darkest hour of the

War" ; a statement which David Lloyd George, Winston Churchill

and others, emphatically reiterated .

The Declaration was unreservedly endorsed by the other Powers.

On June 4, 1917 the French Government, through its

Minister, M . Cambon, formally committed itself to "the renaissance

of the Jewish nationality in that Land from which the

people of Israel were exiled so many centuries ago ." Even in

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

Zionists that "the Nationalist Government is in full sympathy

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

themselves." 17

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

President Wilson wrote that "the Allied nations, with

the fullest concurrence of our own Government and people, are

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

Commonwealth." In gratitude the American Jewish Congress

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

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

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

of Palestine into a Jewish Commonwealth . . ." In

the United States Congress, members expressed general accord

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

Holy Land." The minutes of its sessions show that this understanding

had not altered by an iota five years later, when the

American Congress was induced to put its seal of approval, by

resolution, on the selection of Great Britain as the Mandatory

for Palestine .

The utterances of the Cabinet ministers who framed the

Declaration were no less emphatic . General Smuts asserted

that "in generations to come you will see a great Jewish State

rising there once more ." Declared Lloyd George grandly

". . . Great Britain extended its mighty hand in friendship to

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

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

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

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

THE BALFOUR DECLARATION

63

occasion he lumped the whole matter in a nutshell, telling the

excited Zionists : "We have given you national existence . In

your hands lies your national future ." Lord Balfour was no less

clear . "The destruction of Judea i goo years ago," he asserted,

"was one of the greatest historical crimes, which the Allies now

endeavor to remedy."

British newspapers were as one in their mighty paean of approval.

Without exception they spoke of "the new Jewish State

which is to be formed under the suzerainty of a Christian Power ."

Across the water, the American newspapers echoed these remarks

in the same expansive detail. A representative editorial of the

time explains : "The Zionists are that group of Jews who wish to

found a Jewish Republic in Palestine with Jerusalem as the capital.

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

18

CHAPTER VI

BRASS BUTTONS AND STUFFED SHIRTS

MARCHING JEWS

Anti-Zionists invariably stress the part played by the Arabs

during the War, inferring that the sons of Ishmael earned their

patrimony, and that the Jews, who had done nothing, insolently

demanded a chunk of the Arab pie when the spoils were being

divided .

Actually the Jewish share in the victory was significant, well

justifying in value received the solemn bargain made with world

Jewry to reconstitute the Land of Israel as a living factor among

the nations .

In the neutral countries the Allied cause, associated everywhere

in the Jewish mind with justice and equity, was given invaluable

support. Jews fought in the armies of all the Western

Powers. Over a hundred thousand Jewish soldiers were killed

in action . In the British Empire itself, out of a total community

of 425,000 Jews, 50,000 were in uniform . In true Maccabean

spirit they earned more than their share of honors and decorations

on the battlefield. One of them was the heroic Sir John Monash,

leader of the Australians .

Behind the lines, the Zionist leader Chaim Weitzman was the

genius directing the Admiralty Chemical Laboratories . According

to Lloyd George, he "absolutely saved the British army at

a critical moment" by devising a substitute for exhausted English

supplies of acetone, used in making the basic material in gunpowder.

Among others, Sir Alfred Stern invented the tank,

which saved the Western Powers from annihilation during the

latter part of the fighting . Solomon J. Solomon created the idea

of camouflage, allowing harassed Allied shipping to run the Uboat

blockade . Everywhere Jewish brains, money, valor and

enthusiasm were placed wholeheartedly at the service of the

Allies .

64

BRASS BUTTONS AND STUFFED SHIRTS 65

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

Powers, Jews were tortured, executed and deported. When

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

abroad.

In 1915 Palestinian refugees in Egypt had organized the Zion

Mule Corps under the leadership of dashing Captain Trumpledor,

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

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

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

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

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

Zion Mule Corps fought under the proudly floating Jewish ensign,

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

In the meanwhile a brilliant young Russian writer, Vladimir

Jabotinsky, had been scurrying around in an attempt to organize

a legion of Jewish volunteers from the Diaspora countries to fight

directly under the Jewish flag. With rare insight he pointed

out that words and promises were soon forgotten and that the

most enduring Jewish title to the Holy Land would come from

a direct investment of Jewish blood under a Jewish flag .

The influential capitalist Jews were aghast . They put pressure

on the British War Office to stop this little impassioned Zionist

with the under slung jaw who they believed was jeopardizing

their position in the gentile world with his lunatic nonsense .

But the British needed this Jewish regiment for publicity purposes

: they had made themselves the champion of the oldest betrayed

nationality in existence, impressive to the Poles, Czechs,

Armenians, etc ., who had been listening to the noble assurances

of the Western Powers with their tongues in their cheeks . The

War Office consequently overrode the objections of the anti-

Zionists and allowed Jabotinsky to form The Jewish Regiment.

As the protest of the scared English Jews became louder, the

regiment's name was changed to The Judeans, official sub-title for

the 38th Royal Fusiliers. Following hard on its heels came another

Jewish battalion, the 39th Fusiliers .

London was groggy with excitement . The official propagandists

did not miss this glamorous opportunity to exploit the

66

THE RAPE OF PALESTINE

sheer romance of the historic occasion . At a giant mass meeting

seeing the Jewish warriors off, the Hon . G. N. Barnes, M.P.,

spoke fulsomely in the name of His Majesty the King . He eulogized

the Jewish soldiers as "fellow fighters for freedom," and

assured his listeners that "the British Government proclaimed its

policy of Zionism because it believes that Zionism is identified

with the policy and aims for which good men and women are

struggling everywhere ."

In Palestine The Judeans were joined by Colonel Patterson's

seasoned campaigners, the Zion Mule Corps . The Jewish national

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

heads waved the Jewish flag .

Wildly enthusiastic, the able-bodied Jews in the conquered territory

enlisted . With an appreciation almost reverential the

British Peace Handbook No . 6o announced that "the most important

event which has taken place . . . since our occupation,

has been the recruiting of the Palestine Jews, whatever their national

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

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

voluntary enlistment in the Jewish Battalions ."

The distinguished service rendered by these Jewish regiments

is indelibly written in the records . Said General Bartholomew

"For the Turks the end of the War was dependent upon maintenance

of the Jordan front against Allenby, and on this decisive

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

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

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

contributing in great measure to the brilliant victory at Damascus.

This was amply confirmed by General Chaytor, leader

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

Chief of all troops in the Jordan Valley, who emphasized

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

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

and had thus contributed heavily to the victory over the

Fourth Turkish Army.2

Of fully as great importance was the voluntary intelligence

service rendered by the celebrated Nili Society all over the Holy

BRASS BUTTONS AND STUFFED SHIRTS 67

Land. Organized by the scientist Alexander Aronson, 3 its daring

exploits were largely instrumental in the success of Allenby's

campaign . Far from giving the invaders any help, the

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

hostile.

Spiritedly the Palestinian volunteers addressed themselves to

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

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

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

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

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

know how to countersign Balfour's declaration with our own

blood." 4

They had every reason to feel `convinced .' In April 1917

the British War Department had issued a statement on War

Aims in the Near East in which it was proclaimed that "Palestine

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

Jewish population present and future throughout Palestine is to

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

The Suzerain Government shall grant full and free rights of

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

Suzerain Government shall grant a charter to a Jewish Company

for the colonization and development of Palestine, the Company

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

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

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

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

charters or statutes of similar colonizing bodies ." These statements

were simultaneously reduced by the Allied war propagandists

to brief slogans and exploited to the fullest advantage

everywhere.

Addressing the first Conference of Jews in the liberated area,

Major W. Ormsby-Gore, later as Colonial Secretary to suffer

a serious case of amnesia, orated for His Majesty's Government

as follows

"Mr. Balfour has made a historic declaration with regard to

the Zionists : that he wishes to see created and built up in

68

THE RAPE OF PALESTINE

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

understand by this ? We mean that those Jews who voluntarily

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

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

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

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

The marching Jews listened . The great dream which had

inspired the Jewish mind for so many long centuries, seemed

about to be realized. They believed Britain's word implicitly .

REVOLTING TRIBESMEN

Part of Lloyd George's technique during the War was connected

with the old art of inciting dissatisfaction within the

enemy camp. This practice had proven especially effective

with the moribund Austro-Hungarian Empire, and several capable

agents, including the famous Lawrence, were sent to

Arabia to foment an insurrection there if possible .

The English started with little in their favor . To speak of

Turkish oppression of the Arab was actually an absurdity, unless

one referred to the Levantine Christian on the coast . The

constitution of the Ottoman Empire was the Arab's Koran from

which the Turk derived his law, religion and culture . Even the

Turkish language became half Arabic ; and it was only with

the later revolution under Kemal Pasha that the decadent Arab

cultural pattern which ruled the life of the Ottoman nation

was eliminated .

Under Turkish suzerainty the Arab areas were virtually independent,

razed by local chiefs whose authority was recognized

by the Sultan . Arabs held high position all over the

Empire. The Sultan's Guards were almost completely Arab .

The schools and army were dominated by them . Even the

Prime Minister, Mahmoud Chawkat Pasha, was an Arab .

The whole system of Muslimism itself practically precluded

any idea of national sentiment, until it began to arise under

the stimulus of British agitators . In Baghdad some Arabs of

vaulting ambition had formed Nationalist Committees, but the

BRASS BUTTONS AND STUFFED SHIRTS 69

mass of townsmen and fellaheen were utterly apathetic to any

nationalist feeling. Regional sectarianism was everywhere the

rule. The Shiahs did not desire a Sunni government ; nor

would the Sunnis tolerate a Shiah rule, while the mass of tribesmen

did not desire any government at all.

As matters rested, the British were compelled to create a completely

synthetic situation if they were to have the great Arab

revolt come off. They decided to rely on private rivalries and

ambitions ; and here they made a shrewd guess : the desert was

a hotbed of rapacity, hatreds and feuds .

Sitting immobile in the Hejaz was the Sherif Hussein, descendant

of the Prophet and unbending hater of Christians and

all their works . Almost alone among the Arabian princes he

was the nominee of the Turks. His measure may be gained

from the fact that he even prohibited talking-machines in his

kingdom, believing them to be the invention of the devil .

On the other side of Hussein was his mortal enemy, the gigantic

Ibn Saud of Nejd. Saud, a good hater who believed in

the old Mohammedan tenets of conversion by disemboweling,

was also in conflict with the powerful Emir of Hail, who was

being supported by the Turks .

The British wanted Hussein for the moral effect they presumed

his name would have on the Faithful, and made overtures

to him early. Part of these `negotiations' lay in the bland threat

to feed him outright to the ferocious Saud, to whom they were

handing a subsidy of 4 5ooo a month to insure his neutrality .

To make the argument more pointed, Britain politely withheld

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

Medina, threatening the Hejaz with bankruptcy, since this pilgrimage

provided the barren land with its chief source of revenue.

The Sherif had still other and more urgent considerations

to hasten his decision . One of these was the British naval

blockade of the Arabian coast, "inevitably aggravating the internal

distress caused by the lack of pilgrims ." 8

That Hussein's over-lordship of the Holy Places would make

him an acceptable leader to all the Arabs of the Peninsula turned

out to be an error. Even at that time, his mortal enemy, Saud,

70

THE RAPE OF PALESTINE

was the principal power in South Central Arabia as was another

mutual opponent, Ibn Rashid of Hayil, in the North Central part .

Nor would the great sheikhs, such as those of the Huwallah,

the Shammar, or the Mutair accept Hussein's over lordship, or

even permit him to speak for them 7

The whole business degenerated into a confused medley of

intrigue, directed by a multitude of British agencies acting under

conflicting instructions and authority ; the powerful India Office,

for example, bucked the traces completely and gave encouragement

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

Just what kind of `Arab patriot' Hussein was, may be learned

from the fact that he allowed a contingent of volunteers to be

recruited in his territory for the abortive Turkish expedition to

the Suez Canal in February 1915, and used his influence to assist

the crew of the German cruiser Emden which had been harassing

British communications off the Red Sea Coast.9 Thus he

negotiated with Turks and British alike until he could make

sure he was backing the right horse. Actually all he wanted

or hoped to secure was complete independence in his own

corner of southwestern Arabia, military support against his rival,

Ibn Saud, and unfettered control of the lucrative pilgrim revenue.

Finally, the British High Commissioner in Egypt, Sir Henry

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

non-committal and holding out for the highest bidder .

In order to force the `Arab patriot' to move, the British had

to submit to as fine a mulcting as they have ever experienced .

The Agreement entered into early in i q i 6, reads that "The

Government of Great Britain agrees to furnish this Arab Government

with all its needs of arms and ammunition and money

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

explained in the wireless received by McMahon's confidential

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

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

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

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

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

BRASS BUTTONS AND STUFFED SHIRTS 71

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

patriotism with grandiose promises of personal power ." Nothing

else than this flood of gold, writes Lawrence cynically,

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

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

Governor of Sinai Peninsula, comments that Arab actions from

start to finish "proved that they were only interested in the

revolution for three objects in the following order of importance

- gold, loot, and the satisfactory clearing up of their own

daraks or areas." 12 Indeed, the only time a full muster of the

`patriots' could be counted on was payday.

The whole `campaign of the desert' was a strangely inept piece

of business, vastly enlarged on by British publicists for outside

consumption . A good account of it is given by the French

General, Edouard Bremond, in his book Le Hedjaz dans la

Guerre Mondiale . Hussein himself is described as "an obstinate,

narrow-minded, suspicious character," so insanely jealous

of his son Feisal that he was forever issuing from his throne

in Mecca, out of sheer pique, "orders that from time to time

jeopardized the cause ." 13

Observers, neutral and friendly, have described the character

of these purchased levies. They were not, by our standards,

good soldiers. Bloodless victories were the kind that they appreciated,

and Lawrence's understanding of this preference

dictated his whole strategy of irregular warfare . Colonel Wilson,

the English representative at Hussein's court, contemptuously

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

and Lawrence makes no bones about their cowardice under

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

Arabs suffered heavy casualties in a direct attack they would

never recover from the effect and would disseminate into thin

air." 15

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

combine tribes, since they disliked or distrusted one another .

Likewise, we could not use the men of one tribe in the territory

of another." 16 With sardonic resignation he observes : "My

men were blood enemies of thirty tribes, and only for my hand

72

THE RAPE OF PALESTINE

over them would have murdered in the ranks every day . Their

feuds prevented them combining against me ; while their unlikeness

gave me sponsors and spies wherever I went or

sent. . ." 17

Often the Arabs refused to fight at all because they were not

satisfied with the amount of loot they were receiving . Lawrence

himself was once abandoned with two companions in the

middle of an engagement, his Arab allies having gone raving

mad with the lust of plunder. In their frenzy they fought

among themselves, and soon were all `missing,' "having dispersed

with their spoil ." Even in victory they did not hesitate to leave

their own wounded lying helpless on the ground while they

looted. Under these circumstances, says Lawrence, they lost

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

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

invariably broke off in the middle of an engagement to disappear

into the desert with their captured gains . There is actually

no recorded instance of an Arab accomplishment in the way

of a spectacular battle or the capture of a large town with its

garrison.

The British, in fact, had their hands full with their wild allies.

Aviators had to fly at a considerable height to avoid being

shot at by the Bedouins, who had "an irresistible desire to

shoot anything that was moving fast ." 19 They found the Arab

chiefs volcanic and suspicious and ever ready to resent the

presence of infidels. "Many of them," writes Captain Hart,

"behaved as if the British officers were their servants, and set

an example of rudeness that was imitated by their followers, as

well as by their slaves." Lawrence cautioned his men frankly

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

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

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

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

transportation system, afraid that they "would keep on playfully

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

The whole Lawrence legend in itself has been sadly exaggerated.

He was a brave and clever man, but the truth of the

BRASS BUTTONS AND STUFFED SHIRTS 73

matter is that he never penetrated into Arabia at all, and merely

went down the western coastal fringe from Mecca northward

along the Pilgrim railway .22 Most of the inhabitants of Arabia

could hardly have known of his existence, "while the suggestion

implied of Arabian unification under a foreigner and a non-

Moslem is, of course, a myth ." 23

His entire `army' of purchased irregulars did not amount to

a row of peanuts when compared with the Arabs fighting on

the Turkish side against the detested infidel . Simultaneous with

the Sherif's commitment to the Allies, his powerful neighbor

Hussein Mabeirig, chief of the Rabegh Harb, joined the Turks ;

and facing the invaders was at least one entire Ottoman division

made up entirely of Arab men and officers .

The number who participated in the `revolt' were an uncertain

and fluctuating quantity, "simply gathering," says Bertram

Thomas, "for some particular expedition in numbers that sometimes

reached a few thousand, but were more often only a few

hundred." Lloyd George estimated their total number to aggregate

"but a few thousand horsemen," remarking that "the

vast majority of their race in the Great War were fighting for

their Turkish conquerors." 24

There have been few peoples in history who have gotten so

much for giving so little . In Iraq the Arabs took almost no part

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

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

was their principal object . Blood-curdling eyewitness accounts

tell how Turks and Englishmen alike were murdered for their

small possessions . Unfortunate prisoners had their bellies

ripped open in search of the gold liras which the Arabs thought

the soldiers had swallowed. Graves containing Turkish and

English dead were despoiled for any articles which might have

been buried with them . Throughout the Turkish Empire the

phrase Khayin Arab (treacherous Arab) became an ugly

proverb.25

As shown by the records, as far as Palestine is concerned, the

Arab contribution to its conquest was indirect and trifling . Not

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

74 THE RAPE OF PALESTINE

Trans-Jordan it was the Jewish Legions who, having assisted the

English to take the passages of the Jordan River, marched on to

capture Es Salt, then considered its principal town. Lawrence's

Arabs were far away in the desert engaged in butchering and

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

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

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

twisted mentality. . ." 26

At this time the dazzling fiction of a Palestinian Arab struggle

against the Turks had not yet been invented . The British themselves,

roiled by the disinclination of Palestine Arabs to assist

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

moved by no spirit of personal liberty or freedom for their

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

reveals that his levies were all desert tribesmen except for ten

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

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

to speak pompously of Arab nationalism in Palestine, were of

quite a different sentiment in 1918 . British Peace Handbook

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

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

somewhat akin to hostility towards the Arab movement . . .

This class, while regretting the opportunities for illegitimate

gain offered by Turkish rule, has no real political cohesion, and,

above all, no power of organization ." There was in fact not a

single Arab personality in Palestine with whom the British could

negotiate . With their experiences still fresh in English minds,

the Peace Handbook repeats Burton's jibe that these Levantines

"hide their weapons at the call of patriotism ."

Despite the ado subsequently made over the vaunted promises

to Hussein, all the evidence indicates that until British policy

shifted after the War, the idea that Palestine should become

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

Lawrence's campaign Feisal and his principal henchmen had

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

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

McMahon himself vigorously denied that any pledge had been

BRASS BUTTONS AND STUFFED SHIRTS 75

given to Hussein which could be construed to mean that Palestine

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

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

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

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

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

Government promised to recognize and support the independence

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

the conclusion of the correspondence on which the claim was

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

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

Arabs outside the Hejaz to anything.

When Hussein finally proclaimed himself Commander of the

Faithful, it proved a fatal step, hardening against him the Wahabis

and other fanatic Moslem groups in whose eyes the Sherif

was an infidel backslider . London, too, was tiring of his incessant

demands and arrogance ; and burned with rage when

the new King of the Hejaz refused to sign the Treaty of Versailles

and wriggled out of joining the League of Nations under

British tutelage. Quietly they withdrew their support from

the recalcitrant Hussein and let it be known that he was now on

his own.27 Saud, who had been waiting for this moment,

needed no further invitation . He promptly occupied Mecca,

chased Hussein off to exile in Cyprus, and henceforth styled

himself King of the Hejaz and Sultan of Nejd .

While the Sherif was engaged in this death struggle with his

ancient enemy, Britain stepped in and demanded that he place

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

On May 27, 1925, the British Government regretfully informed

the Commander of the Faithful that if he would not accede

to this demand, it "would have to take Aqaba and Maan by

force." On June 18, both towns became part of Transjordan .

Here was created the need for a fresh departure in British Arabic

policy since their new protege, Saud, would not accept the fact

of British possession gracefully ; he continued to roar with aggrieved

self-righteousness that he had been robbed . This friction,

which persists until today, resulted in still another of

76

THE RAPE OF PALESTINE

Whitehall's famous zigzags, this time back in the direction of

Abdullah of the House of Hussein .

THE ARAB VIEW OF ZIONISM

During all the period that the Zionists had been without benefit

of Balfour Declaration or Mandatory `assistance,' the attitude

of the Arabs toward the Jewish National Movement had been

one of almost unanimous approval . In 19o6, Farid Kassab, famous

Syrian author, had expressed the view uniformly held by

Arabs : "The Jews of the Orient are at home . This land is their

only fatherland . They don't know any other ." 28 A year later

Dr. Gaster reported that he had "held conversations with some

of the leading sheikhs, and they all expressed themselves as very

pleased with the advent of the Jews, for they considered that

with them had come barakat, i .e., blessing, since the rain came in

due season ." 29

The Moslem religious leader, the Mufti, was openly friendly,

even taking a prominent part in the ceremony of laying the

foundation stone for the Hebrew University on Mt. Scopus.

Throughout Arabia the chiefs were for the most part distinctly

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

every prospect of Jewish settlement near their villages . They

let few opportunities slip to proclaim in flowery oriental rhetoric

the benefits that Jewish colonization was bringing them .

Land acquisition was easy. Commercial intercourse between

Arab and Jew was constant and steady . In the face of the practical

regard with which the impoverished natives viewed these

queer Moskubs 30 who brought with them manna from heaven,

the anti-Zionist elements, if they existed, kept silent . Remarkably

enough, the incoming Zionists, vigorous, modern, and capable,

were treated with high respect, while the native Jew still remained

despised.

The Arab National Movement itself, puny, inexperienced,

and hated by the huge Levantine population who continued to

regard themselves simply as Ottoman subjects, looked to the

BRASS BUTTONS AND STUFFED SHIRTS ?7

strong, influential Zionist Organization for sympathy and assistance

.

Hussein of the Hejaz who had been booted upstairs by the

British into a position of recognized authority in the Arab Nationalist

Movement after the War, distrusted European nations

and their statesmen to the very marrow of his bones . He looked

to the Zionists, as a kindred folk, for the financial and scientific

experience of which the projected Arab state would stand badly

in need. When the Balfour Declaration was communicated to

him in January 1918, he had replied "with an expression of good

will towards a kindred Semitic race ." 31

In May of the same year, at Aqaba where he held court and

made camp, Hussein was visited by Dr. Weitzman, head of the

Zionist Commission . At this desert conference the British Government

and the Arab Bureau in Cairo were well represented .

Feisal, dark, majestic son of the Sherif, spoke as the Arab representative

. Intimate mutual cooperation between the two Movements

was pledged . The Zionists were to provide political,

technical and financial advisers to the Arabs ; and it was agreed

that Palestine was to be the Jewish sphere of influence and development.

This alliance fitted perfectly with Hussein's ideas .

Basic hostility to all Christian powers characterized father and

son, who felt that the Jews were the indispensable allies, and

indeed the instruments, of a new Arab renaissance . They

regarded a dominantly Jewish Palestine as the necessary foundation

to a greater Arabia ; and were anxious for a rapid development

of the Peninsula if it were to become capable of resisting

the attacks which their weakness must sooner or later

invite.

When Feisal came to Europe in i 919 representing the Arab

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

and Lawrence approved of them, and early in i 9 i 9 these conversations

culminated in a Treaty of Friendship . Solemnly

signed, this convention provided for the "closest possible collaboration"

in the development of the Arab State and the coming

Jewish Commonwealth of Palestine . National boundaries were

78

THE RAPE OF PALESTINE

considered ; 32 Mohammedan Holy Places were to be under Mohammedan

control ; the Zionist Organization undertook to provide

economic experts to the new Arab State ; and the Arabs

agreed to facilitate the carrying into effect of the Balfour Declaration

and to "encourage and stimulate immigration of Jews

into Palestine on a large scale ." 33

On March 3, I9I9, Feisal acting officially for the Arab movement,

wrote : "We Arabs look with the deepest sympathy on

the Zionist movement . Our deputation in Paris is fully acquainted

with the proposals submitted yesterday by the Zionist

Organization to the Peace Conference and we regard them as

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

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

most hearty welcome home ."

The Arab leaders placed themselves on record everywhere in

an obvious effort to attain Zionist support for their own aspirations,

then under the cloud of European Imperialist ambitions .

A representative example is Feisal's public communication to

Sir Herbert Samuel, pleading the need to "maintain between

us that harmony so necessary for the success of our common

cause."

On meticulous English records, carefully buried in the Government

vaults, the entire story is written in comprehensive detail.

At all discussions British representatives were present .

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

Major Ormsby-Gore was liaison officer on the ground .

It was he who pulled the strings between Arab and Jew, at a

time when Zionism was still persona grata to the gentlemen who

rule Whitehall .

THE MILITARY JUNTA

Whatever the mighty deeds and feats of derring-do by English

arms elsewhere in the Great War, it is not a fact that they

alone conquered Palestine . It is only a fact that an English general

led the attacking forces, much as Marshal Foch commanded

the Allies on the Western Front .

BRASS BUTTONS AND STUFFED SHIRTS 79

When with pennants flying, Sir Edmund Allenby made his

historic entry into Jerusalem on December 9, 1917, the Hebrew

battalions were also there. Sir John Monash's Australians were

the bulk of his effectives . Under his command, among others,

was a contingent of French Colonials and a force of Italian

Bersaglieri from Libya . As he victoriously entered, Allenby

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

the other by Major d'Augustino, the French and Italian representatives

respectively .

It was understood all around that the expressed Jewish wish

was to have the British in control during the early period when

the foundations of the Jewish National Home were to be laid .

The Zionists were at the time much afraid of the practical results

which might follow from the International control favored

by the French and Italians ; and they looked on the English as

their friends and sponsors . Under this Jewish insistence the

Latins generously allowed their interests to lapse, and the English

military was left in complete authority .

The surrender of Jerusalem coincided exactly with the Feast

of Chanukah, which commemorates the recapture of the Temple

from the heathen Seleucids by Judas Maccabeus in the year

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

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

."

But hardly had the Turks been driven out when it became apparent

to Jew and Arab alike that the entire Administration was

uncompromisingly opposed both to the letter and the spirit of

the Declaration . In his solemn proclamation after taking the

Capital, Allenby spoke as if the Declaration had never been issued.

In fact no mention was made of the Jewish National Home

in any official announcement in Palestine until May 1, 1920.

Even all references to the Jewish Legion, unstintingly praised in

the military dispatches f or its gallantry in action, were suppressed

by G.H.Q. from the dispatches as published in the Palestine and

Egyptian papers . The amazed Zionists suddenly discovered

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

perhaps anti-Jewish ." 34

8o

THE RAPE OF PALESTINE

Weitzman and his cohorts had been used to dealing with

suave statesmen whose assurances were still ringing in their ears.

Balfour had just reiterated that "no one is now opposed to

Zionism. The success of Zionism is secure ." 35 Ormsby-Gore

had even gone so far as to urge the immediate creation of a Jewish

passport. In Jerusalem the consuls of almost every country

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

British Peace Handbook on Zionism, giving on the highest possible

authority the Government's conception of what it had

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

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

the British Empire ; but its administration should be largely entrusted

to Jews of the Colonist type. . . Zionists of this way of

thinking believe that, under such conditions, the Jewish population

would rapidly increase until the Jew became the predominant

partner of the combination ."

The Zionists were under the impression that they had "gained

the adhesion of the Powers to practically the exact terminology

of the Basle program adopted in 1897" under the direction of

Herzl.3B They were totally unprepared for the unexpected attitude

of the Military, and stood around rubbing their hands in

consternation.

The Generals, looking on the pro-Zionist commitment of the

Foreign Office as little less than criminal lunacy, virtually refused

to carry out London's orders. In this they were obviously

abetted by headquarters in Cairo which, in addition to

holding the direction of military operations, contained a staff of

political observers . For reasons which will be discussed later,

the Military considered the Jews to be dangerous Bolsheviks

who were conspiring to upset the Empire . Moreover, the

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

Generals hoped to exclude them from Syria altogether . Sir

Arthur Money, who took over the administration for Allenby,

in high elation reported that he had interviewed a number of

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

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

BRASS BUTTONS AND STUFFED SHIRTS 81

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

from which Jews were to be excluded.

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

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

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

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

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

Military Governor of Jaffa declared insolently that he was going

to address Jewish delegations in Arabic .

The attitude of the Generals toward the Jews was contemptuous

and hostile ; and subordinates were swiftly responsive to the

cue supplied by their superior officers . General Money asserted

with cool complacency : "I have asked many people in

position - in England and elsewhere - why England has capitulated

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

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

the Holy Land had been handed over to Weitzman who had

demanded it as his pound of flesh for having invented "in the

nick of time . . . some ultra-Teutonic deadliness of gas and

bombs." 38

Not un-instructive of the whole tone of this administration is

the case given by Horace Samuel, late Judicial Officer in Palestine,

of a medical official "who quite frankly and with barely

concealed relish announced that Jew-baiting had been the sport

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

quite apart from any question of higher politics, "regarded

the Balfour Declaration as damn nonsense, the Jews as a

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

damn good fellows." 40

HANDRUBBING STATESMEN

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

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

few notable exceptions, they carried with them into the new

movement the spirit of philosophic resignation, the unworldly

8

THE RAPE OF PALESTINE

dreaming and weakness under attack which had characterized

life in the Russian Pale . Wise politicians would have known

that the Balfour Declaration was only the beginning of their

troubles ; that from this time onward, the Jewish estate would

have to be protected by every artifice that stubborn determination

and vigilance could invent . But the inexperienced Zionists

considered their provisional charter to be the solution to all

problems. Learnedly they mapped and blueprinted the perfect

society which was gradually to unfold its petals like a lovely

orchid in the new Land of Israel .

Shocked by these pedantic vagaries, the shrewd Nordau urged

that a half million Jews be thrown into Palestine at once . The

Bolshevik horror alone could have supplied such a number of

weary refugees who would have been eager to migrate to the

Holy Land under any conditions . The practical difficulties to

such a project were by no means insuperable, and, fully as important,

Arab resistance to the policy of the Jewish National

Home was at this time scarcely visible . Arab landowners, holders

of great vacant stretches, were under the impression that

radical land legislation was impending and were anxious to sell

at any price. It was a golden opportunity, never to come again .

But Zionist spokesmen at that time were opposed to what

they considered `premature' immigration, and wanted to build

on `sound' lines . With cautious logic they demanded to know

"How will these people live ? We have no houses for them -

they will starve ! " 41

"Let them live in tents - let them starve !" replied Nordau.

"But you had better bring them in at once while the opportunity

lasts. Gentlemen, you have the Balfour Declaration : but you

don't know England !"

The Hierarchy, condemning Nordau and his followers as

`impractical, un-idealistic and headstrong,' was content to wait .

Its initiative had been immobilized by the collapse of Russia

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

coming into power, had outlawed the movement on the grounds

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

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

BRASS BUTTONS AND STUFFED SHIRTS 83

only a social class and not a nation, they declared Jewish nationalism

a counter-revolutionary activity .

Completely upset by this volcanic withdrawal of their principal

source of support, the bewildered Zionists did nothing .

Their complete reliance on the good faith of British assurances

caused them to neglect the most logical and prudent step, that

of consolidating their position quickly, before opposition forces

had had time to collect themselves .

The British could hardly believe their eyes when the Jewish

leaders, obsessed with vague schemes for national ownership of

the land, actually welcomed the drastic legislation ordered by

Allenby prohibiting land sales as well as immigration . They

did not even protest when the Jewish Legion was ca'Talierly disbanded

and told to leave the Holy Land for their points of

origin, though the balance of Allenby's force remained under

arms.

In London a Jewish Commission had been arranged for, ostensibly

to take over the business of developing the country

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

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

of the British Government, to advise the Palestine Administration

on Jewish affairs . As head of this essentially political

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

of treacherous insinuations that Zionists were seeking political

power.42

The Generals, who had been treating the Jewish population

as if it were non-existent, did not even bother with blandishments

; they simply ignored the Commission altogether. Not

even a pretense of friendship with the Government could be

maintained.

With a pointed demonstration of contempt, when the Jewish

National Anthem was played at a concert in a Jewish school,

General Money and his staff deliberately kept their seats . Putty-souled

Zionist leaders, who might have used the incident for a

complete show-down fight in a world where the advantage of

sympathy and legality was all theirs, remembered the knout of

the Czars, sweated and kept silent .

84

THE RAPE OF PALESTINE

Incident multiplied itself on incident, and for twenty months

the status quo of the country remained unchanged . The only

time the Zionist leaders opened their mouths was when "the

notorious anti-Semite Colonel Scott (acting head of the judiciary)

publicly insulted the Jews and the Jewish religion in the

corridor of the Law Courts ."" The howl that went up,

forced by Orthodox institutions, compelled him to resign .

The Zionists were badly rattled . Wanting the hardihood

necessary to handle this admittedly difficult situation, they could

only sit helplessly by, hoping for the best . They watched

apathetically while a civil agent of the Government, an apostate

Jew named Gabriel, busied himself in promoting British commercial

interests while the Jews, treated as social, commercial

and political outcasts, were kept at a distance. With equal

meekness they stood by while the Government sabotaged Jewish

efforts to come to an understanding with the Arabs .

With conscious design the Administration fostered hostility

between Arab and Jew . It directly advised the amazed Arabs

of Palestine and Egypt to abstain from any concessions to the

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

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

astonished Arab young-bloods in the technique and

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

And in London it contacted reliable anti-Jewish elements,

to form a liaison which has endured to this day .

The Arabs were not only instigated and advised, but supplied

with funds, and their arguments ghost-written by Englishmen

in high places . They proved a tolerably good investment .

Their ready compliance may be seen in the very convenient demands

put forward in the Third Arab Palestine Congress (timed

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

Near East altogether) that the Holy Land be not separated from

Syria.

During all this time the Military had been playing a high game

of politics on its own, maneuvering carefully to present the

forthcoming Peace Conference with a fait accompli which

would set the lily-livered civilian officials in London back on

BRASS BUTTONS AND STUFFED SHIRTS 85

their heels. Tension was strong between British and French as

to who should control the Eastern Mediterranean . The French,

traditional protectors of Syria, had a long-hooked finger in the

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

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

down the spines of the military gentlemen in Jerusalem .

The Generals aimed at one big Arab state or federation of

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

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

of Britain. For this consummation to be realized it was

essential that the population of Palestine should be so anti-

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

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

put into force a French control of the Levant or a Zionist policy

in Palestine .

Now began a technique of instigation and incitement from

which the Anglo-Saxon rulers of the Holy Land have never

varied wherever they had a point to be gained . Tension between

France and England over this continuous stream of intrigue

finally reached a point where a breath would have precipitated

it into armed conflict . The French statesman M . Barthou

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

forwarded the protest to Palestine, abjuring the Generals to behave

themselves .

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

against the French in Damascus, with money and ammunition

supplied by the British General Headquarters .44 He had been

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

and which asserted the principle that Palestine was a

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

in order to show how impossible it was to implement

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

arranged a pogrom in Jerusalem. They hoped it would

mean the end of Zionism, that the League of Nations, which had

not yet officially named a mandatory, would be forced to `recognize

the rights' of the native population and cancel out the Zionist

adventure .

86

THE RAPE OF PALESTINE

POGROM AND WORLD HORROR

The Governor of Jerusalem was General Louis Bols . Chief

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

was a military government in perpetuity, and who later became

an anti-Zionist organizer in London .

When Colonel Patterson, staunch Zionist friend, heard that

Bols had been appointed, he was shocked . He writes : "I knew

Bols well, having worked with him for two years . I knew him

as an out and out anti-Semite, who would leave no stone unturned

to destroy the Jewish National Home root and branch."

So moved was this honest English soldier that he boarded a train

for Cairo that very day in order to warn Weitzman of the danger,

urging him to oppose Bols' appointment with might and

main. In reply Weitzman informed Patterson that his fears

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

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

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

was soon to be written in Jewish blood.

Ominous incidents crowding fast on the heels of the intensive

propaganda which followed the crowning of Feisal in Syria, had

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

responded by ordering the disarming of the population, enforcing

the order only insofar as the Jews were concerned .

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

Jews like a clap of thunder . Misled by the naivete of their responsible

leaders, they awoke from their dreams of a Jewish

Commonwealth to scenes no different than those from which

they had fled in Russia .

The action was perfectly timed . Moslem crowds had gathered

for the Nebi Moussa festival in Jerusalem . The usual

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

emotional delirium . Propaganda of the wildest sort was

being circulated ; and whispers went through the crowd, which

was going rapidly berserk.

Now agitators were addressing this churning mass, urging

BRASS BUTTONS AND STUFFED SHIRTS

87

them forward against the Jews . Hesitant for a moment, the reassuring

cry arose : "The Government is with us!"

The stage had been ably set . All Jewish policemen had been

relieved from duty in the `Old City,' a walled section of Jerusalem

where the bulk of the Jews resided. Totally unopposed

and making a directed attack from three different parts of the

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

Quarter, brandishing knives and clubs .

Shrieking madness covered the Old City. The most horrible

and repugnant scenes took place . Amongst other manifestations

of patriotism, some elderly Jews were locked in a house

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

to rape.

Shivering with the emotion of an unhappy, betrayed man,

Weitzman, supreme Jewish leader, wept bitterly. In another

part of the city, Jabotinsky, the little Russian writer with the

prognathous jaw, was raging. Cursing the wordy timidity of

his Zionist confreres he swiftly gathered together a group of ex-

Legionnaires. Heartened, other young Jews joined the "Self-

Defense." Where they appeared the rioters ran for their lives .

Meanwhile the Government surrounded the Old City with a

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

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

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

raised a hand to interfere .45

Jabotinsky and his Legionnaires were arrested as fast as they

could be apprehended . It was symptomatic of the general tone

of the Administration that Howes, the Commandant of Police,

caused Jabotinsky to be held in the common lockup, while Arab

agitators who had also been arrested were accommodated in a

pleasant room in the Governate itself . Zionist stock slumped

still lower when Jewish notables were refused an audience,

while motor cars were placed at the disposal of Arab leaders for

the purpose of granting them an interview with the Chief Administrator

.46

With ghoulish thoroughness the Government both during and

88

THE RAPE OF PALESTINE

after the riots searched the Jews for arms, deliberately rendering

them defenseless, and causing numerous arrests of those

guilty of protecting their homes and loved ones. Cynically

Sir Louis Bols complained in a dispatch to Cairo : "They [the

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

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

own hands."

So devilishly inhuman a course would hardly seem credible if

it were not supported by the word of many witnesses, some of

them distinguished Englishmen, revolted by this sickening parade

of events. The tone of the Administration was so hostile

that a celebrated American archaeologist, a non-Jew, told Horace

Samuel "quite specifically" that because of his sympathy for

the riot victims "he found himself deliberately cold-shouldered

by the British officials ." 47 A thoroughly upset British lady felt

compelled to write that "for the first time yesterday I felt

ashamed of being born an Englishwoman ." 48

Jerusalem had undergone an orgy of slaughter, rape, torture

and sack . Everywhere homes and stores were wrecked . Sixty

innocents lay dead, and innumerable victims were injured, the

memory of unspeakable horror engraved on their consciousness,

never to fade. Far away in the little Galilee village of Tel Hai

the knightly Captain Trumpledor was killed with nine of his

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

In a vermin-infested jail, awaiting trial, was Jabotinsky - Jewish

patriot and ex-officer of His Majesty's Army- now stripped

of his honors and treated like a dangerous felon. With scant

ceremony he was tried, and with his Legionnaires sentenced to

fifteen years at hard labor .

Shocked by this savage order, the Jews shut their shops in

protest. The Government replied with a ukase ordering the

shops reopened under penalty of a fine of £ 50 ; an action more

than interesting in view of the way subsequent Arab strikes

were handled .

Suddenly, like a typhoon which had gathered from nowhere,

a tremendous wave of protest swept the world . England with

her hands full in Ireland and India, smarting under the conBRASS

BUTTONS AND STUFFED SHIRTS 89

demnation she was receiving in all civilized quarters, was aghast .

The Generals' plan had become a boomerang .

The League had not yet granted an official mandate ; and the

French, irritated to the boiling point, took action to throw

Feisal out. Angling for Jewish support, they let it be known

that they would not refuse if the mandate for Palestine were offered

to them.

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

before the world . The precious life line to India was

in danger.

Here was another shining opportunity laid right in the Zionists'

laps. The functionaries in Whitehall were in rapid retreat .

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

of Palestine together with his Chief of Staff, and

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

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

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

had reversed itself . But Zionist leaders continued to temporize

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

action, they settled down to ponder their old vaporous

ideas.

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