CHAPTER VII
THE MANDATE BY THE LEAGUE
WEIZMANN OBLIGES
At the Peace Conference, held at Versailles in February i q I g,
the historic opportunity for which Herzl had built and struggled
had suddenly come to a head. The Allies were tired and in a
generous mood. The hysteria founded on the claim that the
`War was fought for democracy' was still much in evidence.
Jewry was, moreover, reckoned as a world force whose good will
could count powerfully in the reconstruction period which was
following. At this psychological moment, had Zionist leaders
possessed the political shrewdness which induced the other nations
to scramble eagerly for the biggest hunk of spoil they
could get, the Jewish problem would have found its solution,
and would not today be a plague spot in the life of Europe .
Poland was being handed whole sections of Germany and the
Ukraine to satisfy its `economic needs' as well as the ideals of
democracy. Other nations similarly were fighting for and securing
their share . The Jews could have demanded and received
not only the present boundaries of Palestine, but a large
part of the rich Lebanon Valley, the fertile Hauran, and the
vast uninhabited territory to the east . This area was practically
vacant ; and the signs were already written on the heavens that
Israel must soon evacuate Europe or perish. The Arabs, undeterred
by the restraining `principles' of the Zionists, had demanded,
and received, more than they had ever envisioned in
their wildest dreams . At a moment when public opinion would
have completely approved of the Zionists taking immediate possession,
they demurred on `democratic' and `social' grounds .
An example of their attitude is contained in the assertion by Sir
Herbert Samuel that "the immediate establishment of a complete
and purely Jewish State in Palestine would mean placing a
majority under the rule of a minority ; it would therefore be
contrary to the first principles of democracy. . ."
90
THE MANDATE BY THE LEAGUE
91
Both at Versailles and later, the chief Jewish negotiator,
Weitzman, maintained the mild demeanor of humanist and philosopher
. Asked what the Zionists wanted, he contented himself
with the remark : "Ultimately, such conditions that Palestine
should be just as Jewish as England is English ." 1 Lloyd
George commented that "Weitzman was the only modest man
at the Peace Conference . . . who was decent in his demands" :
a bitterly questionable compliment to the oppressed Jews who
survey it in retrospect .
Throughout the Versailles Conference the view taken by the
British delegation, and supported by the Plenipotentiaries, "was
that if there was to be a Jewish nationality, it could only be by
giving the Jews a local habitation and enabling them to found in
Palestine a Jewish State ." 2
Powerful America, holding the economic future of Europe in
her pocket, was heart and soul for a Zionist solution . The official
American recommendation at the Peace Conference was
for the establishment of a Jewish State. A commission of prominent
Americans had been sent by President Wilson to investigate,
and their recommendations, adopted by the President and
other American delegates without dissent, were direct and forthright,
stating bluntly that "it is right that Palestine should become
a Jewish State." 3
The frank of America on this proposal was tantamount to its
acceptance by the Conference . With the exception of some
demurrage from the Catholic Church, which wanted to make
doubly sure that its own interests in the Holy Land were protected,
opposition virtually did not exist . The Arabs themselves
were more than friendly and in fact were looking to the obviously
influential Zionists for support of their own program .
Again, as in the case of the Balfour Declaration, the only oppositionists
were Jews - capitalists or Marxists - who considered
Zionism a move of gravely dangerous import . In England a
"League of British Jews" led by the important Claude G . Montefiore
was formed to lobby against the proposition . In America
three hundred representatives of Jewish moneybags, led by the
Reform Rabbis, forwarded a protest to the Peace Conference
92
THE RAPE OF PALESTINE
"against the program of political Zionism ." But the only effect
of these hysterical renunciations was to cause the Plenipotentiaries
to scratch their heads in wonder and dismiss the authors
as a bunch of well-meaning crackpots .
Heavily in the Zionists' favor was the biting rivalry between
the British and French, each determined to shut the other out of
the Near East if it could . Sticking in the craw of the British
was the Sykes-Picot Treaty, which all but handed the Levant
over to France . The British realized that they had made a bad
bargain, and now this Treaty came back to haunt them . They
had allowed oil, trade, potential rail-heads, and with them a de
facto control of the route to India, to slip through their fingers .
Able tacticians, they pointed out that the Balfour Declaration to
which Paris had agreed, invalidated the Sykes-Picot Agreement .
The French, secure in the largest military establishment on
earth, already almost at war with England over Lloyd George's
support of the ill-fated Greek invasion of Asiatic Turkey, countered
by claiming Palestine as an integral part of Syria, over
which they held traditional rights of protection .
Though the Kaiser was chopping wood somewhere in Holland,
and Generals Hindenburg and Ludendorff were now just
two harmless old boys out on probation, the old German dream
was still very much alive . The English had quietly taken it
over as part of their profit in the war they had just fought for
humanity . If it was to be put into operation they needed Palestine
desperately.
The French stood pat . They wanted Palestine, but were
willing to accept a condominium . The British were aghast .
They relied on the Jews and on President Wilson to provide
the necessary brake to French ambitions .
As it became evident that the Zionists held the decision in
their hands they were courted by both sides. Sir Mark Sykes
and M. Georges-Picot, authors of the earlier agreement, both
declared themselves as favoring the Zionist solution .
What the French had not figured on was the almost pathological
pro-Anglicism of the Jews, enduring product of an earlier
generation of English friendship . It must be noted that
THE MANDATE BY THE LEAGUE
93
there was nothing either in the Balfour promise or in the negotiations
at Versailles which assured Great Britain of the Mandate.
It was still very much open to the Powers to appoint
anyone they pleased . The only positive commitment was that
Palestine was to be a National Home for the Jews .
The Zionists, prompted by London, now went into action .
In the name of the Jewish people the American Jewish Congress
solemnly pleaded with the Powers for the appointment of Great
Britain as Mandatory because of her "peculiar relationship to
the return of the Jews to Zion ." Similar action was taken at
congresses representing the millions of Jews in Poland and
the Austro-Hungarian Empire . Now at the Versailles Conference
the Zionist Organization formally asked that the Mandate
should be entrusted to Great Britain under the sovereignty of
the League of Nations . This request was made in an elaborate
statement on the future of Palestine, in which the word `Commonwealth'
reappears as a synonym for the Jewish `National
Home.' This determined demand for English stewardship left
nothing for France to do but gallantly withdraw her claim . She
had been checkmated by a master tactician, and she took her
licking gracefully.
Condensing a volume of duplicity and ingratitude in a few
words, De Haas remarks that "the British at once commenced a
process of whittling the phraseology before the Supreme Council
of the Peace Conference ." 4
So matters stood when in April of 1920 the League Council
met at San Remo to go through the motions of ratifying the
Mandate. World indignation over the pogrom inspired by the
Generals was blazing at white heat . The French, smiling delightedly,
were confident that the Zionists had had enough of
English patronage. Despite the recommendations of the Peace
Conference, technically the Sykes-Picot Agreement was the
document which governed the future status of Palestine . It was
still possible for Herzl's followers, enjoying the powerful French
and American support, to upset the British applecart by demanding
another mandatory . Weitzman, however, still believed
implicitly in English honesty and good faith . He again
94
THE RAPE OF PALESTINE
reiterated the demand that England be confirmed as the trustee
for the Jewish estate .
The reaction of the Arabs to the San Remo decision was extremely
friendly . Representatives of the Arab territories welcomed
the idea of the Jewish State which was soon to rise up in
their midst . King Feisal of Iraq wrote a cordial letter congratulating
the Zionists on their triumph .
London's delight knew no bounds . At a public demonstration
to celebrate the grant and its inclusion in the peace treaty
with Turkey, Lord Balfour, reminding the Arabs that they had
been handed vast areas on a gold platter, hoped that "remembering
all that, they will not begrudge that small niche - for it
is no more than that geographically . . . being given to the
people who for all these hundreds of years have been separated
from it - and who surely have a title to develop on their own
lines in the land of their forefathers ."
A few months later the matter was clinched for England .
The Treaty of Sevres was signed between Turkey and the
Western Powers. It reiterated the decisions of the Nations,
ceding Palestine with the proviso that the "Mandatory will be
responsible for putting into effect the Declaration originally
made on November 2, 1917 by the British Government and
adopted by the other Allied Powers in favor of the establishment
in Palestine of the National Home of the Jewish People ."
Secure in the knowledge that the overlordship of this coveted
territory was now theirs, London sprang a series of new surprises
on the Zionists . It quibbled on words, seeking to reduce
the content of the Mandate by a wearing down process before
producing it in its final form .
The Zionists made plea after plea, realizing that they had put
their feet in quicksand . They appealed to the League as if the
procrastination lay there . On February 27, 1922, representatives
of the Zionist Organization went through the play-acting
of informing the League Council in Paris that the Jews of Palestine,
at a conference in Jaffa, appealed to the Allied and Associated
Powers "to nominate Great Britain as their trustee, and to
confer on her the government of Palestine with a view to aiding
THE MANDATE BY THE LEAGUE
95
the Jewish People in building up their Commonwealth ." s A
confirmed Zionist, President Harding made his interest known
unofficially ; and in April of 1922 the United States Congress
stated by resolution its profound satisfaction that "owing to the
outcome of the World War and their part therein, the Jewish
people, under definite and adequate international guarantee, are
to be enabled . . . to recreate and reorganize a National Home
in the land of their fathers," commending "this act of historic
justice about to be consummated" as "an undertaking which will
do honor to Christendom."
Still the British continued to hem and haw, utilizing every
trifling technicality to spar for time . It was not until the revised
convention with Turkey, the Treaty of Lausanne, was
signed in 1923, that the Mandate, adroitly mutilated, was accepted
in its final form .* The Jewish Agency, originally conceived
to be a chartered colonizing body like the Hudson Bay
Company, was given the right to act in an advisory capacity, its
powers limited by language ambiguous enough to be interpreted
in any direction the ruling power of Palestine wanted . Also
inserted in its phraseology at the last moment was an innocuous
little paragraph which the Zionists paid but scant attention to .
It provided that in the territory east of Jordan, the Mandatory
could postpone such provisions of the Mandate as might be inapplicable
to local conditions . It was understood that this related
only to the unsettled condition of this area and the possibilities
of policing it properly . What this innocent appearing
clause meant in far-sighted English minds the Jews were presently
to discover.
In view of later English contentions that under the Mandate
they were forced to consult the Arabs in implementing their actions,
it is interesting to note that the Arabs were not approached
when that responsibility was handed to Britain - only the Jews
were consulted . It is also remarkable that the word `Arab'
never once occurs in the whole document as apart from the recognition
of Arabic as one of the official languages of the country.
A most casual reading makes it plain that the League had
* See Appendix `A,' p . 571 .
96
THE RAPE OF PALESTINE
engaged itself to a definite and positive policy of Jewish development,
not only permitted, but fostered and subsidized by the
Government of Palestine. The Balfour Declaration and its consequence,
the Mandate for Palestine, ushered in a new concept
of international law, widening the scope of the law itself . While
in all other cases it is the actual inhabitants of the countries in
question who are dealt with, as being too backward to govern
themselves, under the Palestine Mandate it is the Jewish people
as a whole who are the beneficiaries. The Mandate is clearly
for an absent people who are not yet there on the ground, with
the existing populations secondarily guaranteed full liberty and
civil rights.' This alteration of basic law came under discussion
at the twelfth meeting of the Twentieth Session of the Mandates
Commission (June 1931) in connection with a British observation
to the effect that "in international law there was no
such thing as a Jew from the standpoint of nationality ." To
this the Vice-Chairman of the Commission replied that the remark
would be correct except for the existence of the Balfour
Declaration and the Mandate, which had introduced a new element
into this law in favor of the Jewish People .
Included in the Preamble was the Balfour Declaration and its
ratification by the Powers at San Remo . The Preamble concludes
that "recognition has thereby been given to the historical
connection of the Jewish people with Palestine and to the
grounds for reconstituting their National Home in that country,"
certainly implying that the future Palestine should be as
Jewish as the Palestine of the Bible .
Of the direct commitments the most important was Article II
which stated that "the Mandatory shall be responsible for placing
the country under such political, administrative and economic
conditions as will secure the establishment of the Jewish
National Home as laid down in the Preamble . . ." While Article
VI ordered the Mandatory to "facilitate Jewish immigration"
and to "encourage, in cooperation with the Jewish Agency
. . . the close settlement of Jews on the land including State
lands and wastelands not required for public purposes ."
On December 3, 1924, the United States became one of
THE MANDATE BY THE LEAGUE
97
the contracting parties to this international arrangement . This
treaty, known as the American-British Mandate Convention on
Palestine, recites verbatim all the terms of the Mandate worked
out by the League of Nations. In the correspondence relating
to the several draft treaties submitted, it is plainly evident
that the American Government considered England only as the
temporary custodian for what was soon to be a Jewish State and,
for this reason only, allowed herself to relinquish the special
capitulation rights she had enjoyed under the old Turkish regime.
The final draft of this agreement guarantees that "the
United States and its nationals shall have and enjoy all the rights
and benefits secured under the terms of the Mandate to members
of the League of Nations and their nationals, notwithstanding
the fact that the United States is not a member of the League of
Nations."
The determination of America to safeguard this arrangement
from the conniving hand of European political vandalism is
stated in Article VII . It reads : "Nothing contained in the present
Convention shall be affected by any modification which may
be made in the terms of the Mandate, as recited above, unless
such modification shall have been assented to by the United
States ."
For once the Nations were attempting to solve their problems
in a consciously intelligent manner . They had tackled the question
of Jewish homelessness vigorously, and rested from their
labors sincerely believing that they had rid the world of one of
its oldest problems.
THE FIRST PARTITION
At the time of the Peace Conference there was no haggling
over the size of the Jewish territory . The American Commission
took it for granted that "the new State would control its
own source of water power and irrigation, from Mount Hermon
in the east to the Jordan ." 8 As conceived at the time by the
Plenipotentiaries, Palestine was to comprise a minimum of some
sixty thousand square miles, bounded on the north by Syria, on
98
THE RAPE OF PALESTINE
the southwest by Egypt, on the east by Iraq and Saudi and on
the south by Saudi and the Hejaz . The English viewpoint, embodied
in British Peace Handbook No. 6o on Syria and Palestine,
even contended that Damascus itself could very well be included,
asserting that the whole "portion of the center of Syria
that lies to the east of Jebel esh-Sharki may easily be separated
from northern Syria and associated with Palestine ." To the
east it was understood that the Zionists could have any part of
the great desert they wanted ; and that the southern boundary
was to be established at the historic line, the "River of Egypt ." s
With the San Remo decision tucked comfortably away in
its waistcoat, Downing Street, suddenly showing a neighborly
spirit, began to make territorial concessions to the French at the
expense of the Jewish National Home . Satisfied with those elements
relating purely to the safety of their Empire, English
negotiators were completely indifferent to proper Palestinian
boundaries from any other point of view . The Zionists were
in consternation when London serenely yielded, without the
slightest objection, every area on which the future economy of
the country was to be based .
Since the coming Hebrew Commonwealth had no visible fuel
supplies of its own, it appeared to be vitally dependent upon
water power for industrial expansion . Of essential significance
to its future industrial growth was the River Litany in the north
and the watershed lying directly south of Mount Hermon . This
strategic sector, as well as the lands of Naphthali, Dan and
Manasseh, was lopped off and uselessly handed to Syria. Also
trimmed away was the Hauran, ancient granary of Israel, and
most of fertile, well-watered Galilee whence came the chief
Zealots and patriots of the Roman wars .
Mincing no words, Colonel Wedgwood wrote that this first
jettison of the patrimony of Israel had been actuated by a fit of
sheer pique to annoy the Jews.'°
Outraged by what he also considered an act of unpardonable
vandalism, President Wilson rose from his sick bed and cabled
the following protest to the British Cabinet : "The Zionist cause
depends upon rational northern and eastern boundaries for a
THE MANDATE BY THE LEAGUE
99
self-sustaining, economic development of the country. This
means on the north, Palestine must include the Litany River and
the watersheds of the Hermon, and on the east it must include
the plains of the Jaulon and the Hauran . Narrower than this is
a mutilation. . . I need not remind you that neither in this country
nor in Paris has there been any opposition to the Zionist
program, and to its realization the boundaries I have named are
indispensable."
This was in the Spring of 1920 . Procrastinating, sugaring the
Zionists with promises, London finally amended the Franco-
British Convention to recover a few square miles of the headwaters
of the Jordan and ignored further protest . The area of
the Jewish National Home had now been shrunk to some 44,000
square miles : approximately 1o,ooo square miles west of the Jordan
and 34,000 to the east .
The logic of this inexplicable indifference to British interests
became clear later when the Zionists began to get a glimpse of
what was in the back of the bureaucratic mind . Even at the
sacrifice of desired territory, they wanted to make certain that
Zionism could not succeed . A Zionist Palestine they regarded
as a new Ireland in embryo, a development even more fraught
with trouble for the Empire .
They proceeded cautiously . Time was in their favor.
Bols and the Generals had been dumped overboard . To show
good faith a hand-picked Jew, Sir Herbert Samuel, had been appointed
first High Commissioner under the coming Civil Administration
. Of this change, Colonel Patterson commented
grimly : "Bols went, but the system he implanted remained .
The anti-Semitic officials that he brought with him into the
country remained . . ." it
CHAPTER VIII
A MAN NAMED SAMUEL
UNDER THE
CHAPTER VIII
A MAN NAMED SAMUEL
UNDER THE COLONIAL OFFICE
The Military Administration was over. Anxious, but still
unprotesting, the Zionists discovered that the Palestine Mandate
had been incomprehensibly shifted to the Colonial Office for
implementation . There were some among them who knew what
this move meant, but the Zionist leadership as a whole was far
too inexperienced and trusting to do anything about it .
The country was now being directly governed by the Crown
Colony Code and by a bureau which by the very nature of its
experiences and interests could not fail to be opposed to the
Mandate. This type of administration is maintained almost
solely for the control of uncivilized tropical or sub-tropical
races. The English themselves were later to admit that it "is not
a suitable form of government for a numerous, self-reliant, progressive
people, European for the most part in outlook and equipment,
if not in race ." 1 The evolution of self-rule even in backward
India left this stage behind in i9oq .
The worst of its features is the unwritten law of the Colonial
that the Colony exists chiefly to supply cheap raw material to,
and to buy manufactured goods from, the mother country. It
is his business to discourage industrial development, which might
eventually offer substantial competition to the factories at Glasgow
or the mills of Lancashire. The perfect example of desirable
condition was that offered by Indian and Egyptian cotton,
which after being hauled over half the globe to England,
was retransported to Egypt and India and sold at a handsome
profit in the shape of cotton goods.
The Colonial Office, caring nothing about developing a body
of officials acquainted with the needs of the country, actually
does the reverse. It wants no functionaries even remotely identified
with the territory they rule ; hence it rotates these officials
100
A MAN NAMED SAMUEL
ioi
from one colony to the other . Typical of the men who were to
interpret the needs of Zionism were Police Chief R . B. G. Spicer,
late Police Chief in Kenya Colony ; Chief Secretary Mark Aitchison
Young, previously Colonial Secretary for Sierra Leone ; Michael
Francis Joseph McDonnell, Chief Justice of the Palestine
Supreme Court, formerly Assistant District Commissioner of the
Gold Coast ; and Sir John Chancellor, High Commissioner of unlamented
memory, who came from Southern Rhodesia where he
had kept the peace with rifles.
These were all career men, suffering invariably from an ingrown
sense of superiority ; some of them educated and clever,
others recruited from the backwash of the English slums . They
were taught an attitude of cold reserve, a system of playing native
factions off expertly against each other, a technique of incitement,
and a calloused disregard for everything not connected
with the spirit of the Crown Colony Code .
Under this set of regulations, created to serve settlements of
Englishmen marooned among easily subdued or barbarian natives,
the Zionists found that even the slightest trivialities had to
be referred to some bureaucrat in London for decision . The
plans for a hotel in Jerusalem not only had to be submitted to
the Department of Public Works but that department had to refer
the plans and specifications to London . De Haas and Wise
give some details on the bizarre workings of this Code in Palestine.
Native-born Jews and immigrants holding public office
could not cooperate financially or as a matter of formal association
in the development of the country. The Crown Colony
Code forbade it . A judge was denied the right to participate
in what was hoped to be an important financial institution for
issuing mortgages and bonds on Jewish property . The reason
given was the Crown Colony Code . Another official was refused
permission to aid in the development of so unprofitable a
venture as the Hebrew Opera Company. The reason ? The
Crown Colony Code .2 Even though there is only a scant handful
of English school-children in the area, under the Code, Palestine
must pay for special British School Inspectors.
Just what rights the Crown Agents had in a mandated area
102 THE RAPE OF PALESTINE
was never made clear. But the Zionists were not to be bothered
by formalities . They had a colossal disrespect for politics .
They declared that what they wanted was to `build up the country'
and let politics take care of itself.
A JEWISH RULER AFTER TWO THOUSAND YEARS
Sir Herbert Samuel arrived in due course, dressed for the occasion
in gold braid and a resplendent white uniform . Throughout
the Jewish world he had been trumpeted as the new Moses,
the man of destiny . When he at last arrived in Jerusalem, the
whole majestic symbolism of the event fairly staggered the imagination
of Jewry everywhere . Jews went hysterically wild
with joy.
Samuel was an impressive man, handsome and soldierly looking
as he clicked his heels before the welcoming cameras ;
though closer inspection was not so reassuring, revealing a
moody face whose whole expression was searching and suspicious
. He had been Home Secretary in the British Government
during the War and "had a reputation for treating Jews in
a way that would not redound to the credit of a liberal gentile
administrator." 3 The famous `Tay Pay' O'Connor had briefly
described him as having an "utter disregard for all the occupations
and prizes of life except those to be found in politics ." 4
His inability to understand even the most obvious conditions
under which the masses of Jewry lived is shown by an incident
occurring in the Fall of 1 q 1q when Samuel was functioning as
leader of a British Committee of Investigation in Poland . Failing
to reach an agreement after eight days of negotiations with
the Warsaw Zionists, he asked in order to obtain a result : "Do
you then accept the paragraphs of the Peace Treaty aiming at
the protection of minorities ?" When this had been affirmed
he inquired conclusively : "So you consequently do not want
to be a nationality but a religious group?" Whereupon the
Zionists broke up the negotiations as hopeless and stalked out of
the room .5
The heavens were almost covered with omens in reference to
A MAN NAMED SAMUEL
103
the mettle of Mr. . Samuel ; but nevertheless the Zionists allowed
themselves to be hoaxed into accepting him . Acting on a polite
hint from high British quarters, they actually sponsored him ; and
officially his appointment was the result of their direct demand .
Ruefully, Weitzman was later to admit : "Perhaps 1 am responsible
for this chapter `Samuel.'" r -
History will undoubtedly look on the man Samuel with wonder,
as a striking commentary on his times. His first official
act was to throw the brave Jews, jailed for their part in the selfdefense
during the riots, into the same class with Arab rapists by
magnanimously pardoning both, all in the same breath and the
same document?
Shortly after his arrival he held a reception for the members
of his staff . The reaction, blurted out of the mouth of one of
them was : "And there I was at Government House, and there
was the Union Jack flying as large as life, and a bloody Jew sitting
under it ." 8
Sir Herbert was surrounded from the first by anti-Zionist
subordinates, whom he was afraid to offend by appearing to favor
the Jews . Horace Samuel declares that throughout his
whole tenure of office Sir Herbert suffered acutely from the
consciousness of being a Jew, causing him to pivot right around
to an actual pro-Arab attitude .
The important Political Department of the Secretariat was assigned
to an officer who labored under an intensive and fanatical
hostility to the declared policy of His Majesty's Government in
Palestine, one E. T. Richmond. Richmond who had referred in
a signed article in the Nineteenth Century to "that iniquitous
document known as the Mandate for Palestine," 9 was fairly
representative of the body of officialdom . These men made no
secret of their antipathy to the policy of the Balfour Declaration,
which they had been appointed to carry out, contributing
the most violent anti-Jewish articles to such journals as the
Edinburgh Review, the Nineteenth Century and the Fortnightly
Review.10 There was only one officer in Samuel's entire
retinue who could even remotely be described as pro-
Zionist. That was the gentle-mannered Sir Wyndham Deeds
104
THE RAPE OF PALESTINE
whose influence was reduced to little . In the subordinate jobs,
particularly on the Police Force and Intelligence Department,
nearly all the key non-British positions were filled by Arabs,
who were quick to respond to the cue given them by their superiors.
The situation became so obvious that a number of
Jewish officers of the Administration threw up their jobs "with
the statement that they were doing so because there did not seem
to be room for Jewish officials in the National Home .""
It is no exaggeration to say that every subterfuge used to obstruct
Zionist advance in future years, originated with Samuel.
Characteristic of the man was this statement attributed to him
"If the Jews really want Palestine they will pay more for it than
it is worth ." At the Fifth Session of the Permanent Mandates
Commission he stated that it was "the fundamental intention of
the Government" to deal with the Arabs "as if there had never
been a Balfour Declaration." 12 Samuel's interference almost
lost the important Dead Sea concession for the Jews . He had
deliberately held it up, not considering it seemly that Jews
should get such a valuable concession .13
Incongruously enough, Sir Herbert was so religious that he
believed it a sin for Jews and non-Jews to intermarry . He deliberately
snubbed a senior Christian official who had married
a Jewish girl, remaining stiffly rude to both man and wife, even
on those occasions when the duties of His Majesty's service
made it impossible to avoid him .
THE POGROM OF 1921
The result of Samuel's policies was a pogrom . Only a scant
year had passed since the previous massacre of Jews in Jerusalem.
Once again the lust for blood asserted itself in the narrow
streets. As usual, the riots were timed with a major change in
British policy, soon after to be announced.
It was the end of April . The Moslems were celebrating their
annual festival of the Prophet Moses . This fiesta at which
howling creatures with quivering eyes and distorted features
worked themselves into a lather, had been the starting point for
A MAN NAMED SAMUEL
105
trouble the year before . Each year, as the Moslems carried on
their wild dances in the streets, anxiety spoke from the faces of
the Jews until the Nebi Moussa festival was over . Notwithstanding
this, the British Commandant of Police was conveniently
away. The few Jews on the police force had been mysteriously
taken off duty for the day.
"Bolsheviki ! Bolsheviki ! The Zionists are flooding the
country with Bolsheviki !" This ugly cry had reverberated
from many throats, Christian and Moslem alike, for a long period
of months. With tacit consent the Authorities had given
sullen approval to the accusation that "every Jew is a Bolshevik."
This malignant propaganda had been carried on openly
under the eye of the Administration until the saturated minds
of every section of Palestine's population literally dripped with
the poison .14
Suddenly during the Festival the mad shout arose that "the
Mosques were being attacked by the Bolsheviks" (Jews) . At
Jaffa, starting point of trouble, the Arabs went on an orgy of
murder and pillage "under the official protection and assistance
of a substantial number of Jaffa police ." 15 In many cases the
observance of a benevolent neutrality was insufficient, and the
police gave full vent to their patriotism by shooting at Jews, directing
the mob and plundering Jewish shops .
A howling horde led by uniformed policemen armed with
rifles, bombs and ammunition stormed the Zionist Immigration
Depot. Thirteen newly arrived immigrants were butchered
amid horrible scenes of rape and looting . The water-front
workmen, huge ruffians armed with long boat-hooks, ran
through the streets impaling Jews on their weapons . Respectable
looking Arabs with well-ironed fezzes, polished shoes, wellcreased
pants and starched collars, rushed into stores and helped
themselves to all kinds of merchandise .16
The conflagration immediately spread beyond the Jaffa district.
In Tel Aviv the disarmed Jews courageously formed a
self-defense, holding the `patriots' at bay with hastily mustered
sticks and stones . On May 5, the settlement of Petach Tikvah
was attacked by thousands of armed fellaheen from nearby viiio6
THE RAPE OF PALESTINE
lages. The assault was delivered in military formation, "directed
by a gentleman with binoculars ." 17 Hopelessly outnumbered
the colonists fought with desperate courage for their
lives. The colony Kfar Saba was destroyed and Rehovoth and
Hedera badly damaged. Everywhere Arabs ruined beautiful
fruit orchards, the work of a lifetime, burned homes and carried
off movable property and cattle. Only the circumstance
that almost all Jewish workers were former soldiers prevented
the Jewish National Home from being consumed in one grand
conflagration ."'
The most revolting spectacles had taken place . Defenseless
old people and little children alike had been cut to ribbons and
mutilated beyond recognition. Women were dragged out into
the open street and outraged before being murdered. Bedlam
shrieked all over the land of Moses, Isaiah and Jesus . Forty
Jews had been killed and countless others injured on the first day
alone, before the iron hand of official censorship made all other
casualty figures a pure matter of conjecture. Horace Samuel
observes bitterly that the Government "refrained from publishing
the number of the Arabs who had been killed in the attack
on Petach Tikvah, for fear presumably of unduly depressing
and discouraging Arab susceptibilities." 19 The property damage
was incalculable .
All Palestine believed that British officials had prepared the
disturbances behind the scenes .20 Returning to England after
her visit to the Holy Land, the wife of the Labor leader Philip
Snowden fixed the responsibility on "the activity of certain
British subjects in Palestine and certain English politicians in
England." 21 Arab politicos openly boasted of their alliance
with the British `Black Hundreds.' The visiting American
clergyman, Dr . Dushaw, speaking to an English soldier in the
infested area, asked him what his orders were and received the
reply : "I must not shoot ." 22 The policy of the police can be
judged from the case of Shakeer Ali Kishek, one of the Bedouin
chieftains who had led the attack on Petach Tikvah . Subsequently
arrested, he "was immediately released on bail as a
A MAN NAMED SAMUEL
107
graceful gesture ; while . . . the chief notable of the colony,
one of the most respected Jewish colonists in the whole of
Palestine, Abraham Shapiro, was arrested by order of the same
officers, not on any charge, but administratively, and carted off
to Jerusalem in a motor lorry." 23
As a token of its displeasure the Government plastered a punitive
fine on the villages that had attacked Hedera, which the
Arabs never bothered about paying . Warrants were issued
against some individuals living in the notorious Tulkarm district
who were identified as having been involved in the murderous
assaults, but "no efforts were made to execute the warrants."
24
The Authorities refused pointblank to make any investigation,
so the Zionist Commission together with Judge Horace
Samuel and Mr. . Sacher engaged the services of a British enquiry
agent, "who, immediately after he had gotten on the track, was
promptly ordered by the military authorities to leave the Jaffa
district ." 25
According to the principal Medical Officer the total number
of casualties in the pogrom were 95 killed and 290 wounded.26
Lending a ghoulish touch to the after-performance, while the
Jews were bowed in mourning for their dead, General Storrs,
Governor of Jerusalem, arranged gay parades and interesting literary
lectures as if celebrating some festival occasion.27
The insurrection of 1921 marked a variation of Administration
technique . It constituted a precedent for the principle -
observed by all ensuing Administrations with almost religious
scrupulousness - that every outbreak of armed Arab violence
was ipso facto to be rewarded with political concessions and to
be followed by a Commission of Inquiry whose importance was
to be in proportion to the scale of the revolt .
The Haycraft Commission was appointed to investigate and
fix responsibility for the terrible events which had just passed .
One of its three members was Harry Luke, the man whom
Palestine Jewry was to hold responsible for the terrible excesses
of 1929, when Jewish Palestine almost went up in smoke. This
108
THE RAPE OF PALESTINE
body finally ended by finding guilty the `Bolshevik' Jews who
had been coming into the country and who had aroused the
patriotic Arabs by their May Day demonstrations .
Within forty-eight hours of the Jaffa massacre, Samuel, shivering
in his pants, phoned the Governor of Jaffa, instructing him
to announce to the Arabs that in accordance with their request,
immigration had been suspended .28 Though this prohibition
was a general one in its official terms, it was interpreted to apply
only to Jews. Immigrants who were non-Jews were not affected
by it . The most ludicrous stories are told of the way
this ordinance was applied, Arab officials often compelling incoming
immigrants to expose themselves physically in order to
prove that they were not Jews, before they would allow them
to land.29
Samuel went so far as to offer the Arabs complete control over
immigration, a tender they foolhardily refused . Reduced to
simple terms, what they demanded was the enforced return of
the Jews to their pre-war status as a tolerated minority without
political rights.
This was the same Samuel who had asserted in 1917 that Jewish
immigration must be regulated by the responsible Jewish
body in Palestine, and not by the Government ; and who had
declared on the second anniversary of the Balfour Declaration
that Palestine must become "a purely self-governing community
under the auspices of an established Jewish majority ." 30 Sir
Herbert was now thoroughly scared . Sir Wyndham Deeds,
the only pro-Zionist in his Cabinet, was shunted off, to be superseded
by one Sir Gilbert Clayton . Like a disturbed crustacean
Samuel retreated backward as far as he could go .
THE GRAND MUFTI
Implicated in the disturbances of 1920 was a political adventurer
named Haj Amin al Husseini .31 Haj Amin, a leering ruffian
with misshapen ears and close-cropped scanty beard, was
descended from an Egyptian family known for its turbulence
and penchant for intrigue . In a general housecleaning underA
MAN NAMED SAMUEL
log
taken to appease the Jews at the San Remo Conference, he had
been sentenced by a British court to fifteen years at hard labor,
as a dangerous gang leader and agitator. Conveniently allowed
to escape by the police, Haj Amin was hiding out in neighboring
Syria, a fugitive from justice . This was the gentleman whom
Samuel now recalled from exile and appointed to one of the
most important positions the Government had to offer . Just
as London controls the Eastern Moslems through the acquiescent
Agha Khan, so it was now planned to harness the Western
Moslems by setting up a counterpart to the defunct Western
Caliphate, in Jerusalem .
Haj Amin was not in the literal sense an Arab patriot . He
considered Western Nationalism a work of the devil . His ideal
was the old Moslem particularism functioning in an area without
boundaries, where none but the Faithful would be allowed
to remain with bowels . Beyond that, he was somewhat stupid,
honest in his way, ambitious, and a fanatical hater of Jews .
During the war he had been an officer in the Turkish Army .
With a pardon from Sir Herbert tucked up his flowing black
sleeve, this man who had fled Palestine as a common felon, now
returned to find himself one of the key figures in the Administration.
Despite the opposition of the then Moslem High
Council, which regarded him as a parvenu hoodlum of the most
unsavory stripe, Haj Amin was appointed by the High Commissioner
as Grand Mufti of Jerusalem for life . Meeting in
secret conclave the Moslem bigwigs rejected his nomination by
an overwhelming vote . Stiffly Sir Herbert acquainted the discomfited
Moslem notables with his displeasure and ordered them
to accept the reprieved convict as their religious leader.
This was only the beginning . Samuel was determined to go
whole hog in anchoring this son of the Husseini in the seat of
power. He created the `Supreme Moslem Council,' which was
presumably authorized to elect its own leadership by democratic
vote. In the balloting the Government candidate, Haj Amin
al Husseini, polled only nine electoral votes against nineteen,
eighteen and twelve for his three rivals . This fact, however,
weighed little with the High Commissioner, who forced the
110
THE RAPE OF PALESTINE
chosen candidate, Sheikh Hussam ed Din Effendi Jarallah, to
step aside, and made Haj Amin President . Soon after, the Mufti
was created Reis al Ulema, president of the religious (Sharia)
courts, thus concentrating in his hands the highest posts of distinction
and power Palestine had to offer a Moslem .
Few men have had such benefactors as Haj Amin discovered
in Sir Herbert Samuel . In his person he now combined the
headship of the Church and the Law, so closely connected in
the Islamic religion . Under the Turks the Wak f, or religious
bequests, were under rigid State supervision from Istanbul .
These were now handed over to the Mufti free of all control
by the State . He was given complete authority over all Wak f
or other charitable endowments, as well as the Mohammedan
courts and educational institutions, including even the Industrial
School in Jerusalem . In addition he was provided with a handsome
salary out of the public funds ; and a staff of two hundred
and fifty paid assistants was allowed the Supreme Moslem Council
to superintend the six hundred men employed in the various
Wak f departments.
As if to make the anti-Jewish lineup airtight, Sir Herbert took
the pet scheme of the Generals, the Moslem-Christian Union,
under his wing. Although a large number of Arabs objected,
he gave it semi-official standing . Under his generous patronage
it soon developed strong roots .
THE CHURCHILL WHITE PAPER
In June 1922, Samuel drew up a long document, deadly in its
import to the Jews, which when signed by Winston Churchill
became known as the Churchill White Paper . The Papal Secretary,
Cardinal Gaspari, annoyed by the procrastination in
formulating Article XIV of the Mandate, regulating the Holy
Places, had put up an outright demand that this Article be clarified
and acted upon . Whitehall chose this occasion for another
of its flank attacks on the Zionist position in Palestine .
London's principal objective now was covertly to cut off the
Zionist Organization from any share in the Administration . The
A MAN NAMED SAMUEL III
document it issued to accomplish this purpose constituted a bold
reinterpretation of the Balfour Declaration . With carefully
chosen words it smashes at the legal base for Zionist repatriation,
arriving at the remarkable conclusion that the terms of
Balfour's Declaration "do not contemplate that Palestine as a
whole should be converted into a Jewish National Home, but
that such a Home should be founded in Palestine ."
In phrases unctuous with sophistry the White Paper attempts
to explain away Britain's pledged word and the commitments
on which the Jewish National Home was based . The purpose
of the Declaration, it now discovers, "is not the imposition of a
Jewish nationality . . . but the further development of the existing
Jewish community, with the assistance of Jews in other
parts of the world, in order that it may become a centre in which
the Jewish people as a whole may take, on grounds of religion
and race, an interest and a pride . But in order that this community
should have the best prospect of free development and
provide a full opportunity for the Jewish people to display its
capacities, it is essential that it should know that it is in Palestine
as of right and not on sufferance . That is the reason why it
is necessary that the existence of a Jewish national home in
Palestine should be internationally guaranteed, and that it should
be formally recognized to rest upon ancient historic connection."
Thus in two short years Samuel had changed from an impassioned
advocate of the reborn Jewish State, to a pleader for
"a national Jewish home in Palestine ." As a trial balloon for
the Colonial Office he had already reinterpreted the Declaration
to mean that "these words [National Home] mean that the
Jews . . . should be enabled to found here their home, and that
some amongst them, within the limits fixed by numbers and
the interests of the present population, should come to Palestine
in order to help by their resources and efforts to develop the
country to the advantage of all its inhabitants ." Thus, in a
sentence, the 2ooo-year old Jewish dream, the unbroken hope
for which countless generations of martyrs fought and prayed,
is reduced to a philanthropic scheme for improving the eco112
THE RAPE OF PALESTINE
nomic position of the Palestine Arabs by bringing in a leavening
of able, enterprising Jews .
Buried in the Churchill-Samuel White Paper was a neat little
paragraph holding that while Jews had every right to return to
their homeland freely, this immigration must not be so great in
volume "as to exceed whatever may be the economic capacity
of the country at the time to absorb new arrivals ." This
sounded very nice and sensible ; but it was to prove the formula
which future anti-Semitic administrations utilized to justify their
depredations by principle .
Included also was a scheme for an elective Legislative Assembly
to be composed of a trinity of Arabs, Jews and British officials,
who would presumably spend their time in the subtleties
of reciprocal intrigue. Samuel had originated this as bait for the
Arabs, who were mortifying His Excellency by referring to
the Administration as `that Jewish Government .'
Ably the White Paper juggled words, hemmed and hawed,
to make it clear that Palestine was in future to be considered
like any other non-Jewish country, under certain conditions
willing to accept a given number of Jews and even to grant
them a certain specious autonomy-but no more. Herzl's
dream had been permanently laid in moth balls .
The Zionists were in an uproar. The White Paper had been
sprung on them out of the clear sky, a few days before the
terms of the Mandate were to be published in their final form .
Fuming with indignation, the Zionist Executive balked . At
this, Churchill called in the ever reliable Weitzman and pointed
out to him that the tenor of the Memorandum was a reflection
of British needs in the Near East. Britain had to go slow . Her
situation in Egypt and India was critical in the extreme .
Churchill, the friend of Zionism, pleaded with Weitzman and
his colleagues, the friends of Great Britain, to accept the
Memorandum and to trust that Britain, realizing why they had
accepted it, would make ample amends at some future date .32
Having reminded Weitzman of the obligations of British patriots,
the clever English statesman drove his arguments home by
A MAN NAMED SAMUEL
11 3
threatening to cancel the entire Mandate if the Executive did
not agree in twenty-four hours .33
Weitzman hurriedly called a meeting of his colleagues, most
of whom wanted desperately to call Churchill's bluff . The
fact was that the only method by which the projected revision
of Jewish status in Palestine could be accomplished legally, was
with the consent of the Jewish leaders. But Weitzman wheedled
and cajoled, and his associates finally agreed, signing the
death warrant of their own movement in one of the most astonishing
capitulations to high pressure salesmanship on record .
There can be no doubt that the largest share of the Zionist
acquiescence to this move rested on an exaggerated loyalty to the
interests of their friend and patron, Britain . They were told
that this was merely a temporary makeshift to pull British administrators
through a bad spot in the Levant. Had they stood
their ground, any coercive tactics used against them would have
reacted infallibly against the schemers in London and Jerusalem .
The French still wanted Palestine, and the only title Britain had
there was vested in her Jewish wards .
Acceptance of the White Paper at the same time placed the
Zionist stamp of approval on another outrage even more deadly
to their hopes.
SEVERANCE OF TRANSJORDAN
On the second anniversary of the Balfour Declaration Samuel
had quite rationally declaimed that "you cannot have numbers
without area and territory. Every expert knows that for a
prosperous Palestine an adequate territory beyond the Jordan is
indispensable ." Yet it was Samuel who cut off Trans-Jordan
from the Jewish National Home and handed it to some foreign
Arabs for a private pasturage .
Palestine east of the Jordan comprised some two-thirds of the
entire mandated area - by far the best part of it, well-watered,
fertile, and as empty as the American West when Daniel Boone
crossed over from Carolina . The history of Israel is written
IIq
THE RAPE OF PALESTINE
indelibly over every part of its hills and plains. It was the
permanent home of two of the Twelve Tribes, as well as the half
tribe of Manasseh . The five cities of the plain were Trans-
Jordanic . Two of them, Nebo and Pisgah, are like household
words.
Between 1918 and 1921, when the creation of a Jewish National
Home was being negotiated with the Zionists by the
British Government, there was no question of a Palestine West
of the Jordan River or East of the Jordan River. The Balfour
Declaration embraced both sides of the Jordan. When one of
the Zionist spokesmen mentioned the eastern boundary of Palestine
he was informed that there was no eastern boundary because
in the east Palestine bordered on the desert .34 It is important
also to recall that in the Zionist proposals presented to
the Peace Conference in February I9I9 (the text of which, like
that of all Zionist political documents of the time, had first been
seen and approved by the British Government) Trans-Jordan
was as a matter of course included in the boundaries of Palestine.
This whole area was embraced in the British Mandate largely
because of London's insistence on "a good eastern frontier for
the Jewish Government in Palestine ." Argument had arisen as
to whether Syria or Palestine should get the territory . Unanimously
the British papers pounded the drums for its inclusion
lest Palestine be unforgivably mutilated by letting the French
have it. The London Times insisted that Palestine without
Trans-Jordan was a travesty on good sense ; 35 the Manchester
Guardian alleged that both from a historical and economic
viewpoint Trans-Jordan was an organic part of the Holy Land.
Downing Street had demanded Trans-Jordan in the name of
"the forthcoming Zionist Government," 36 and the French finally
conceded the issue . Under the Leygues-Harding Agreement,
signed December 23, 1920, in Paris, this territory was relinquished
by the French in favor of the Palestine Mandate
Agreement . Britain now had a solid land bridge to Iraq and
"
the East, but the military clique was not satisfied as long as there
was a Gallic foot on that part of the globe .
A MAN NAMED SAMUEL
115
Feisal, puppet of the British generals, had just been driven
out of Syria by French rifles. His brother, Abdullah, a plump,
bearded little man, strikingly like a dark edition of Lenin in appearance,
was approached by the Military, who were still looking
for a tool with which to pull their chestnuts out of the fire .
In March of 1921 the so-called Churchill Conference took place
in Cairo, where it was decided that Feisal, rejected by the
French, would get the throne of Iraq and that his brother Abdullah
who had been crowned King of Iraq during Feisal's
`reign' in Damascus, should be quietly supported in one last
attempt at ousting the French .37
Abdullah, gathering an army of his wild nomads, marched out
of the Hejaz and headed north for Syria . He got as far as
Amman in Trans-Jordan, when the French quietly let it be
known that they had had just about their belly full of English
intrigue.
Samuel again grew jittery . He had to curb the Military or
face the possibility of the French attacking Abdullah in Trans-
Jordan and remaining there . But Abdullah refused to budge .
It seemed necessary to placate him in some fashion-and Sir
Herbert had a brilliant idea : he invited the little Arab to a
conference to `talk things over,' and suggested that he park a
while in the territory of the Jewish National Home . Abdullah,
gaping at this unexpected chance for power, thought that this
would be very nice. He took over the administration of Eastern
Palestine "for a period of six months," ostensibly to restore
order 38 - a rather comic provision since the only disorder in the
territory was that created by Abdullah and his Sherifian Army
itself.
Stroking his chin quizzically at Samuel's droll move, Churchill
waited for the Zionists to blow the roof off . For once Winston
Churchill, master of bluff and stratagem, was nonplussed . The
Zionists had been gagged by Samuel's threat of still further restrictions,
and their silence was token of acquiescence .
Secure in the knowledge that Jewish spokesmen would not
prove troublesome, London began searching for a basis to
further separate Eastern Palestine from the rest of the country .
x16
THE RAPE OF PALESTINE
The earlier drafts of the Mandate all contained twenty-seven
paragraphs, none of which mentioned a separate Transjordan .
The final text, sprung with the quickness of legerdemain, consisted
of twenty-eight paragraphs . The new one, number twentyfive,
empowered the Mandatory with the consent of the Council
of the League of Nations, "to withhold or set aside, in the territories
between the Jordan River and the eastern boundaries of Palestine,
the employment of such mandate agreements which are
found to be inapplicable because of local conditions," certainly
an innocent enough appearing proviso. It was explained on the
basis of Britain's anxiety lest Jewish life be sacrificed if colonization
were attempted before this turbulent, lawless area was
pacified and made suitable for European settlement . It must be
pointed out that this article, though it stipulates for the first
time a difference between East and West Palestine, nevertheless
considers the former an integral part of the Jewish National
Home and in no sense even infers its right to separation ; its
carefully chosen words merely `entitling' the Mandatory to meet
temporary emergency conditions, as they might arise, in a special
manner - that is by "postponing and withholding" the application
of the Mandatory provisions for the Jewish National
Home.39
Great Britain had no rights in this territory which enabled
her to dispose of it . Article V of the Mandate stipulates that
"the Mandatory shall be responsible that no Palestine territory
shall be ceded or leased to, or in any way placed under the
control of the Government of any foreign power." Certainly
the act of handing it over to these invaders from the Hejaz was
a clear violation of both the spirit and letter of this provision .
Right after the Zionists, cringing under Churchill's empty
threat, ratified the White Paper, Abdullah and his invaders were
installed as masters of Eastern Palestine . In July the terms of
the Mandate for Palestine were approved by the League of Nations,
and in the same month Abdullah was formally instated as
Emir of Transjordan . Adding insult to injury, the Palestine
exchequer handed him f i 8o,ooo to cover his initial expenses -
the beginning of a long list of generous subsidies paid out of the
A MAN NAMED SAMUEL
11 7
treasury of the Jewish National Home. Sonorously Sir Herbert
declared "in the name of the British Government . . . that
Great Britain is willing to recognize the independence of Transjordan
under Emir Abdullah ." This was a polite euphemism
since Transjordan was ruled directly through a British Resident
acting on behalf of the High Commissioner.
The second brutal rape of the territory of the Jewish National
Home was now all but accomplished. Transjordan henceforward
became the only territory in the world to all intents and
purposes JUDENREIN (free of Jews) . It was the first country to
prohibit Jews from even practicing a profession or owning land .
Its ban on them was complete .
Beyond whimpering a little, the Zionist Executive kept its
peace, and actually covered up this gigantic theft of the Jewish
patrimony by a new festival campaign "for the Jewish National
Fund." As late as October 1934, Dr. Weitzman was with gentle
self-abnegation declaring that "we do not wish to change
the status of Trans-Jordan by applying the Balfour Declaration
there. . ." 40
SAMUEL IS REPLACED
Probably no man was so cordially detested by his own people
as this latter-day Herod called Herbert Samuel . In any other
community this deep-seated resentment would have flared up
in periodic attempts at violence . Jews, who have an instinctive
abhorrence of lawlessness as a method of settling their problems,
kept their peace but hardly hated him the less .
Among his public acts was the matter of the allotment of
the Crown lands, which under the Mandate were to have been
placed at the disposal of the Zionists . The story of their distribution
is amazing .
The cream of these Government lands were in the Beisan
area, in the fertile region known as the Ghor Valley. When
the British first took over they found this territory, according
to the subsequent report of Lewis French, inhabited by a degraded,
sickly population who lived in mud hovels, "and of too
118
THE RAPE OF PALESTINE
low intelligence to be receptive to any suggestions for improvement
of their housing, water supply or education . . . There
were no trees, no vegetables . The fellaheen, if not themselves
cattle thieves, were always ready to harbour these and other
criminals. . . The Bedu, wild and lawless by nature, were constantly
at feud with their neighbors on both sides of the Jordan,
and raids and highway robberies formed their staple industry ."
His Excellency had visited Beisan, chief marketing town of this
section, and had been "received with hostility and contumely"
by the ruffian population, a Transjordan tribe of nomads who
had pitched camp there for the winter .
Nettled, Samuel returned to his earlier technique of placating
the tribesmen with gifts . He immediately announced that he
was giving the Beisan lands to the same truculent nomads who
had insulted him . All told, the Government gave these Arabs
almost four hundred thousand dunams (a dunam is about a quarter
of an acre) 41 of the best land in Palestine, while the Jews
received not so much as a square yard .42 At the most conservative
estimate the land was worth at least C 6 per dunam, even
at that time . It was disposed of to the Bedouins for C i per
dunam, to be paid in yearly installments of two shillings each .
Immediately these lands became the subject of the most cynical
speculation. Tribesmen were not interested in the hard
work cultivation requires and most of them were given far more
acreage than they could handle by themselves . The net result
was that the major part of the soil was immediately offered to
the Zionists at fancy prices . Even more sardonic, much of the
land given to these Bedouins was resold later to the Government
at a profit of some 5oo percent, to be used for the resettlement
of so-called displaced Arabs .43 Everywhere Arab speculators
entered, scenting a middleman's profit. Many of the
tribesmen sold at inflated prices and disappeared into Transjordan
and Iraq
The Government was now in fact compelled to tackle a new
problem : that of preventing the Beisan lands from subsequently
falling into the hands of land-hungry Jews, who were willing to
offer almost any price .
A MAN NAMED SAMUEL 119
It was during Sir Herbert's regime that Arab opposition to
the Jews took definite form and grooved itself . The entire
Administration was honey-combed with anti-Semitic officials
who made the Executive Offices a nest of pro-Arab activity.
Samuel, masking himself behind a screen of `liberalism,' made
not the slightest move to interfere .
When in 1925 Sir Herbert was relieved by Lord Plumer,
Jewish Palestine
again . He had done about as much damage as it was possible
for one man to do to the Jewish cause ; but the Zionist Organization
thought it politic to go through the mummery of
giving him a testimonial banquet.44
FIELD MARSHAL LORD PLUMER
When the hated Samuel finally packed his duffle and left for
that were so continually being prepared for them . Article
IV of the Mandate makes it clear that the Jewish Agency
has certain powers, that it should be consulted concerning the
appointment of any High Commissioner. The Bureaucrats destroyed
the vestigial remnant of this section of England
when they made a test case of it and appointed Field Marshal
Lord Plumer out of the clear sky. The Zionists, living up to
precedent, simply looked startled and went about their business
of `non-political' activities .
Compared to Samuel, Plumer was a vision of fair delight .
By any other reasonable criterion he was a total loss . The
Field Marshal was a hard man, iron-willed, who ruled with a
clenched fist. He was the only High Commissioner who held
his Jew-baiting subordinates within reasonable check . The best
that can be said for him is that under his rule there were no pogroms.
When the Arabs, persisting naively in the same tactics
which were so successful under Samuel, approached him in delegation,
warning that if a planned procession of Jewish war
veterans were held, they "would not be responsible for the peace
of Jerusalem
120
THE RAPE OF PALESTINE
you to be responsible .. I am the High Commissioner and I will
be responsible." The Arabs never tried that trick again as long
as the Field Marshal remained in Palestine
However, the old policies continued unchanged . Typical of
his regime is the loan of f 20,000 to the Beersheba
1928 to quiet their grumbling against the indirect Governmental
refusal to allow land sales to Jews .45 It was also under Plumer
that Jews were practically banned from participation in the defense
forces of the country . A whole succession of carefully
developed ordinances directed against Zionist penetration
marked his regime . Despite this, the Zionists, with good reason
fearful of his unknown successor, were sorry to see him go .
When he resigned, a sudden outburst of Jewish energy
brought General Smuts, Zionist friend and incorruptible executive,
under consideration for the post. Smuts declined, obviously
not caring to accept the burden of reconciling his conscience
with the policies of the Colonial Office .
Page 135
No comments:
Post a Comment