16/05/1916 Sykes-Picot Agreement
Dissection of the Ottoman Empire territory, & agreement between France & GB with the Arabs (in exchange for fighting against the Ottomans) to recognise & protect an independent Arab state/confederation, inclusive of the modern political Israel and Lebanon but excluding Jerusalem (which was, as the Holy City to all, to be recognised as independent international territory). (See annexed maps to Agreement).
HISTORIC BACKDROP - THE CENTRAL & ALLIED POWERS
1789-1799 The French Revolution—the people rise up against the Bourbon Monarchy that clearly for imperial purposes (damaging the British Empire) supported the American Revolution (as well as many other wars) in a domestic revolution of their own. Of particular interest to the core revolutionary questions of rising nationalism and liberalism is the abolishment of the Peerage of France (privileges for the aristocracy - and fiefdom; inheritance of revenue producing land/property granted by a lord to a vassal in exchange for military support - and the Roman Catholic clergy).
1799-1815 Napoleonic Revolution. Map Napoleonic Empire, 1812
30 May 1814 Treaty of Paris (to end war between France of the one part & GB, Russia, Austria, Sweden, Portugal & Prussia of the other part). Bourbon Monarchy reinstated in France. Reapportionment of territories after Napoleonic Revolutions.
Nov 1814 - Jun 1815 The Congress of Vienna convenes to settle the future boundaries of Europe as agreed in the 1814 Treaty of Paris. Primary negotiators: Austria, Prussia, Russia, GB & France. The German Confederation comprises 39 states, internally independent, with war between the states forbidden, and consent of the Confederacy necessary for war against foreign states.
The German Confederation (1815-1866)—dominated by Austria
1843-1844 Bauer & Marx on the "emancipation" of Jews—“On the Jewish Question” Marx, 1844
Post Austro-Prussian War (1866). North German Confederation in RED (& Southern, now political independents, in Yellow) (1867-1871)—dominated by Prussia & Post 1871 Franco-Prussian War—North German Confederation (NGC) annexes then French territory (pale orange—Alsace-Lorraine) & Southern states (yellow) join NGC to become the German Empire.[…] Bauer has posed the question of Jewish emancipation in a new form, after giving a critical analysis of the previous formulations and solutions of the question. What, he asks, is the nature of the Jew who is to be emancipated and of the Christian state that is to emancipate him? He replies by a critique of the Jewish religion, he analyzes the religious opposition between Judaism and Christianity, he elucidates the essence of the Christian state – and he does all this audaciously, trenchantly, wittily, and with profundity, in a style of writing what is as precise as it is pithy and vigorous.
How, then, does Bauer solve the Jewish question? What is the result? The formulation of a question is its solution. The critique of the Jewish question is the answer to the Jewish question. The summary, therefore, is as follows:
We must emancipate ourselves before we can emancipate others. […]
The Jewish question acquires a different form depending on the state in which the Jew lives. In Germany, where there is no political state, no state as such, the Jewish question is a purely theological one. The Jew finds himself in religious opposition to the state, which recognizes Christianity as its basis. This state is a theologian ex professo. Criticism here is criticism of theology, a double-edged criticism – criticism of Christian theology and of Jewish theology. Hence, we continue to operate in the sphere of theology, however much we may operate critically within it.
In France, a constitutional state, the Jewish question is a question of constitutionalism, the question of the incompleteness of political emancipation. Since the semblance of a state religion is retained here, although in a meaningless and self-contradictory formula, that of a religion of the majority, the relation of the Jew to the state retains the semblance of a religious, theological opposition.
Only in the North American states – at least, in some of them – does the Jewish question lose its theological significance and become a really secular question. Only where the political state exists in its completely developed form can the relation of the Jew, and of the religious man in general, to the political state, and therefore the relation of religion to the state, show itself in its specific character, in its purity. The criticism of this relation ceases to be theological criticism as soon as the state ceases to adopt a theological attitude toward religion, as soon as it behaves towards religion as a state – i.e., politically. Criticism, then, becomes criticism of the political state. At this point, where the question ceases to be theological, Bauer’s criticism ceases to be critical. […]
The political emancipation of the Jew, the Christian, and, in general, of religious man, is the emancipation of the state from Judaism, from Christianity, from religion in general. In its own form, in the manner characteristic of its nature, the state as a state emancipates itself from religion by emancipating itself from the state religion – that is to say, by the state as a state not professing any religion, but, on the contrary, asserting itself as a state. The political emancipation from religion is not a religious emancipation that has been carried through to completion and is free from contradiction, because political emancipation is not a form of human emancipation which has been carried through to completion and is free from contradiction.
The limits of political emancipation are evident at once from the fact that the state can free itself from a restriction without man being really free from this restriction, that the state can be a free state [pun on word Freistaat, which also means republic] without man being a free man. Bauer himself tacitly admits this when he lays down the following condition for political emancipation:
“Every religious privilege, and therefore also the monopoly of a privileged church, would have been abolished altogether, and if some or many persons, or even the overwhelming majority, still believed themselves bound to fulfil religious duties, this fulfilment ought to be left to them as a purely private matter.” [The Jewish Question, p. 65] It is possible, therefore, for the state to have emancipated itself from religion even if the overwhelming majority is still religious. And the overwhelming majority does not cease to be religious through being religious in private.
But, the attitude of the state, and of the republic [free state] in particular, to religion is, after all, only the attitude to religion of the men who compose the state. It follows from this that man frees himself through the medium of the state, that he frees himself politically from a limitation when, in contradiction with himself, he raises himself above this limitation in an abstract, limited, and partial way. It follows further that, by freeing himself politically, man frees himself in a roundabout way, through an intermediary, although an essential intermediary. It follows, finally, that man, even if he proclaims himself an atheist through the medium of the state – that is, if he proclaims the state to be atheist – still remains in the grip of religion, precisely because he acknowledges himself only by a roundabout route, only through an intermediary.
Weizmann & Balfour—match made in the lab; an instant chemistry.
And the linked article ends off with the perennial question:In 1904, Chaim Weizmann was a chemistry professor at Manchester University in England trying to make synthetic rubber. He was looking for a microbe that would produce the necessary butyl alcohol. Weizmann was a Russian-born Jew who was active in the Zionist movement which advocated the creation of a homeland for Jews in Palestine. During his stay (?) in England, he became a leader of the international Zionist movement.[...]
The British turned to other parts of the British Empire and to their allies for a fermentable carbohydrate. Consequently, in 1916, the Weizmann process was moved to a distillery in Toronto (Canada) and another was built in India. In 1917, a plant was set up to ferment corn in Indiana (U.S.).
After the war [sic], when British Prime Minister Lloyd George asked what honors Weizmann might want for his considerable contributions, Weizmann answered, "There is only one thing I want. A national home for my people." Lord Balfour then gave Weizmann 15 minutes to explain why that national homeland should be Palestine. Weizmann was an eloquent spokesman and convincingly stated his case. The result was the Balfour Declaration, which affirmed Britain's commitment to the establishment of a Jewish homeland. [...]
October 1917 Bolsheviks in power after abdication of Nicholas II. The Bolsheviks were a faction of the Russian Social Democratic Labour Party, irreconcilably split from the Mensheviks in 1903. The Bund being the Zionist faction.From microbiologist to President, Weizmann illustrates not only the persistence necessary in both research and politics, but the strange and interesting ways research and politics interact. What further developments will the products of biotechnical research inspire?
2/11/1917 A Dissenting Note on the Balbour Declaration—Lord Montague to the House. (Note: Balfour thus edited the declaration initially issued in August and referred to by Lord Montagu as the August declaration, ostensibly in the attempt to curtail such criticism.)
2/11/1917 Balfour Declaration[...] Zionism has always seemed to me to be a mischievous political creed, untenable by any patriotic citizen of the United Kingdom. If a Jewish Englishman sets his eyes on the Mount of Olives and longs for the day when he will shake British soil from his shoes and go back to agricultural pursuits in Palestine, he has always seemed to me to have acknowledged aims inconsistent with British citizenship and to have admitted that he is unfit for a share in public life in Great Britain, or to be treated as an Englishman. I have always understood that those who indulged in this creed were largely animated by the restrictions upon and refusal of liberty to Jews in Russia. But at the very time when these Jews have been acknowledged as Jewish Russians and given all liberties, it seems to be inconceivable that Zionism should be officially recognised by the British Government [Emphasis & NOTE ADDED: see 8/02/1920 Exhibit A], and that Mr. Balfour should be authorized to say that Palestine was to be reconstituted as the "national home of the Jewish people". I do not know what this involves, but I assume that it means that Mahommedans and Christians are to make way for the Jews and that the Jews should be put in all positions of preference and should be peculiarly associated with Palestine in the same way that England is with the English or France with the French, that Turks and other Mahommedans in Palestine will be regarded as foreigners, just in the same way as Jews will hereafter be treated as foreigners in every country but Palestine. Perhaps also citizenship must be granted only as a result of a religious test.
I lay down with emphasis four principles:
1. I assert that there is not a Jewish nation. The members of my family, for instance, who have been in this country for generations, have no sort or kind of community of view or of desire with any Jewish family in any other country beyond the fact that they profess to a greater or less degree the same religion. It is no more true to say that a Jewish Englishman and a Jewish Moor are of the same nation than it is to say that a Christian Englishman and a Christian Frenchman are of the same nation: of the same race, perhaps, traced back through the centuries - through centuries of the history of a peculiarly adaptable race. The Prime Minister and M. Briand are, I suppose, related through the ages, one as a Welshman and the other as a Breton, but they certainly do not belong to the same nation.
2. When the Jews are told that Palestine is their national home, every country will immediately desire to get rid of its Jewish citizens, and you will find a population in Palestine driving out its present inhabitants, taking all the best in the country, drawn from all quarters of the globe, speaking every language on the face of the earth, and incapable of communicating with one another except by means of an interpreter. I have always understood that this was the consequence of the building of the Tower of Babel, if ever it was built, and I certainly do not dissent from the view, commonly held, as I have always understood, by the Jews before Zionism was invented, that to bring the Jews back to form a nation in the country from which they were dispersed would require Divine leadership. I have never heard it suggested, even by their most fervent admirers, that either Mr. Balfour or Lord Rothschild would prove to be the Messiah.
I claim that the lives that British Jews have led, that the aims that they have had before them, that the part that they have played in our public life and our public institutions, have entitled them to be regarded, not as British Jews, but as Jewish Britons. I would willingly disfranchise every Zionist. I would be almost tempted to proscribe the Zionist organisation as illegal and against the national interest. But I would ask of a British Government sufficient tolerance to refuse a conclusion which makes aliens and foreigners by implication, if not at once by law, of all their Jewish fellow-citizens.
3. I deny that Palestine is to-day associated with the Jews or properly to be regarded as a fit place for them to live in. The Ten Commandments were delivered to the Jews on Sinai. It is quite true that Palestine plays a large part in Jewish history, but so it does in modern Mahommendan history, and, after the time of the Jews, surely it plays a larger part than any other country in Christian history. The Temple may have been in Palestine, but so was the Sermon on the Mount and the Crucifixion. I would not deny to Jews in Palestine equal rights to colonisation with those who profess other religions, but a religious test of citizenship seems to me to be the only admitted by those who take a bigoted and narrow view of one particular epoch of the history of Palestine, and claim for the Jews a position to which they are not entitled.
If my memory serves me right, there are three times as many Jews in the world as could possible get into Palestine if you drove out all the population that remains there now. So that only one-third will get back at the most, and what will happen to the remainder?
4. I can easily understand the editors of the Morning Post and of the New Witness being Zionists, and I am not in the least surprised that the non-Jews of England may welcome this policy. I have always recognised the unpopularity, much greater than some people think, of my community. We have obtained a far greater share of this country's goods and opportunities than we are numerically entitled to. We reach on the whole maturity earlier, and therefore with people of our own age we compete unfairly. Many of us have been exclusive in our friendships and intolerant in our attitude, and I can easily understand that many a non-Jew in England wants to get rid of us. But just as there is no community of thought and mode of life among Christian Englishmen, so there is not among Jewish Englishmen. More and more we are educated in public schools and at the Universities, and take our part in the politics, in the Army, in the Civil Service, of our country. And I am glad to think that the prejudices against inter-marriage are breaking down. But when the Jew has a national home, surely it follows that the impetus to deprive us of the rights of British citizenship must be enormously increased. Palestine will become the world's Ghetto. Why should the Russian give the Jew equal rights? His national home is Palestine. Why does Lord Rothschild attach so much importance to the difference between British and foreign Jews? All Jews will be foreign Jews, inhabitants of the great country of Palestine. [...]
3/01/1919 Faisal-Weizmann Agreement—the Zionist and Arab imperial attempt to create a strictly Jewish proletariat to the exclusion of the indigenous Palestinian Arabs by agreement between the said parties.“...views with favour the establishment in Palestine of a national home for the Jewish people [editor’s note: there is a distinct political difference between the terms and meanings of “national home for the Jewish people” and a Jewish “nation-state.” More on this later.]
"His Majesty's Government view with favour the establishment in Palestine of a National Home for the Jewish People, and will use their best endeavours 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."
In other words, only Jews and no Arabs except - Jew Arabs - in Palestine (to make way for “Israel”).Article I
The Arab State and Palestine in all their relations and undertakings shall be controlled by the most cordial goodwill and understanding and to this end Arab and Jewish duly accredited agents shall be established and maintained in their respective territories.
More sleight-of-hand smoke and mirrors:
Faisal had (the Arab State known as) Syria but, as he was to fully realise later, only on paper. (See Treaty of Sevres, below.)Article II
Immediately following the completion of the deliberations of the Peace Conference, the definite boundaries between the Arab State and Palestine shall be determined by a Commission to be agreed upon by the parties hereto.
Now it gets really interesting:
Viz: Palestine being intended and understood even here as Israel, deport the non-Jew native population to Syria and keep them there, without their consent, to make way for mass Jewish settlement. So, we see here what Zionism saw as the “fullest guarantees for carrying into effect” the Declaration amount to, notwithstanding the Declaration itself!Article III
In the establishment of the Constitution and Administration of Palestine all such measures shall be adopted as will afford the fullest guarantees for carrying into effect the British Government's Declaration of the 2nd of November, 1917.
3/02/1919 Statement of Zionist Organisation re. Palestine. Zionists push the demarcation of territory through the Peace Conference for the establishment of Israel. [Wait, what? All this BEFORE Hitler for the most killed and deported religious peoples on Earth? “The Holocaust”: lest we retroactively forget…]
28/04/1919 Covenant (est. of) The League of Nations
29/08/1919 King-Crane Commission (Syria, Palestine & Iraq)
8/02/1920 EXHIBIT A: Churchill, 1920“E. We recommend, in the fifth place, serious modification of the extreme Zionist programme for Palestine of unlimited immigration of Jews, looking finally to making Palestine distinctly a Jewish state.”
"International" and "for the most part atheistic"?There is no need to exaggerate the part played in the creation of Bolshevism and an the actual bringing about of the Russian Revolution: by these international and for the most part atheistic Jews. It is certainly a very great one; it probably outweighs all others. With the notable exception of Lenin, the majority of the leading figures are Jews. Moreover, the principal inspiration and driving power comes from the Jewish leaders. Thus Tchitcherin, a pure Russian, is eclipsed by his nominal subordinate Litvinoff, and the influence of Russians like Bukharin or Lunacharski cannot be compared with the power of Trotsky, or of Zinovieff, the Dictator of the Red Citadel (Petrograd), or of Krassin or Radek -- all Jews. In the Soviet institutions the predominance of Jews is even more astonishing. And the prominent, if not indeed the principal, part in the system of terrorism applied by the Extraordinary Commissions for Combating Counter-Revolution has been taken by Jews, and in some notable cases by Jewesses.
The same evil prominence was obtained by Jews in the brief period of terror during which Bela Kun ruled in Hungary. The same phenomenon has been presented in Germany (especially in Bavaria), so far as this madness has been allowed to prey upon the temporary prostration of the German people. Although in all these countries there are many non-Jews every whit as bad as the worst of the Jewish revolutionaries, the part played by the latter in proportion to their numbers in the population is astonishing.
10/08/1920 Treaty of Sevres (the Principle & Allied Powers of the one part and Turkey of the other part):
10/03/1921 Faisal Memorandum to British Foreign Ministry (substance of Faisal’s proviso in Faisal-Weizmann Agmt of 3/01/1919)SECTION VII.
SYRIA, MESOPOTAMIA, PALESTINE.
ARTICLE 94.
The High Contracting Parties agree that Syria and Mesopotamia shall, in accordance with the fourth paragraph of Article 22.
Part I (Covenant of the League of Nations), be provisionally recognised as independent States subject to the rendering of administrative advice and assistance by a Mandatory until such time as they are able to stand alone.
A Commission shall be constituted within fifteen days from the coming into force of the present Treaty to trace on the spot the frontier line described in Article 27, II (2) and (3). This Commission will be composed of three members nominated by France, Great Britain and Italy respectively, and one member nominated by Turkey; it will be assisted by a representative of Syria for the Syrian frontier, and by a representative of Mesopotamia for the Mesopotamian frontier.
The determination of the other frontiers of the said States, and the selection of the Mandatories, will be made by the Principal Allied Powers.
ARTICLE 95.
The High Contracting Parties agree to entrust, by application of the provisions of Article 22, the administration of Palestine, within such boundaries as may be determined by the Principal Allied Powers, to a Mandatory to be selected by the said Powers. 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 favour of the establishment in Palestine of a national home for the Jewish people, 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.
The Mandatory undertakes to appoint as soon as possible a special Commission to study and regulate all questions and claims relating to the different religious communities. In the composition of this Commission the religious interests concerned will be taken into account. The Chairman of the Commission will be appointed by the Council of the League of Nations.
ARTICLE 96.
The terms of the mandates in respect of the above territories will be formulated by the Principal Allied Powers and submitted to the Council of the League of Nations for approval.
30/07/1921 Interim Report on the (British) Civil Administration of PalestineI have submitted therefore on behalf of His Majesty King Hussein that this Conference should reconsider the treatment meted out to the Arabs by the Treaty of Sevres. I stand here on behalf of the Arabs and solemnly ask for that independence and unity for which we fought, and for which many thousands of my countrymen laid down their lives. We wish to maintain the friendly relations with the Allied Powers that existed between us while we were brother nations in arms; we wish to do no detriment to the legitimate interests of any foreign Power; but above all we wish, with the passionate patriotism that we share with other people, to be free to order our own national life so that our race, inspired by its great history, may once again develop its genius and contribute as in the past to the common stock of human civilization. Until this desire is satisfied, peace, which is one of the main objectives of this Conference can never be established in the Arab provinces.
1922 Census Data—Palestine“This pronouncement was received with the warmest gratitude and enthusiasm by the mass of the Jewish people throughout the world. After the occupation of Palestine, a Zionist Commission was sent there, with the approval of the Government, to concert measures for carrying into effect the policy of the Declaration.
Meanwhile, however, a section of native opinion in Palestine was becoming disturbed as to the meaning of British policy. Welcoming release from Turkish misgovernment, anxious to accept the benefit of British assistance in securing an efficient administration, it was uneasy as to the implications of the Balfour Declaration. To instal the Jews in Palestine might mean the expulsion of the Arabs. If there were an unlimited Jewish immigration and finally a Jewish majority in the population, how could the safeguards embodied in the second half of the Declaration be enforced? The ownership by the Arabs of their lands and homes would be imperilled. The Moslem Holy Places, and particularly the Haram-esh-Sherif on Mount Moriah, might be taken from them. Quotations from the speeches and writings of Zionist leaders, which were said to justify these forebodings, were translated into Arabic and circulated by the press among the people. An organization was formed, with branches in many parts of the country, to combat the application of the Zionist policy. Individuals or groups, in Palestine or elsewhere, who had some interest in causing embarrassment to the Administration, stimulated the agitation. The wildest stories as to the intentions of the Jews and the fate awaiting the Arabs were circulated in the towns and villages, and were often believed by a credulous people. Among a section of the Arabs, who had all previously lived on excellent terms with the Jewish population, a bitter feeling was evoked against the Jews. It was fostered and developed until it culminated in a serious outbreak in the streets of Jerusalem in April, 1920, when a number of Jews were killed and wounded and Jewish shops were looted.
Many men of education and enlightenment among the Arabs took no part, however, in this antagonism. They recognised that the fears that had been expressed were illusory. They realised that Jewish co-operation was the best means, perhaps the only means, of promoting the prosperity of Palestine, a prosperity from which the Arabs could not fail to benefit. They desired the maintenance of peace and order, and they had confidence that the British Government would permit no injustice, even if injustice were intended. And among the mass of the population there were large numbers who, taking no interest in politics, thinking only of the needs of daily life, made no response to the agitation that sought to arouse their fears and inflame their passions.
Such was the economic condition of the country, and such was the political atmosphere, when on July 1st, 1920, by order of His Majesty's Government a Civil Administration was established in Palestine.”
1930 Dept of Health statistics—PalestineThe last census was taken in 1922, and showed the total population as being 757,182, of whom 590,890 were Mohammedans, 83,794 Jews and 82,498 Christians and others. The division between the town and agricultural population was as follows :
Town areas
Mohammedans 139,074; Jews 68,622; Christians and others 56,621
Rural areas
Mohammedans 451,816; Jews 15,172; Christians and others 25,877
Mohammedans 692,195; Jews 162,069; Christians and others 91,727 - Total: 945,991
(iii) THE EFFECT OF THE JEWISH SETTLEMENT ON THE ARAB.
P.I.C.A.'s relations with the Arab.
In discussing the question of the effect of Jewish Settlement on the Arab it is essential to differentiate between the P.I.C.A. colonisation and that of the Zionist Organisation.
In so far as the past policy of the P.I.C.A. is concerned, there can be no doubt that the Arab has profited largely by the installation of the colonies. Relations between the colonists and their Arab neighbours were excellent. In many cases, when land was bought by the P.I.C.A. for settlement, they combined with the development of the land for their own settlers similar development for the Arabs who previously occupied the land. All the cases which are now quoted by the Jewish authorities to establish the advantageous effect of Jewish colonisation on the Arabs of the neighbourhood, and which have been brought to notice forcibly and frequently during the course of this enquiry, are cases relating to colonies established by the P.I.C.A., before the KerenHayesod came into existence. In fact, the policy of the P.I.C.A. was one of great friendship for the Arab. Not only did they develop the Arab lands simultaneously with their own, when founding their colonies, but they employed the Arab to tend their plantations, cultivate their fields, to pluck their grapes and their oranges. As a general rule the P.I.C.A. colonisation was of unquestionable benefit to the Arabs of the vicinity.
It is also very noticeable, in travelling through the P.I.C.A. villages, to see the friendliness of the relations which exist between Jew and Arab. It is quite a common sight to see an Arab sitting in the verandah of a Jewish house. The position is entirely different in the Zionist colonies.
Zionist colonisation: the Arab.
In the Memorandum submitted by the Jewish agency attempts were made to establish that the purchase of the villages in the Esdraelon valley and their settlement by the Jews had not had the effect of causing the previous tenants to join the landless class. A list of the ejected tenants was submitted as an annex to the Memorandum, giving the subsequent employment of each one of these tenants in so far as they could be traced. The annex dealt with 688 tenants. The following is an extract from the Memorandum :
" . . . . Very few traced belong to the landless class; 437 are continuing farming58 as harraths; 89 are shepherdsthey were all shepherds before the evacuation, farming being with them a merely subsidiary occupation; 4 are craftsmen, 14 are merchants; 50 are urban labourers; 4 are vegetable vendors; 10 are camel drivers; 2 are milkmen; 37 died; 41 whereabouts unknown. In addition, out of the 688 not less than 154 have became property ownersthat is, they now possess a house and lot of their own."
In explanation of the above statement it must be pointed out that a " harrath " is a farm servant; he is not a tenant farmer. The real result of this enquiry is to establish that of 688 Arab families which cultivated in the villages in the Vale of Esdraelon which were purchased and occupied by the Jews, only 379 are now cultivating the land. Three hundred and nine of these families have joined the landless classes. In the cases described as " died " it is not the family that is extinguished, but the head of the family who has died. Presumably, the descendants are still alive and earning their bread in some other walk of life than agriculture. It is also to be recorded that the number, 688, does not by any means include all the families who were displaced. According to the records of the Area Officers at Nazareth and Haifa, the number of " farmers " displaced from those villages was 1,270, nearly double the number accounted for in the Memorandum. In addition to farmers, there are, of course, many other residents who, though not in occupation, have interests in the land. With reference to these the District Commissioner, Northern District, writes :
" .... It appears quite clear that the persons who claimed, or at any rate who received compensations, by no means included all those who had interests in land, who according to the census figures amounted to 4,900. The census figures are usually taken as being about 20 per cent, below the truth, owing to the objections to a census which was connected with military service . . . ." […]
Zionist policy in regard to Arabs in their colonies.
The abovequoted provisions sufficiently illustrate the Zionist policy with regard to the Arabs in their colonies. Attempts are constantly being made to establish the advantage which Jewish settlement has brought to the Arab. The most lofty sentiments are ventilated at public meetings and in Zionist propaganda. At the time of the Zionist Congress in 1921 a resolution was passed which '' solemnly declared the desire of the Jewish people to live with the Arab people in relations of friendship and mutual respect, and, together with the Arab people, to develop the homeland common to both into a prosperous community which would ensure the growth of the peoples." This resolution is frequently quoted in proof of the excellent sentiments which Zionism cherishes towards the people of Palestine. The provisions quoted above, which are included in legal documents binding on every settler in a Zionist colony, are not compatible with the sentiments publicly expressed.
The same remark applies to the following extract from the Memorandum submitted by the General Federation of Jewish Labour to the " Palestine Commission of Enquiry " (i.e., the Commission on the Palestine disturbances of August, 1929) :
" The Jewish Labour Movement considers the Arab population as an integral element in this country. It is not to be thought of that Jewish settlers should displace this population, nor establish themselves at its expense. This would not only be impossible both from the political and economic standpoint, but it would run counter to the moral conception lying at the root of the Zionist movement. Jewish immigrants who come to this country to live by their own labour regard the Arab working man as their compatriot and fellow worker, whose needs are their needs and whose future is their future."
The effect of the Zionist colonisation policy on the Arab.
Actually the result of the purchase of land in Palestine by the Jewish National Fund has been that land has been extraterritorialised. It ceases to be land from which the Arab can gain any advantage either now or at any time in the future. Not only can he never hope to lease or to cultivate it, but, by the stringent provisions of the lease of the Jewish National Fund, he is deprived for ever from employment on that land. Nor can anyone help him by purchasing the land and restoring it to common use. The land is in mortmain and inalienable. It is for this reason that Arabs discount the professions of friendship and good will on the part of the Zionists in view of the policy which the Zionist Organisation deliberately adopted.