THE BRITISH GREAT BETRAYAL OF THE JEWS - Part 2

THE BRITISH GREAT BETRAYAL OF THE JEWS - Part 2

or as would-be sellers of land . If we mistake not,

the only result of the grants to Arabs of the

Beisan state lands was that the owners wanted

to sell their newly acquired property to Jews .

The government will not and cannot enforce

an ordinance of this kind . All that it can accomplish

is to raise the sale price. The Arabs will

sell their lands surreptitiously and as public Jewish

and Zionist organizations will not participate

in clandestine purchases, the secret sales will be

effected by individuals who will buy on secret

contract for private gain . The plan is a repetition

of the system that prevailed during the

Turkish regime . If the Jews had not demanded

clear titles and registration of sales, they would

* New York Times, Nov . 9, 1930, p. 4E.

152 THE GREAT BETRAYAL

today own four times as much as they do. As

sale or purchase of land depends largely on immigration,

we proceed to the most serious of the

proposed enactments.

4. Immigration restriction . It matters in our

judgment little whether the restriction of Jewish

immigration is effected by the aid of such a

phrase as the "economic absorptive capacity of

the land" or on the basis of existing Arab unemployment.

The May, 1930, "suspension" of certificates

was a political act . "Suspension" was

merely a verbal disguise for restriction . Lord

Passfield says not a word about restricting Arab

immigration into Palestine :

The economic capacity of the country to

absorb new immigrants must therefore be

judged with reference to the position of

Palestine as a whole in regard to unemployment.

....and he adds

Clearly if immigration of Jews results in

preventing the Arab population from obtaining

the work necessary for its maintenance,

or if Jewish unemployment unfavourably

affects the general labour position, it is the duty

of the Mandatory Power under the Mandate

CRYSTALLIZATION" '53

to reduce, or, if necessary, to suspend, such

immigration until the unemployed portion of

the "other sections" is in a position to obtain

work.

The subordination of the Jewish National

Home in the scheme of things Palestinian is thus

made very clear. The restriction of Jewish immigration

can be made effective . The Jews come

into Palestine mostly through two ports, Jaffa

and Haifa. A small percentage come by rail and

pass through the control station at Kantara . All

of Southern, Eastern and Northern Palestine lies

wide open. There is nothing to check the movement

of people across the Tih desert, or of crossing

the Arabah, or fording the Jordan, or walking

leisurely across the innumerable passes that

stretch across the country to the north . To guard

the frontiers in this respect would probably

double the cost of Palestinian administration . Because

the Jews come across the sea and are not

desert wanderers, the Jews alone can be stopped

from entering Palestine. That way the "great

adventure" can be ended . Yet Sir John Hope

Simpson says:

In many directions Jewish development has

meant more work for the Arabs, and it is a

fair conclusion that the competition of im154

THE GREAT BETRAYAL

ported Jewish labour is equalised by those increased

opportunities.*

This expert estimates the unemployment in

Palestine in June as 1,300 Jews and 2,600 Arabs.

We do not pose as social or economic statisticians .

Yet as a matter of simple arithmetic, if the same

proportions held good elsewhere there would

have been in June no more than 475,000 persons

unemployed in the United States and not half

that number in England. We believe there has

not been a day in the history of the United

States or of England that so small a percentage

of the population has been unemployed as these

portentous official figures reveal . We are prepared

to believe that the actual Arab unemployment

in Palestine is much larger.

Excepting a comparatively small group of

artisans in the cities, the whole population of

Palestine prior to the issuance of the Mandate

were at best engaged in seasonal occupations . The

poverty of the country was a byword, as the

sterility of its soil was its reproach . Beggars innumerable,

young and old appealing for baksheesh,

at every port of entry, at every street

corner, at the door of every synagogue, mosque

* Palestine. Report on Immigration, Land Settlement and Development,

by Sir John Hope Simpson, C.I.E., 1930, p. 132 .

"CRYSTALLIZATION" 1 55

or church, and at every shrine, made a distressing

human spectacle which every traveler painfully

noted . The anxiety of every Arab to turn

local guide for the passing tourist impressed the

visitor. The general non-occupation of all male

adults dominates every travel book written up

to the beginning of the World War .

We willingly accept the compliments to

Jewish achievement in Palestine paid by the

Permanent Mandates Commission, and even by

Sir John Shuckburgh and Mr . Luke . But we are

not prepared to believe that the Jewish effort has

in one decade reduced the unemployed Arabs to

2,600 out of a population of 692, i g S . Seeing

that in all labor every member of the typical

Arab family, including women and children,

works under the supervision of the father, creating

a labor class in Palestine far in excess of what

prevails elsewhere, we are not prepared for the

astonishing economic miracle ascribed to the

Jewish national impetus. For there is no other

pressure to effort in Palestine than that which

arises out of the creative attempts of the Jewish

people, and from the money they bring into the

country for that purpose .

Elijah's cruse of oil helped only one widow .

The Jewish National Home has found occupation

according to Sir John Hope Simpson for all

156 THE GREAT BETRAYAL

but 2,600 Arabs. Yet, the motive being what it

is, the advance guard of Jewish settlers must wait

the job-finding ability of these 2,600 Arabs. The

White Paper, ignorant either of Palestinian life,

or purblind as to the obvious implications of the

testimony offered by the government's own expert,

proceeds to shut the door to Jews and to

Jewish hope. To quote from it what is said in

another context but applies fully to this point :

So long as widespread suspicion exists, and

it does exist, among the Arab population, that

the economic depression, under which they

undoubtedly suffer at present, is largely due

to excessive Jewish immigration, and so long

as some grounds exist upon which this suspicion

may be plausibly represented to be well

founded,-

so long must the British government deny the

Balfour Declaration by "suspending" Jewish immigration.

It is not the task, of this book, to solve the

problem of the relations of the Jews and the

Arabs in Palestine . Whatever thoughts men have

gathered on this subject have been frustrated by

dropping the Damoclean sword on the heads of

the Jews . But in view of the White Paper, we

feel it incumbent to observe, as was admitted in

"CRYSTALLIZATION" 1 57

1921, that the Arab opposition is first and foremost

to the Mandatory . The pan-Arabs want no

Christian power in Asia Minor, just as the Hindus

object to the presence of England in India and,

without going into the mazes of the Arab-Islamic

question which rages from Egypt to India, it is

obvious that British imperialism is supporting

Arab pretensions in Palestine in order to maintain

the sympathy of the Moslems in India.

Palestine is thus a pawn in the game of British imperialism-

not a Mandated area .

There are unquestionably Arabs in Palestine

who object to the presence of the Mandatory on

local national grounds, a problem that Great

Britain has created independently in Egypt by

a policy somewhat similar to that which she proposes

to set in motion in Palestine. In any of these

broad aspects the Arab objection to the Jew is

not qua Jew, but as the cause, through the Balfour

Declaration, of the presence of the Mandatory

in the country. Hence the Arab demand for

nullifying of the Declaration, as a means of ridding

the country of the Mandatory and its

administrative system.

So much being justly predicated, the Arab demand

for a parliament is not a yearning for

democracy,-on the democratic basis Jerusalem

would now have a Jewish mayor and town coun158

THE GREAT BETRAYAL

cil-but the forging of a weapon by which to

expel the Mandatory through refusing to vote

"supplies." The Arabs do not want to pay for

good roads, hygiene, etc. They have no interest

in these matters . The condition of any Arab village

or municipality where there is no Jewish

settlement betrays the Arab unconcern for improvement

and amelioration . In this sense the

Jews with their higher demands are an intrusion

and an excuse for undesired taxation and administration

. In this sense, though the Jews bear

the larger burden of the taxation of the country,

they are undesired by the Arabs.

On the other hand the Arabs do want the Jews

in Palestine. They want to sell their lands and they

have no other customers . They want to sell the

lands and their attachment to any given piece of

soil only serves as an argument for raising prices .

The history of Palestine is that of intermittent and

not continuous settlement . Laurence Oliphant

knew of no rights of the population that were

acknowledged by the Turkish government in

118 8o. * Then and ever since the Arabs have been

* "It is worthy of note that when I submitted a scheme for colonizing

this region to the government at Constantinople, the difficulty of dealing

with the Arabs was never once suggested as an objection, nor did the

nomad population seem in the eyes of the government to possess any

prescriptive rights which should interfere with the purchase of this

country by immigrants ."-Laurence Oliphant, Land of Gilead, Mo .

"CRYSTALLIZATION' IS9

anxious to sell their lands. This applies categorically

to the men agitating against the Jewish National

Home and the Mandate . The Arab position

is therefore far from clear or simple . The value of

their land depends not upon a Jewish buyer, but

upon the existence of i 6,ooo,ooo Jews interested

in buying Palestinian soil . Close the gates upon

Jewish immigration, shut out the Zionist hope,

and the Arabs in Palestine will be impoverished beyond

redemption within a very few years . Being

neither guileless nor stupid the Arabs know this .

That is why they protest against the projected

checking of land sales . They know the present

sale price is equivalent to the possible returns to

them, per dunam, of working the land for all

their laboring years . Naturally if they could

sell all of Palestine to the Jews, and we have little

doubt they would, even the Wakf or ecclesiastical

lands, and keep the Jews from increasing in

numbers, the handful of Arab politicians would

amass wealth and govern the country . They

"want to have their cake and eat it."

X

WE REST OUR CASE

WE HAVE not hesitated, painful as it is, to attack

Great Britain, to call Lord Passfield's White

Paper and Mr. Ramsay MacDonald's championing

of it-the Great Betrayal. We believe we

have fairly traced the process in administrative

methods which in the end require for their justification

a declaration of policy that is an inversion

of the purport of the Balfour Declaration .

We have not employed any forensic art to prove

the justice of a cause that needs no such methods

of defense. "Thrice armed is he who bath his

quarrel just ."

We feel that the Jewish people have been

deeply wronged. They are put in this matter in

a false position towards the Arabs, and towards

the world at large, whose good opinion they value

-which, listening to the voice of Government,

is more than prone to believe that the Jews are

claiming too much . They are wronged, too, in the

especial sense that their faith-that of all Jews

760

WE REST OUR CASE

161

was in England and therefore, if England wrongs

them, they are twice wronged .

We accuse Great Britain, in the persons of the

Labor Government, of a great betrayal because

her contract with the Jewish people was made in

the sight of all men, and in agreement with the

heads of all British Dominions, and with the

Principal and Associated Powers allied in the

Great War. The sacredness of all contracts, present

and future, is in doubt, if one great state

paper can be scrapped by changing the order and

import of its sentences .

These are not words idly composed . When the

Arabs, a year ago, in their agitation in this country,

demanded the nullification of the Balfour

Declaration, we protested to them, pointing out

that they had nothing to gain from nullification .

For if one international pledge could be freely

broken, no other agreement would be of value

to any people . In that sense, we, protesting

against this breach of one trust, struggle for the

inviolability of all public and international obligations.

We, lovers of the English people and of English

ways, protest against this Great Betrayal of

English honor premeditated and propounded by

the Labor Government . One hundred and thirty

years ago Sir Sidney Smith made the word of

162 THE GREAT BETRAYAL

England a bond more rich than gold throughout

the Orient. What shall the Orient as well as the

Western World say of a government that employs

such casuistry as to suggest that it proposes

to continue a given policy by reversing the sentences

in a state document and so defend, support

and champion an inverted and wholly contrary

policy?

Are we wrong? Or are we right

Have we evolved from our inner consciousness

that explanation of what was intended by the

Balfour Declaration and which convicts the

Labor Government? The answer is not ours but

the hand now stilled in death which penned the

Balfour Declaration . We need no better, no

clearer, no more complete witness . Against inversions,

sophistry and casuistry we quote the

full, lucid and complete answer made by Arthur

James Balfour in London, in July, 1920, at the

meeting held at the Royal Albert Hall, to celebrate

the granting to and acceptance by Great

Britain of the Mandate :

"The critics of this movement shelter themselves

behind the phrase-it is more than a

phrase-the principle of self-determinationand

say if you apply that principle logically

r

WE REST OUR CASE

163

and honestly it is to the majority of the existing

population of Palestine that the future

destinies of Palestine should be committed .

There is a technical ingenuity in that plea, on

technical grounds, I neither can nor desire to

provide an answer . But the man who looking

back on the history of the world, who does not

see that the case of Jewry in all countries is

absolutely exceptional, falls outside all the

ordinary rules and maxims, cannot be contained

in a formula or explained in a sentence

-the man who does not see that the deep

underlying principle of self-determination

really points to the Zionist policy, however

little in its strict technical interpretation it

may seem to favour it, does not understand

either the Jews or the principle . I am convinced

that none but pedants or people who,

prejudiced either by religion or racial bigotry,

none but those who are blinded by one of these

causes, would deny for one instant that the

case of the Jew is exceptional, and must be

treated by exceptional methods."

We rest our case, confident of the verdict of

the conscience of mankind .

APPENDIX I

THE GREAT ADVENTURE

AN ADDRESS delivered by Arthur James Balfour

at the Royal Albert Hall, London, July,

11920, before the delegates of the Zionist Conference,

at a meeting held in celebration of the

granting to and acceptance by Great Britain of

the Mandate:-

For long I have been a convinced Zionist . And

it is in that character that I come before you

today. But in my most sanguine moments I

never foresaw, I never even conceived the possibility,

that the great work of Palestinian reconstruction

would happen so soon, or that indeed

it was likely to happen in my own lifetime . This

is one of the great and unexpected results of the

world's struggle which has just come to an end

-if indeed we dare to say it has completely come

to an end . Of infinite evils that struggle has been

the parent, but if among its results we can count

the re-establishment in their ancient home of the

Jewish people, at all events we can put to its

i6f

166 THE GREAT BETRAYAL

credit one great result, which in other circumstances,

so far as we can see, could never have

occurred at so early a date .

Who would have thought five or six years ago

that a speaker in the Albert Hall would be able

to count as an accomplished fact that the Great

Powers of the world had elected to accept the

Declaration to which Lord Rothschild has referred,

had consented to give the Mandate to the

country which at all events is in the forefront

among those who desire to see this policy brought

to a successful issue, and that they should already

have seen appointed as the High Commissioner

of Palestine a man who so admirably

joins the double qualifications which Lord

Rothschild has already so felicitously expressed?

These are results on which we may all congratulate

ourselves . Let us not forget, in our

feelings of legitimate triumph, the difficulties

which still lie before us . Those difficulties-I have

no hesitation in dwelling upon them because I

know you will overcome them-yet it is worth

while to enumerate some of them, not to discourage

you, but to raise your courage and

resolution even to a higher pitch than they have

already reached-among these difficulties I am

not sure that I do not rate the highest, or at all

events the first, the inevitable difficulty of dealAPPENDIX

I

167

ing with the Arab question as it presents itself

within the limits of Palestine . It will require

tact ; it will require judgment ; above all, it will

require sympathetic good-will on the part of

both Jew and of Arab .

So far as the Arabs are concerned-a great, and

interesting, and an attractive race-so far as they

are concerned, I hope they will remember that

while we desire-this assembly and all the Jews

whom it represents-under the aegis of Great

Britain to establish this home for the Jewish people,

the Great Powers, and among all the Great

Powers most especially Great Britain, have forced

them, the Arab race, from the tyranny of their

brutal conqueror, who has kept them under his

heel for many centuries . I hope they will remember

it is we who have established the independent

Arab sovereignty of the Hedjaz . I hope they will

remember it, we who desire in Mesopotamia to

prepare the way for the future of a self-governing,

autonomous Arab State . And I hope that,

remembering all that, they will not grudge that

small niche-for it is not more geographically

in the former Arab territories than a nichebeing

given to the people who for all these hundreds

of years have been separated from it, but

who surely have a title to develop on their own

lines in the land of their forefathers.

168 THE GREAT BETRAYAL

This ought to appeal to the sympathy of the

Arab people, as I am convinced it appeals to the

great mass of my own Christian fellow-men in

this country. This is the first difficulty, that can

be got over and will be got over by mutual goodwill.

The second difficulty, on which I shall only

say a word, is that the critics of this movement

shelter themselves behind the phrase-it is more

than a phrase-the principle of self-determination,

and say if you apply that principle logically

and honestly it is to the majority of the existing

population of Palestine that the future destinies

of Palestine should be committed . There is a

technical ingenuity in that plea and, on technical

grounds, I neither can nor desire to provide an

answer. But the man who, looking back on the

history of the world, and more particularly of

the more civilised portions of the world, who

does not see that the case of Jewry in all countries

is absolutely exceptional, falls outside all the

ordinary rules and maxims, cannot be contained

in a formula or explained in a sentence-the man

who does not see that the deep underlying principle

of self-determination really points to the

Zionist policy, however little in its strict technical

interpretation it may seem to favour it, does

not understand either the Jews or the principle.

I am convinced that none but pedants or people

APPENDIX I

169

who, prejudiced either by religion or racial bigotry,

none but those who are blinded by one of

these causes, would deny for one instant that

the case of the Jews is absolutely exceptional, and

must be treated by exceptional methods .

The third difficulty is of a wholly different

order of magnitude and character . It is the

physical difficulty. Palestine, great as is the place

which it occupies in the history of the world, is

but a small and petty country looked at as a

geographical unity, and men ask themselves how

in these narrow limits, to be traversed, where

there are good roads from Dan to Beersheba by

an automobile in an easy day's journey-they

ask themselves how that can be made physically

adequate to be a home for the self-development

of the Jewish people. The problem presents difficulties,

it presents no impossibilities . It presents

difficulties which I myself should regard as overwhelming

were we dealing with another people

and with different conditions . But what are the

requisites of such development in Palestine as

may accommodate an important section of the

great race that I am addressing? What are the

two necessities? One is skill, knowledge, perseverance,

enterprise. The other is capital . And I

am perfectly convinced that when you are talking

of the Jews you will find no want of any one

170 THE GREAT BETRAYAL

of these requisites . Of skill and knowledge and

of what the most modern methods can teach in

the way of engineering and agriculture, the Jewish

race who have themselves contributed to the

results can easily make themselves the master .

And when I consider capital I am not thinking

of the great millionaires or the men of vast wealth

belonging to the Jewish race-I doubt not they

will do their duty. It is not of them Lam thinking.

I am thinking of the innumerable Jews in

the poorest circumstances-I have heard authentic

details of the way in which, out of their

poverty, they are prepared to contribute to the

success of this movement. The fourth and the

last difficulty on which I want to speak is perhaps

in some respects the greatest of all . This

movement cannot be carried out except by idealists.

No man who is incapable of idealism is capable

either of understanding the Zionist movement

or contributing effectually to its consummation .

But idealism, though a necessary element in every

great and fruitful policy, has its inevitable dangers.

Your cynic, your man of narrow and selfish

views, does nothing ; your idealist does much . But

he does not always do the right thing, and the

very qualities which make a man sacrifice all

that he has for an idea, very often blind him to

that cool and calm judgment without which

APPENDIX I

I7I

great ideals cannot be brought to a true and

successful fruition . I speak as a man who is not

a Jew and necessarily therefore looks at the

Jewish question from outside ; but I should say

that perhaps the danger that besets the Jewish

race is not that they lack high idealism, not that

they are reluctant to sacrifice everything to life

itself, to see that ideal carried into effect, but that

they are carried away by the vehemence of their

own views, the depth and strength of their own

convictions, and are unwilling to do that without

which this and any other great movement cannot

succeed, are unwilling to give that wholehearted

trust and confidence in their chosen

leaders which, believe me, is necessary.

You are drawn from every nation under

heaven. You come to London, or to any other

great centre, with ideas absorbed from the

populations among whom you have sojourned ;

you come, therefore, with many different mentalities,

to use a familiar phrase ; you come with

many different theories as to the methods by

which your common objects can be carried out .

It only becomes dangerous by their insistence

that the objects should be carried out precisely

in the fashion which commends itself to them .

Beware of that danger! I am sure it is the greatest

danger which will beset you in the future . Now,

172 THE GREAT BETRAYAL

I have done with the gloomy task of enumerating

difficulties. I have only one more word to say.

We are embarked on a great adventure. And I

say "we" advisedly, and by "we" I mean on one

side the Jewish people, and on the other side the

Mandatory Power for Palestine . We are partners

in this great enterprise . If we fail you, you cannot

succeed ; if you fail us, you cannot succeed .

But I feel sure that we shall not fail you, and

that you will not fail us . And if I am rightand

I am assured I am-in this prophecy of hope

and confidence, then surely we may look forward

with hope, and gaze on a future in which Palestine

will, indeed, and in the fullest measure and

degree of success be made a home for the Jewish

people.

APPENDIX II

THE CHURCHILL WHITE PAPER,

JUNE, I9n

THE Secretary of State for the Colonies has

given renewed consideration to the existing

political situation in Palestine, with a very earnest

desire to arrive at a settlement of the outstanding

questions which have given rise to uncertainty

and unrest among certain sections of

the population . After consultation with the

High Commissioner for Palestine the following

statement has been drawn up . It summarises the

essential parts of the correspondence that has already

taken place between the Secretary of State

and a delegation from the Moslem Christian Society

of Palestine, which has been for some time

in England, and it states the further conclusions

which have since been reached .

The tension which has prevailed from time to

time in Palestine is mainly due to apprehensions,

which are entertained both by sections of the

Arab and by sections of the Jewish population .

173

174 THE GREAT BETRAYAL

These apprehensions, so far as the Arabs are concerned,

are partly based upon exaggerated interpretations

of the meaning of the Declaration

favouring the establishment of a Jewish National

Home in Palestine, made on behalf of His Majesty's

Government on 2nd November, 1917.

Unauthorised statements have been made to the

effect that the purpose in view is to create a

wholly Jewish Palestine. Phrases have been used

such as that Palestine is to become "as Jewish as

England is English ." His Majesty's Government

regard any such expectation as impracticable and

have no such aim in view. Nor have they at any

time contemplated, as appears to be feared by

the Arab Delegation, the disappearance or the

subordination of the Arabic population, language

or culture in Palestine . They would draw attention

to the fact that the terms of the Declaration

referred to 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 this connection it has

been observed with satisfaction that at the meeting

of the Zionist Congress, the supreme governing

body of the Zionist Organisation, held at

Carlsbad in September, 1921, a resolution was

passed expressing as the official statement of

Zionist aims "the determination of the Jewish

APPENDIX II

1 75

people to live with the Arab people on terms of

unity and mutual respect, and together with

them to make the common home into a flourishing

community, the upbuilding of which may

assure to each of its peoples an undisturbed national

development ."

It is also necessary to point out that the Zionist

Commission in Palestine, now termed the Palestine

Zionist Executive, has not desired to possess,

and does not possess, any share in the general administration

of the country. Nor does the special

position assigned to the Zionist Organisation in

Article LV of the Draft Mandate for Palestine

imply any such functions . That special position

relates to the measures to be taken in Palestine

affecting the Jewish population, and contemplates

that the Organisation may assist in the

general development of the country, but does

not entitle it to share in any degree in its Government.

Further, it is contemplated that the status of

all citizens of Palestine in the eyes of the law

shall be Palestinian, and it has never been intended

that they, or any section of them, should

possess any other juridical status .

So far as the Jewish population of Palestine

are concerned, it appears that some among them

are apprehensive that His Majesty's Government

176 THE GREAT BETRAYAL

may depart from the policy embodied in the

Declaration of 1917. It is necessary, therefore,

once more to affirm that these fears are unfounded

and that that Declaration, reaffirmed by

the Conference of the Principal Allied Powers of

San Remo and again in the Treaty of Sevres, is

not susceptible of change.

During the last two or three generations the

Jews have recreated in Palestine a community,

now numbering 80,000, of whom about onefourth

are farmers or workers upon the land .

This community has its own political organs ; an

elected assembly for the direction of its domestic

concerns ; elected councils in the towns ; and an

organisation for the control of its schools . It has

its elected Chief Rabbinate and Rabbinical

Council for the direction of its religious affairs .

Its business is conducted in Hebrew as a vernacular

language, and a Hebrew press serves its needs .

It has its distinctive intellectual life and displays

considerable economic activity . This community,

then, with its town and country population, its

political, religious and social organisations, its

own language, its own customs, its own life, has

in fact "national" characteristics . When it is

asked what is meant by the development of the

Jewish National Home in Palestine, it may be

answered that it is not the imposition of a JewAPPENDIX

II

177

ish nationality upon the inhabitants of Palestine

as a whole, 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 recognised to rest

upon ancient historic connection .

This, then, is the interpretation which His

Majesty's Government place upon the Declaration

of 1917, and so understood, the Secretary of

State is of opinion that it does not contain or

imply anything which need cause either alarm to

the Arab population of Palestine or disappointment

to the Jews.

For the fulfilment of this policy it is necessary

that the Jewish community in Palestine should

be able to increase its numbers by immigration .

This immigration cannot be so great in volume

178 THE GREAT BETRAYAL

as to exceed whatever may be the economic capacity

of the country at the time to absorb new

arrivals. It is essential to ensure that the immigrants

should not be a burden upon the people of

Palestine as a whole, and that they should not

deprive any section of the present population of

their employment. Hitherto, the immigration

has fulfilled these conditions. The number of

immigrants since the British occupation has been

about 25,000.

It is necessary also to ensure that persons who

are politically undesirable are excluded from

Palestine, and every precaution has been and will

be taken by the Administration to that end .

It is intended that a special committee should

be established in Palestine, consisting entirely of

members of the new Legislative Council elected

by the people, to confer with the Administration

upon matters relating to the regulation of immigration.

Should any difference of opinion arise

between this committee and the Administration,

the matter will be referred to His Majesty's

Government, who will give it special consideration.

In addition, under Article 81 of the draft

Palestine Order in Council, any religious community

of considerable section of the population

of Palestine will have a general right to appeal,

through the High Commissioner and the SecreAPPENDIX

II

179

tary of State, to the League of Nations on any

matter on which they may consider that the terms

of the Mandate are not being fulfilled by the

Government of Palestine .

With reference to the Constitution, which it

is now intended to establish in Palestine, the

draft of which has already been published, it is

desirable to make certain points clear . In the first

place, it is not the case, as has been represented

by the Arab Delegation, that during the war His

Majesty's Government gave an undertaking that

an independent national government should be

at once established in Palestine . This representation

mainly rests upon a letter dated the 24th

October, 1915, from Sir Henry McMahon, then

His Majesty's High Commissioner in Egypt, to

the Sherif of Mecca, now King Hussein of the

Kingdom of the Hedjaz . That letter is quoted as

conveying the promise to the Sherif of Mecca to

recognise and support the independence of the

Arabs within the territories proposed by him .

But this promise was given subject to a reservation

made in the same letter, which excluded

from its scope, among other territories, the portions

of Syria lying to the west of the District

of Damascus. This reservation has always been

regarded by His Majesty's Government as covering

the vilayet of Beirut and the independent

180 THE GREAT BETRAYAL

Sanjak of Jerusalem. The whole of Palestine west

of the Jordan was thus excluded from Sir H.

McMahon's pledge.

Nevertheless, it is the intention of His Majesty's

Government to foster the establishment of

a full measure of self-government in Palestine .

But they are of opinion that, in the special circumstances

of that country, this should be accomplished

by gradual stages and not suddenly .

The first step was taken when, on the institution

of a civil Administration, the nominated Advisory

Council, which now exists, was established .

It was stated at the time by the High Commissioner

that this was the first step in the development

of self-governing institutions, and it is now

proposed to take a second step by the establishment

of a Legislative Council containing a large

proportion of members elected on a wide franchise

. It was proposed in the published draft that

three of the members of this Council should be

non-official persons nominated by the High

Commissioner, but representations having been

made in opposition to this provision, based on

cogent considerations, the Secretary of State is

prepared to omit it. The Legislative Council

would then consist of the High Commissioner as

President and twelve elected and ten official

members. The Secretary of State is of opinion

APPENDIX II

181

that before a further measure of self-government

is extended to Palestine and the Assembly placed

in control over the Executive, it would be wise

to allow some time to elapse . During this period

the institutions of the country will have become

well established ; its financial credit will be based

on firm foundations, and the Palestinian official

will have been enabled to gain experience of

sound methods of government . After a few years

the situation will be again reviewed, and if the

experience of the working of the constitution

now to be established so warranted, a larger share

of authority would then be extended to the

elected representatives of the people .

The Secretary of State would point out that

already the present Administration has transferred

to a Supreme Council elected by the Moslem

community of Palestine the entire control

of Moslem religious endowments (Wakfs), and

of the Moslem religious courts . To this Council

the Administration has also voluntarily restored

considerable revenues derived from ancient endowments

which had been sequestrated by the

Turkish Government. The Education Department

is also advised by a committee representative

of all sections of the population, and the

Department of Commerce and Industry has the

benefit of the co-operation of the Chambers of

182 THE GREAT BETRAYAL

Commerce which have been established in the

principal centres . It is the intention of the Administration

to associate in an increased degree

similar representative committees with the various

Departments of the Government.

The Secretary of State believes that a policy

upon these lines, coupled with the maintenance

of the fullest religious liberty in Palestine and

with scrupulous regard for the rights of each

community with reference to its Holy Places,

cannot but commend itself to the various sections

of the population, and that upon this basis

may be built up that spirit of co-operation upon

which the future progress and prosperity of the

Holy Land must largely depend .

APPENDIX III

THE MANDATE FOR PALESTINE

THE Council of the League of Nations :

Whereas the Principal Allied Powers have

agreed, for the purpose of giving effect to the

provisions of Article 22 of the Covenant of the

League of Nations, to entrust to a Mandatory

selected by the said Powers the administration of

the territory of Palestine, which formerly belonged

to the Turkish Empire, within such

boundaries as may be fixed by them ; and

Whereas the Principal Allied Powers have also

agreed that the Mandatory should be responsible

for putting into effect the declaration originally

made on November 2nd, 1917, by the Government

of His Britannic Majesty, and adopted by

the said Powers, in favour of the establishment

in Palestine of a national home for the Jewish

people, it being clearly understood that nothing

should be done which might prejudice the civil

and religious rights of existing non-Jewish communities

in Palestine, or the rights and political

183

184 THE GREAT BETRAYAL

status enjoyed by Jews in any other country ; and

Whereas 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 ; and

Whereas the Principal Allied Powers have selected

His Britannic Majesty as the Mandatory

for Palestine ; and

Whereas the mandate in respect of Palestine

has been formulated in the following terms and

submitted to the Council of the League for approval

; and

Whereas His Britannic Majesty has accepted

the mandate in respect of Palestine and undertaken

to exercise it on behalf of the League of

Nations in conformity with the following provisions

; and

Whereas by the afore-mentioned Article 22

(paragraph 8), it is provided that the degree of

authority, control or administration to be exercised

by the Mandatory, not having been previously

agreed upon by the Members of the League,

shall be explicitly defined by the Council of the

League of Nations ;

Confirming the said mandate, defines its terms

as follows:

APPENDIX III

185

Article i .

The Mandatory shall have full powers of legislation

and of administration, save as they may be

limited by the terms of this mandate.

Article 2.

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, and the development

of self-governing institutions, and also for

safeguarding the civil and religious rights of all

the inhabitants of Palestine, irrespective of race

and religion.

Article 3 .

The Mandatory shall, so far as circumstances

permit encourage local autonomy.

Article 4.

An appropriate Jewish agency shall be recognised

as a public body for the purpose of advising

and co-operating with the Administration of

Palestine in such economic, social and other matters

as may affect the establishment of the Jewish

national home and the interests of the Jewish

population in Palestine, and, subject always to

186 THE GREAT BETRAYAL

the control of the Administration, to assist and

take part in the development of the country .

The Zionist organisation, so long as its organisation

and constitution are in the opinion of the

Mandatory appropriate, shall be recognised as

such agency. It shall take steps in consultation

with His Britannic Majesty's Government to

secure the co-operation of all Jews who are willing

to assist in the establishment of the Jewish

national home.

Article s.

The Mandatory shall be responsible for seeing

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 .

Article 6.

The Administration of Palestine, while ensuring

that the rights and position of other sections

of the population are not prejudiced, shall facilitate

Jewish immigration under suitable conditions

and shall encourage, in co-operation with

the Jewish agency referred to in Article 4, close

settlement by Jews on the land, including State

lands and waste lands not required for public

purposes.

APPENDIX III

187

Article 7.

The Administration of Palestine shall be responsible

for enacting a nationality law . There

shall be included in this law provisions framed

so as to facilitate the acquisition of Palestinian

citizenship by Jews who take up their permanent

residence in Palestine .

Article 8 .

The privileges and immunities of foreigners,

including the benefits of consular jurisdiction

and protection as formerly enjoyed by Capitulation

or usage in the Ottoman Empire, shall not

be applicable in Palestine .

Unless the Powers whose nationals enjoyed the

afore-mentioned privileges and immunities on

August i st, 1914, shall have previously renounced

the right to their re-establishment, or shall have

agreed to their non-application for a specified

period, these privileges and immunities shall, at

the expiration of the mandate, be immediately

re-established in their entirety or with such modifications

as may have been agreed upon between

the Powers concerned .

Article 9.

Article 9.

The Mandatory shall be responsible for seeing

that the judicial system established in Palestine

188 THE GREAT BETRAYAL

shall assure to foreigners, as well as to natives,

a complete guarantee of their rights .

Respect for the personal status of the various

peoples and communities and for their religious

interests shall be fully guaranteed . In particular,

the control and administration of Wakfs shall

be exercised in accordance with religious law and

the dispositions of the founders .

Article i o.

Pending the making of special extradition

agreements relating to Palestine, the extradition

treaties in force between the Mandatory and

other foreign Powers shall apply to Palestine .

Article i i.

The Administration of Palestine shall take all

necessary measures to safeguard the interests of

the community in connection with the development

of the country, and, subject to any international

obligations accepted by the Mandatory,

shall have full power to provide for public ownership

or control of any of the natural resources

of the country or of the public works, services

and utilities established or to be established therein.

It shall introduce a land system appropriate

to the needs of the country, having regard,

among other things, to the desirability of proAPPENDIX

III

189

moting the close settlement and intensive cultivation

of the land.

The Administration may arrange with the

Jewish agency mentioned in Article 4 to construct

or operate, upon fair and equitable terms,

any public works, services and utilities, and to

develop any of the natural resources of the country,

in so far as these matters are not directly

undertaken by the Administration . Any such

arrangements shall provide that no profits distributed

by such agency, directly or indirectly,

shall exceed a reasonable rate of interest on the

capital, and any further profits shall be utilised

by it for the benefit of the country in a manner

approved by the Administration.

Article 12.

The Mandatory shall be entrusted with the

control of the foreign relations of Palestine and

the right to issue exequaturs to consuls appointed

by foreign Powers. He shall also be entitled to

afford diplomatic and consular protection to citizens

of Palestine when outside its territorial

limits.

Article 13 .

All responsibility in connection with the Holy

Places and religious buildings or sites in Palestine,

190 THE GREAT BETRAYAL

including that of preserving existing rights and

of securing free access to the Holy Places, religious

buildings and sites and the free exercise of

worship, while ensuring the requirements of public

order and decorum, is assumed by the Mandatory,

who shall be responsible solely to the

League of Nations in all matters connected herewith,

provided that nothing in this article shall

prevent the Mandatory from entering into such

arrangements as he may deem reasonable with

the Administration for the purpose of carrying

the provisions of this article into effect ; and provided

also that nothing in this mandate shall be

construed as conferring upon the Mandatory authority

to interfere with the fabric or the management

of purely Moslem sacred shrines, the

immunities of which are guaranteed .

Article 14-

A special Commission shall be appointed by

the Mandatory to study, define and determine

the rights and claims in connection with the

Holy Places and the rights and claims relating

to the different religious communities in Palestine.

The method of nomination, the composition

and the functions of this Commission shall

be submitted to the Council of the League for

its approval, and the Commission shall not be

APPENDIX III

191

appointed or enter upon its functions without

the approval of the Council.

Article 1 5 .

The Mandatory shall see that complete freedom

of conscience and the free exercise of all

forms of worship, subject only to the maintenance

of public order and morals, are ensured to

all. No discrimination of any kind shall be made

between the inhabitants of Palestine on the

ground of race, religion or language. No person

shall be excluded from Palestine on the ground

of his religious belief .

The right of each community to maintain its

own schools for the education of its own members

in its own language, while conforming to

such educational requirements of a general nature

as the Administration may impose, shall not be

denied or impaired .

Article 16.

The Mandatory shall be responsible for exercising

such supervision over religious or eleemosynary

bodies of all faiths in Palestine as may be

required for the maintenance of public order

and good government. Subject to such supervision,

no measures shall be taken in Palestine to

obstruct or interfere with the enterprise of such

192 THE GREAT BETRAYAL'

bodies or to discriminate against any representative

or member of them on the ground of his

religion or nationality .

Article z7 .

The Administration of Palestine may organise

on a voluntary basis the forces necessary for the

preservation of peace and order, and also for the

defence of the country, subject, however, to the

supervision of the Mandatory, but shall not use

them for purposes other than those above specified

save with the consent of the Mandatory.

Except for such purposes, no military, naval or

air forces shall be raised or maintained by the

Administration of Palestine .

Nothing in this article shall preclude the Administration

of Palestine from contributing to

the cost of the maintenance of the forces of the

Mandatory in Palestine.

The Mandatory shall be entitled at all times

to use the roads, railways and ports of Palestine

for the movement of armed forces and the carriage

of fuel and supplies.

Article 18.

The Mandatory shall see that there is no discrimination

in Palestine against the nationals of

any State Member of the League of Nations (inAPPENDIX

III

11 93

cluding companies incorporated under its laws)

as compared with those of the Mandatory or of

any foreign State in matters concerning taxation,

commerce or navigation, the exercise of

industries or professions, or in the treatment of

merchant vessels or civil aircraft . Similarly, there

shall be no discrimination in Palestine against

goods originating in or destined for any of the

said States, and there shall be freedom of transit

under equitable conditions across the mandated

area.

Subject as aforesaid and to the other provisions

of this mandate, the Administration of

Palestine may, on the advice of the Mandatory,

impose such taxes and customs duties as it may

consider necessary, and take such steps as it may

think best to promote the development of the

natural resources of the country and to safeguard

the interests of the population. It may

also, on the advice of the Mandatory, conclude

a special customs agreement with any State the

territory of which in 1914 was wholly included

in Asiatic Turkey or Arabia .

Article 19 .

The Mandatory shall adhere on behalf of the

Administration of Palestine to any general international

conventions already existing, or

194 THE GREAT BETRAYAL

which may be concluded hereafter with the approval

of the League of Nations, respecting the

slave traffic, the traffic in arms and ammunition,

or the traffic in drugs, or relating to commercial

equality, freedom of transit and navigation, aerial

navigation and postal, telegraphic and wireless

communication or literary, artistic or industrial

property .

Article 20.

The Mandatory shall co-operate on behalf of

the Administration of Palestine, so far as religious,

social and other conditions may permit, in

the execution of any common policy adopted by

the League of Nations for preventing and combating

disease, including diseases of plants and

animals.

Article 21 .

The Mandatory shall secure the enactment

within twelve months from this date, and shall

ensure the execution of a Law of Antiquities

based on the following rules . This law shall ensure

equality of treatment in the matter of excavations

and archa:ological research to the nationals

of all States Members of the League of

Nations.

APPENDIX III

(I)

"Antiquity" means any construction or any

product of human activity earlier than the year

1700 A. D.

(2)

The law for the protection of antiquities shall

proceed by encouragement rather than by threat .

Any person who, having discovered an antiquity

without being furnished with the authorisation

referred to in paragraph 5, reports

the same to an official of the competent Department,

shall be rewarded according to the value

of the discovery .

(3)

No antiquity may be disposed of except to the

competent Department, unless this Department

renounces the acquisition of any such antiquity .

No antiquity may leave the country without

an export licence from the said Department .

(4)

Any person who maliciously or negligently destroys

or damages an antiquity shall be liable to

a penalty to be fixed .

195

196 THE GREAT BETRAYAL

(5)

No clearing of ground or digging with the

object of finding antiquities shall be permitted,

under penalty of fine, except to persons authorised

by the competent Department .

(6)

Equitable terms shall be fixed for expropriation,

temporary or permanent of lands which

might be of historical or archxological interest .

(7)

Authorisation to excavate shall only be granted

to persons who show sufficient guarantees of

archxological experience. The Administration of

Palestine shall not, in granting these authorisations,

act in such a way as to exclude scholars

of any nation without good grounds.

(8)

The proceeds of excavations may be divided

between the excavator and the competent Department

in a proportion fixed by that Department.

If division seems impossible for scientific

reasons, the excavator shall receive a fair indemnity

in lieu of a part of the find .

APPENDIX III 1 97

Article 22.

English, Arabic and Hebrew shall be the official

languages of Palestine . Any statement or

inscription in Arabic on stamps or money in

Palestine shall be repeated in Hebrew and any

statement or inscription in Hebrew shall be repeated

in Arabic.

Article 23 .

The Administration of Palestine shall recognise

the holy days of the respective communities

in Palestine as legal days of rest for the members

of such communities.

Article 24.

The Mandatory shall make to the Council of

the League of Nations an annual report to the

satisfaction of the Council as to the measures

taken during the year to carry out the provisions

of the mandate . Copies of all laws and regulations

promulgated or issued during the year shall

be communicated with the report.

Article 25.

In the territories lying between the Jordan

and the eastern boundary of Palestine as ultimately

determined, the Mandatory shall be entitled,

with the consent of the Council of the

198 THE GREAT BETRAYAL

League of Nations to postpone or withhold application

of such provisions of this mandate as

he may consider inapplicable to the existing local

conditions, and to make such provision for the

administration of the territories as he may consider

suitable to those conditions, provided that

no action shall be taken which is inconsistent

with the provisions of Articles 15, 16 and 18 .

Article 26.

The Mandatory agrees that, if any dispute

whatever should arise between the Mandatory

and another Member of the League of Nations

relating to the interpretation or the application

of the provisions of the mandate, such dispute,

if it cannot be settled by negotiation, shall be

submitted to the Permanent Court of International

justice provided for by Article 14 of the

Covenant of the League of Nations .

Article 27.

The consent of the Council of the League of

Nations is required for any modification of the

terms of this mandate .

Article 28.

In the event of the termination of the mandate

hereby conferred upon the Mandatory, the

APPENDIX III

1 99

Council of the League of Nations shall make such

arrangements as may be deemed necessary for

safeguarding in perpetuity, under guarantee of

the League, the rights secured by Articles 13 and

14, and shall use its influence for securing, under

the guarantee of the League, that the Government

of Palestine will fully honour the financial

obligations legitimately incurred by the Administration

of Palestine during the period of the

mandate, including the rights of public servants

to pensions or gratuities .

The present instrument shall be deposited in

original in the archives of the League of Nations

and certified copies shall be forwarded by the

Secretary-General of the League of Nations to

all Members of the League .

Done at London the twenty-fourth day of

July, one thousand nine hundred and twentytwo.

Certified true copy :

SECRETARY-GENERAL.

APPENDIX IV

A DEFENSE OF THE MANDATE

Speech delivered by the Earl of Balfour, as the

Lord President of the Council, on June 21,

1922, in the House of Lords on a Motion introduced

by Lord Islington, proposing that Great

Britain should not accept the mandate for Palestine.

MY Lows,-I am sorry that I was not present

at the opening remarks of my noble friend who

has just sat down . I was unavoidably detained by

circumstances which your Lordships will easily

conjecture, and I could not be in my place when

my noble friend rose . I understand that he began

his speech with some very kindly remarks

about myself. I wish I had heard them, and I

have no doubt that they would have given me at

least as much pleasure as any other part of the

powerful speech which he has just delivered ; but

he will take my thanks, although I was not actually

an auditor of what he said . I do not think

that I have lost any essential points of my noble

200

APPENDIX IV

201

friend's case . As I understood him, he thinks, in

the first place, that the Mandate for Palestine is

inconsistent with the policy of the Powers who

invented the mandatory system, who have contrived

the mandatory system, and who are now

carrying it into effect. That is his first charge . His

second charge is that we are inflicting considerable

material and political injustice upon the

Arab population of Palestine. His third charge is

that we have done a great injustice to the Arab

race as a whole .

I should like to traverse all those statements .

Let me take them in the order in which I have

named them. I think it must have occurred to

my noble friend, when he was giving us an account

of the transactions during the war and up

to the end of the negotiation of the Treaty of

Versailles, that it was rather paradoxical to maintain

that the people who invented the mandatory

system did not know what it meant . The

mandatory system always contemplated the Mandate

for Palestine on the general lines of the Declaration

of November, 11917. It was not sprung

upon the League of Nations, and, before the

League of Nations came into existence, it was

not sprung upon the Powers that met together

in Paris to deal with the peace negotiations . It

was a settled policy among the Allied and Asso202

THE GREAT BETRAYAL

ciated Powers before ever the Armistice came

into existence . It was accepted in America, it was

accepted in this country, it was published all

over the world, and, if ever there was a Declaration

which had behind it a general consensus of

opinion, I believe it was the Declaration of November,

1917.

Your Lordships may, perhaps, have in mind

that President Wilson, whose declarations were

so intimately connected with the whole policy of

the Mandates, was most strongly in favour of

the policy embodied in the existing Mandate, that

it was pressed upon him by the population of the

United States, that it was fully accepted by him,

and that he came to Paris to carry out, so far as

the government were concerned, the very principles

embodied in these Mandates . As for this

country, I happened to be the mouthpiece of my

colleagues in making the Declaration of November,

1917. I do not know why we have waited

-I do not know why your Lordships' House has

waited-until 1922 to attack a policy which was

initiated in 1917 or before, which was plainly

before the world and was dealt with in detail in

1919 in Paris, and is now being carried out by the

Allied and Associated Powers and by the League

of Nations.

The League of Nations, I may incidentally

APPENDIX IV

203

say, has asked His Majesty's Government to

continue to carry out the policy of the Mandates.

As your Lordships are aware the Mandates

are not yet part, so to speak, of the law of

nations. The fact that we have not yet concluded,

most unhappily as I think, peace in Eastern

Europe and in Western Asia, has prevented

these Mandates passing through all the stages

which will ultimately be required of them, but

we are carrying out the policy of the Mandates .

It is known to the Council of the League of Nations

that we are carrying out that policy, and

it is with their assent and approval that we are

continuing to do so. Only recently, I believe, the

whole question came up before the Senate of the

United States. They had before them, if I am

rightly informed, witnesses competent to give

evidence upon every aspect of the case, and they

came to the unanimous conclusion that the policy

of a Jewish Home was a policy for the benefit of

the world, and they certainly, by the very terms

of the Resolution at which they arrived, were

not oblivious of the interests of the native Arab

population .

Therefore, when my noble friend tries to

maintain the paradox that the Powers who

adopted the mandatory system, the Powers who

laid down the lines on which that system was to

204 THE GREAT BETRAYAL

be carried out and have embodied it in the

League of Nations, and have set going Governments

in different parts of the world, who are

at this moment carrying out the mandatory system,

are so ignorant that they do not know their

own child, and are violating all their principles

when they establish the policy of a Jewish Home

in Palestine, I think my noble friend is not only

somewhat belated in his criticism, but is asking

us to accept a proposition which, as men of common

sense, we should certainly repudiate . I will

therefore leave what I may call the legal or juridical

aspect of the criticism of my noble friend,

which I think he will admit is essentially paradoxical,

and will come to his more particular

charges.

Those particular charges were, in the first

place, as I understood him, that it was impossible

to establish a Jewish Home in Palestine without

giving to the Jewish organisations political

powers over the Arab races with which they

should not be entrusted, and which, even if they

exercised them well, were not powers that should

be given under a British Mandate to one race

over another. But I think my noble friend gave

no evidence of the truth of these charges . He

told us that it was quite obvious that some kind

of Jewish domination over the Arabs was an esAPPENDIX

IV

205

sential consequence of the attempt to establish a

Jewish Home . It is no necessary consequence,

and it is surely a very poor compliment to the

British Government, to a Governor of Palestine

appointed by the British Government, to the

Mandates Commission under the League of Nations,

whose business it will be to see that the

spirit of the Mandate as well as the letter is carried

out, and beyond them to the Council of the

League of Nations, to suppose that all these

bodies will so violate every pledge that they have

ever given, and every principle to which they

have ever subscribed, as to use the power given

to them by the Peace Treaty to enable one section

of the community in Palestine to oppress

and dominate any other .

I cannot imagine any political interests exercised

under greater safeguards than the political

interests of the Arab population of Palestine .

Every act of the Government will be jealously

watched. The Zionist organisation has no attribution

of political powers . If it uses or usurps

political powers it is an act of usurpation. Is that

conceivable or possible under the lynx eyes of

critics like my noble friend, or of the Mandates

Commission, whose business it will be to see that

the Mandate is carried out, or of a British Governor-

General nourished and brought up under

206 THE GREAT BETRAYAL

the traditions of British equality and British good

government, and, finally, behind al those safeguards,

with the safeguard of free Parliamentary

criticism in this House and in the other House?

These are fantastic fears . They are fears that

need perturb no sober and impartial critic of

contemporary events, and whatever else may

happen in Palestine, of this I am very confident,

that under British Government no form of

tyranny, racial or religious, will ever be permitted.

Now, I go from that broad charge of putting

the Arab population under the domination of

the Zionist organisation, and I come to the more

detailed attacks made by my noble friend. He

criticised the whole system of immigration . I do

not know why he did that. No human being

supposes that Palestine is an over-populated

country. It is, I believe, an under-populated

country at the moment at which I speak, before

all the economic developments to which I look

forward have had time to take place ; and if =the

hopes that I entertain are not widely disappointed,

the power of Palestine to maintain a

population far greater than she had or could ever

have under Turkish rule will be easily attained in

consequence of the material well-being which

under Turkish rule were wholly impossible . The

4

APPENDIX IV

207

whole policy of immigration is subject to the

most careful study, and the character and qualifications

of the immigrants are subject to the

most rigid scrutiny under the control of the Government,

and, so far as my information goes, no

single immigrant has been a charge upon any

public fund since he entered the boundaries controlled

by the British Administration .

The hopes that I have just expressed with regard

to the growth of population in Palestine,

with regard to the numbers it could support, of

course are based, and necessarily based, upon the

amount of capital expenditure you can give to

that country, upon the character of the population

who are going to make use of the machinery

provided by that capital expenditure, and upon

the character of the Government under which

all these operations will be carried out. Now, I

ask my noble friend, who takes up the cause of

the Arabs, and who seems to think that their

material well-being is going to be diminished

under the new system, how he thinks that the

existing population of Palestine, of whom he has

-very rightly from his point of view--constituted

himself the advocate in this House, is going

to be effective unless and until you get capitalists

to invest their money in developing the resources

of this small country-small in area, though

208 THE GREAT BETRAYAL

great in memories-which, according to all the

information we possess, might carry a population

far bigger-I will not venture to give figures,

but far bigger-than that which it now

supports. But it can only do so, I believe, if you

can draw upon the enthusiasm of the Jewish

communities throughout the world . As soon as

all this Mandate question is finally settled, as

soon as all the existing legal difficulties have

been got over, they will, I believe, come forward

and freely help in the development of a

Jewish Home.

That is not going to be a great speculative investment

; that is not going to bring millions

into the pockets of international finance ; that

is not going to prove wildly exciting upon the

Stock Exchange of London or New York ; that

is going to be carried out as much, indeed far

more, in order to carry out these great ideal designs-

idealist, if you prefer that name-than

to earn dividends or to make fortunes . My

noble friend almost gave your Lordships to

understand that investors were clamouring for

opportunities which had been improperly-I do

not think he suggested corruptly, but improperly-

given to Jews. He is under a great delusion .

I am not going in detail into the Rutenberg controversy.

I am given to understand that it would

APPENDIX IV

209

be debated in another place at length at a very

early date .

But I can tell my noble friend that this whole

scheme was examined in the most critical spirit

by the experts of the Colonial Office, and that

they were quite unanimous that the terms, which

anybody can get for himself, and the character

of the undertaking were such that you could

with no prospect of success hope for any better

contract being made than that which was offered

by Mr. Rutenberg . I have not myself personally,

I need hardly say, investigated these financial

problems, but I know they have been examined

by persons who are not only wholly disinterested,

and wholly impartial, but who are also extremely

competent ; and I think your Lordships may take

it quite safely from me, not only that in the

Rutenberg scheme was there nothing in the nature

of undue favouritism, but that if the scheme

can be carried, as I hope it will be carried, into

effect, it will give economic advantages to Palestine

which could be obtained in no other manner .

I was rather surprised at the whole tenor of

my noble friend's criticism of the Rutenberg

scheme, but nothing surprised me more than one

particular charge he made against it. He said :

"This is going to put the native population under

the control of that part of the Jewish community

210 THE GREAT BETRAYAL

who are interested in the Rutenberg scheme."

What does that charge of my noble friend mean?

It means, and it can only mean, one of two

things, so far as I can see: either that the general

wealth of Palestine is going to be used illegitimately

to support a project which in itself is of

no economic value, or of inadequate economic

value-and if that is the charge it wholly disposes

of the view that Mr . Rutenberg is favoured

among all mortals in having been given the possibility

of finding money for this most unprofitable

project-or it may mean that when these

great water and electric power works are constructed

they will be used to help the Jews, and

they will be refused when they are demanded by

the Arabs .

The first charge is that there is favouritism in

giving the contract ; the second that when the

contract is accomplished and the works are finished

there will be favouritism in their employment

as between different sections of the population

. I can hardly believe that my noble friend

seriously thinks that that possibility can occur.

Palestine is no vast area in which there are remote

places where abuses may exist which even

the most vigilant Government is incapable of examining.

It is small in extent, it is under the eyes

of the Government officials from end to end,

APPENDIX IV

2II

from east to west, from north to south, from

Dan to Beersheba ; and the notion that this great

scheme, sanctioned by the Government, is going

to be used as a method of oppression by those

who have found the money against those for

whom the money is to be used, seems to me one

of the most fantastic accusations ever made

here or elsewhere .

I would like to ask my noble friend, therefore,

whether even from the most material

point of view it is not in the interests of the

Arab population itself to encourage this great

project of the Jewish Home . My noble friend

committed himself to the statement that Jews

and Arabs up to the present time had enjoyed

the same privileges . So they have-the privilege

of being under Turkish rule . That privilege was

impartially extended to every section of the

population, and with the result which has not

uncommonly followed the exercise of the same

privileges, or the enjoyment of the same privileges,

in other parts of the world . That state of

things has happily come to an end . But if the

populations who were trampled under the heel

of the Turk until the end of the war are really

to gain all the benefits that they might, it can

only be by the introduction of the most modern

methods, fed by streams of capital from all parts

212 THE GREAT BETRAYAL

of the world, and that can only be provided, so

far as I can see, by carrying out this great scheme

which the vast majority of the Jews-not all, I

quite agree, and very often, perhaps commonly,

not the wealthiest-the great mass of the Jews

in east and west and north and south believe to

be a great step forward in the alleviation of the

lot which their race has had too long to bear . I do

not think I need dwell upon this imaginary

wrong which the Jewish Home is going to inflict

upon the local Arabs.

But that is not the only charge which my

noble friend made. He told us also that we were

doing a great injustice to the Arab race as a

whole, and that our policy was in contradiction

of pledges given by General MacMahon and the

Anglo-French Declarations conveyed to the native

populations by General Allenby . Of all the

charges made against this country I must say

that the charge that we have been unjust to the

Arab race seems to me the strangest . It is through

the expenditure largely of British blood, by the

exercise of British skill and valour, by the conduct

of British generals, by troops brought from

all parts of the British Empire-it is by them in

the main that the freeing of the Arab race from

Turkish rule has been effected . And that we,

after all the events of the war, should be held up

APPENDIX IV

213

as those who have done an injustice, that we, who

have just established a king in Mesopotamia, who

had before that established an Arab king in the

Hedjaz, and who have done more than has been

done for centuries past to put the Arab race in

the position to which they have attained-that

we should be charged with being their enemies,

with having taken a mean advantage of the

course of international negotiations, seems to me

not only most unjust to the policy of this country,

but almost fantastic in its extravagance .

I think I have traversed the main lines of my

noble friend's attack . Those who listened to it

must have been surprised, I think, at one omission

from it. I am prepared to maintain that the

policy of His Majesty's Government in Palestine,

and the policy not merely of His Majesty's Government

but of the Allied and Associated Powers

in Palestine is and will be most helpful to the

Arab population. I see no reason why those who

lived, according to my noble friend himself, in

amity under Turkish rule should insist on quarrelling

under British rule. I hold that from a

purely material point of view the policy that we

have initiated is likely to prove a successful

policy. But we have never pretended, certainly I

have never pretended, that it was purely from

these materialistic considerations that the Dec214

THE GREAT BETRAYAL

laration of November, 1917, originally sprung.

I regard this not as a solution, but as a partial

solution of the great and abiding Jewish problem .

My noble friend told us in his speech,' and I

believe him absolutely, that he has no prejudice

against the Jews . I think I may say that I have no

prejudice in their favour . But their position and

their history, their connection with world religion

and with world politics, is absolutely

unique. There is no parallel to it, there is nothing

approaching to a parallel to it, in any other

branch of human history . Here you have a small

race originally inhabiting a small country, I think

of about the size of Wales or Belgium, at any

rate of comparable size to those two, at no time

in its history wielding anything that can be described

as material power, sometimes crushed in

between great Oriental monarchies, its inhabitants

deported, then scattered, then driven out

of the country altogether into every part of the

world, and yet maintaining a continuity of religious

and racial tradition of which we have no

parallel elsewhere.

That, itself, is sufficiently remarkable, but consider-

it is not a present consideration, but it is

one that we cannot forget-how they have been

treated during long centuries, during centuries

which in some parts of the world extend to the

APPENDIX IV

215

minute and the hour in which I am speaking ;

consider how they have been subjected to tyranny

and persecution ; consider whether the whole culture

of Europe, the whole religious organisation of

Europe, has not from time to time proved itself

guilty of great crimes against this race . I quite

understand that some members of the race may

have given, doubtless did give, occasion for much

ill-will, and I do not know how it could be otherwise,

treated as they were ; but, if you are going

to lay stress on that, do not forget what part

they have played in the intellectual, the artistic,

the philosophic and scientific development of the

world. I say nothing of the economic side of their

energies, for on that Christian attention has always

been concentrated .

I ask your Lordships to consider the other side

of their activities . Nobody who knows what he is

talking about will deny that they have at leastand

I am putting it more moderately than I could

do-rowed all their weight in the boat of scientific,

intellectual and artistic progress, and they

are doing so to this day . You will find them in

every University, in every centre of learning ;

and at the very moment when they were being

persecuted, when some of them, at all events,

were being persecuted by the Church, their philosophers

were developing thoughts which the

216 THE GREAT BETRAYAL

great doctors of the Church embodied in their

religious system . As it was in the Middle Ages,

as it was in earlier times, so it is now . And yet, is

there anyone here who feels content with the

position of the Jews? They have been able, by this

extraordinary tenacity of their race, to maintain

this continuity, and they have maintained it

without having any Jewish home .

What has been the result? The result has been

that they have been described as parasites on

every civilisation in whose affairs they have

mixed themselves-very useful parasites at times

I venture to say. But however that may be, do

not your Lordships think that if Christendom,

not oblivious of all the wrong it has done, can

give a chance, without injury to others, to this

race of showing whether it can organise a culture

in a Home where it will be secured from oppression

that it is not well to say, if we can do it, that

we will do it. And, if we can do it, should we not

be doing something material to wash out an ancient

stain upon our own civilisation if we absorb

the Jewish race in friendly and effective fashion

in those countries in which they are the citizens?

We should then have given them what every

other nation has, some place, some local habitation,

where they can develop the culture and the

traditions which are peculiarly their own.

APPENDIX IV

217

I therefore frankly admit that I have been, in

so far as I have had anything to do with this

policy, moved by considerations not one of which

was touched upon by my noble friend in the

course of his speech. I could defend-I have endeavoured,

and I hope not unsuccessfully, to defend-

this scheme of the Palestine Mandate from

the most material economic view, and from that

point of view it is capable of defence . I have endeavoured

to defend it from the point of view of

the existing population, and I have shown-I

hope with some effect-that their prosperity also

is intimately bound up with the success of Zionism.

But having endeavoured to the best of my

ability to maintain those two propositions, I

should, indeed, give an inadequate view to your

Lordships of my opinions if I sat down without

insisting to the utmost of my ability that, beyond

and above all this, there is this great ideal

at which those who think with me are aiming,

and which, I believe, it is within their power to

reach. It may fail.

I do not deny that this is an adventure . Are we

never to have adventures? Are we never to try

new experiments? I hope your Lordships will

never sink to that unimaginative depth, and that

experiment and adventure will be justified if

there is any case or cause for their justification .

218 THE GREAT BETRAYAL

Surely, it is in order that we may send a message

to every land where the Jewish race has been

scattered, a message which will tell them that

Christendom is not oblivious of their faith, is not

unmindful of the service they have rendered to

the great religions of the world, and, most of all,

to the religion that the majority of your Lordships'

House profess, and that we desire to the

best of our ability to give them that opportunity

of developing, in peace and quietness under British

rule, those great gifts which hitherto they

have been compelled from the very nature of

the case only to bring to fruition in countries

which know not their language and belong not

to their race? That is the ideal which I desire to

see accomplished, that is the aim which lay at the

root of the policy I am trying to defend ; and,

though it be defensible indeed on every ground,

that is the ground which chiefly moves me .

APPENDIX V

BALFOUR'S PROTEST

The Joint Statement of Three British war

Cabinet Statesmen

JOINT statement by the Earl of Balfour, David

Lloyd George and General Jan Christian Smuts,

three members of the British war cabinet responsible

for the Balfour Declaration, published in

the London Times on December 20, 1929 .

"As members of the war cabinet which was

responsible for the Balfour Declaration twelve

years ago and for the policy of a national home

for the Jewish people which it foreshadowed, we

view with deep anxiety the present situation in

Palestine . On the events of last August which

are now the subject of an inquiry by a special

Commission we forbear comment. But it seems

clear that, whatever the finding of the Commission

may be on the responsibility for the August

outbreak, the work to which Britain set her hand

at the close of the war is not proceeding satisfactorily.

"The Balfour Declaration pledged us to a pol-

219

220 THE GREAT BETRAYAL

icy ; the Palestine Mandate entrusted us with

vital administrative duties ; but causes which are

still obscure have impeded the task of administration

and consequently the full carrying out

of the policy .

"In these circumstances we would urge on the

Government the appointment of an authoritative

commission to investigate the whole working

of the Mandate. The Commission at present

in Palestine was appointed with limited terms of

reference to inquire into specific matters . This

Commission, in our view, must, as soon as it has

reported, be supplemented by a searching inquiry

into major questions of policy and administration

. Our pledge is unequivocal, but in

order to fulfill it in letter and spirit a considerable

readjustment of the administrative machine

may be desirable.

"Such a commission would be an advertisement

to the world that Britain has not weakened

in a task to which her honor is pledged and

at the same time an assurance to Jews and Arabs

alike that any proven defects in the present system

of government will bbe made good."

APPENDIX VI

THE HOME LAND CLAIM

Statement made by M. Van Rees, Vice-Chairman

of the Permanent Mandates Commission, in

Geneva, June 5, 1930

M. VAN REES thought it useless to draw conclusions

from this, since they were obvious .

M. Van Rees, continuing, wished to examine

the complaints of the Jews . No chapter of the

Commission of Enquiry's report was devoted to

the legal side of the position of the Jews in Palestine.

Only a passing reference was made to that

situation, and there was no effort to explain the

grounds on which the Jews inhabited Palestine

nor up to what point their demands must be regarded

as legitimate.

Since any serious examination of the rights of

the Jews to live and carry on their activity in

Palestine was not to be found in the report, it

was difficult not to draw the conclusion that this

point of capital importance had not received in

the report the attention which it deserved.

:4:

22I

222 THE GREAT BETRAYAL

The Commission did not state that the Balfour

Declaration was the basis of the presence

of the Jews in Palestine and of their activities .

The Commission of Enquiry did not explain its

views on the close connection between that Declaration

and certain provisions in the Palestine

mandate. It had confined itself to quoting them,

but had refrained from giving any interpretation.

It had ended by recommending the British

Government to explain more explicitly than had

been the case in 1922 its policy with regard to

the Jews . The most striking fact was that, although

the report referred in many places to the

official statements contained in the White Paper

of June, 1922, the Commission seemed to have

attached no importance to the basis of those

statements which it did not even quote . Yet that

basis was that "the Jewish people will be in Palestine

as of right and not on sufferance" (see White

Paper, page 30) .

Nevertheless, it was this statement of Mr .

Churchill's which, by explaining the legal reasons

for the establishment of the Jews in the

country, furnished the key to that which was

not clear in the report of the Commission.

The Balfour Declaration of November 2nd,

1917, as recorded in the Preamble and developed

APPENDIX VI

223

in Articles 2, 4, 6, 7 and i i of the Palestine Mandate,

had a very definite meaning .

It was not, as several persons had seen fit to

interpret it, a mere gracious gesture, a mere public

manifestation of indulgent pity toward the

Jewish people. It would be altogether too naive

to believe that this had been the only feeling inspiring

Great Britain in her Declaration of November

2rid, 11917. It would be also equally naive

to believe that that declaration had been approved

by all the Great Powers merely in order

to please Great Britain or in order to show their

sympathy for the Jews .

Interpreted in its own words and with the aid

of the text of the mandate based upon it, the

Balfour Declaration would be seen to be an act

based on purely political considerations and designed

to secure an eminently practical object .

That object had certainly not been the oppression

of a people established in the country by

another people, as the adversaries of the Declaration

wished it to be believed, despite the reservations

contained in the Declaration . On the

contrary, its object was the resurrection of the

people established in Palestine . Its object was to

arouse them from their centuries-old lethargy

and to secure the social and economic development

of the country, not by the efforts of the

224 THE GREAT BETRAYAL

Administration alone, but by the active co-operation

of a more energetic and more highly developed

people . In short, the real object of the

Balfour Declaration had been the establishment,

by the co-activity of the Government and of

the Jewish people, of a social and economic order

corresponding to the principles and requirements

of European civilisation, while at the same time

respecting the rights and interests of the existing

inhabitants .

It had been that reason, which, disregarding

the other considerations relating to the primary

interests of the Empire, had induced the Government

to agree, in order to fulfil the mission

which it had felt sure would be given to it at

the end of the war, to allow the Jewish people

to participate, not in the powers of administration

of Palestine, but in the practical execution

of that mission.

This conception appeared to be fully justified

by the facts. It explained the reason why Mr .

Churchill, as M. Van Rees had already pointed

out, had been able to state that the Jewish people

would be in Palestine "as of right" ; or in other

words, that that people would not enter the

country as foreigners, but would belong to the

Palestinian nation to be subsequently created . It

would further explain why Article 4 of the ManAPPENDIX

VI

225

date officially recognised the Jewish organisation

as the organisation representing the Jewish people

and chosen to co-operate with the Government.

It further explained why Articles 6 and

7 referred to the special privileges enjoyed by

Jews in respect of immigration, the acquisition

of Palestinian nationality and their establishment

on empty land, subject to reservations regarding

the rights and interests of other persons . Finally,

it explained why Article i i, of which the meaning

was just as significant, expressly enjoined the

participation of the Jews in the execution or exploitation

of public works and services as well as

in the development of the natural resources of

the country.

All these provisions were closely interconnected.

They formed a single whole and clearly

expressed the fundamental idea that to the work

of civilisation to be carried out in Palestine the

Jewish element would contribute its moral and

above all its material support, not in virtue of

holding any kind of concession of an economic

nature, but in virtue of its right to collaborate

with the Administration . In this the Jewish activity

formed an integral part of the economic

evolution of Palestine, of which the mandate

had been entrusted to the Mandatory Power and

226 THE GREAT BETRAYAL

'which was the primary condition of the political

development of the country.

M. Van Rees thought it regrettable that this

point had not been seriously considered by the

Commission of Enquiry. It was even more regrettable

that the special situation granted by the

mandate to the Jewish element in Palestine appeared

to have escaped the notice of the Administration

itself to such a degree that the three

statesmen whose names were specially connected

with the Declaration of November 2nd, 1917-

Lord Balf our, Mr. Lloyd George and Mr. Smuts

-had been led to state publicly that causes

"which are still obscure have impeded the task

of administration and consequently the full carrying

out of the policy" (letter published by

The Times, December zoth, 1929) .

It must be recognised that this was the, main

substance of the Jewish complaints . All the information

which the Commission possessed regarding

the manner in which the Mandate had

been applied showed that the three statesmen

whom he had just quoted had not been mistaken .

On the contrary, the fact was that, generally

speaking, the clauses of the Mandate concerning

the Jews had not, in practice, received that application

which their authors might have expected

; not, in the first place, owing to the volAPPENDIX

VI

227

untary opposition of the Administration, but in

consequence, M. Van Rees thought, at any rate

in part, of the misunderstanding of the special

situation which the international obligations assumed

by Great Britain had granted to Jewish

people in Palestine.

At this stage, M . Van Rees would enquire

whether the British Government substantially

adopted the statement of the Shaw Commission

to the effect that no premeditation and no organised

revolt had occurred, for this point was

not clearly stated in the British Government's

memorandum.

Dr. Drummond Shiels replied in the affirmative.

The views of the British Government on this

point were contained in that document .

M. Van Rees said that in that case he wished

to explain his views on that part of the conclusions

of the Commission of Enquiry .

As far as the question of premeditation was

concerned, the Commission of Enquiry justified

its conclusions by observing (paragraph 2 of its

conclusions, page z58) that the disorders had

not occurred simultaneously in all parts of Palestine.

'What did this argument mean? Was it

necessary that a rebellion should simultaneously

spread to all the parts of a territory before it

could be concluded that it was premeditated?

228 THE GREAT BETRAYAL

The second argument on which the Commission

based its views did not appear more conclusive.

The day before the outbreak of the disorder

(see the report page 8o), the representatives

of Jews and Arabs had met in conference

to discuss the interests of Palestine . The exchange

of views had taken place "in a friendly

spirit." This was a fact to which the Commission

appeared to attach great importance, and it was

all the more surprising in that everyone knew

that Orientals, and among them the Arabs, in

particular, were some of the best diplomatists

in the world, and that they were very careful

not to show their real thoughts by adopting a

revealing attitude .

He felt it difficult, therefore, to understand

why the Commission of Enquiry had concluded

that there had been no premeditation and no organisation

in preparing for the disturbances, despite

a number of its observations to which he

thought it useful to draw attention .

"That the first of these motives is proved

there can be no question ; neither the Arab

Executive nor the Mufti has at any time endeavoured

to conceal the fact that the policy

which, since 1918, successive Governments of

His Majesty have followed in Palestine is reAPPENDIX

VI

229

garded by them as being detrimental to the

interests of those whom they represent . Their

opposition to that policy has been unwavering.

The Arab Executive, from its institution,

has opposed the policy and declined to accept

the White Paper of 1922 (Cmd. 1700) ; there

is no evidence that it has ever departed from

the attitude which it then adopted. The Mufti,

as a private person before his election to his

present office, gave such expression to his feeling

in the matter of policy in Palestine that

he was implicated in the disturbances of

1920." (Page 71)

"The movement which he in part created

became, through the force of circumstances,

a not unimportant factor in the events which

led to the outbreak of August last, and to that

extent he, like many others who directly or

indirectly played upon public feeling in Palestine,

must accept a share in the responsibility

for the disturbances." (Page 75)

"That in many districts there was incitement

and that in some cases those who incited

were members of the Moslem hierarchy are

facts which have been established to the satisfaction

of Courts in Palestine ; equally, it cannot

be questioned that agitators were touring

the country in the third week of August last

230 THE GREAT BETRAYAL

and were summoning the people of certain

districts to Jerusalem." (Page 75)

"Opposition to the Balfour Declaration is

an important element in the policy of the

Palestine Arab Executive and, as we have already

stated, it is our opinion that their feelings

on this political issue might have provided

a sufficient motive to have caused them to incite

or to organise disturbance ." (Page 78)

"We also accept the evidence that there was

a marked increase in Arab activity after August

5th, and as we have already stated, it

cannot be doubted that, during the third week

of August, agitators were touring the country."

(Page 79)

"His (Sulehi Bey al Khadra, member of the

Arab Executive) general demeanour before us

was such that we believe that he would welcome

any opportunity of furthering what he

regards as the just cause of Arab nationalism

in Palestine ." (Page 8o)

M. Van Rees wondered how the conclusions

that there had been neither premeditation nor

organisation could be reconciled with the reservations

and statements made by the Commission

on pages 15 8, 159 and 164 in paragraphs 6, 11,

12, 1 3 and 45 (c) .

APPENDIX VI

231

In its constant preoccupation only to accept

legal and formal proofs, the Commission had

reached a negative conclusion as soon as these

legal principles appeared to it to be inconclusive.

It seemed to have ignored the fact that, in

an Eastern country where feudal conditions of

life still existed, effective proof against the traditional

religious and other leaders of the people

would very rarely be found . The Commission

appeared not to have realised that, in those circumstances,

a passive attitude on the part of the

leaders was generally as significant in the case

of a population worked up by agitation and excited

by an appeal to their religious feelings as

active participation in the subsequent rising .

In his reference to the Commission of Enquiry,

M. Van Rees had spoken only of the majority.

The minority consisted of a single member,

Mr. Snell. In his report, that gentleman had

adopted a far more logical attitude than that

adopted by the majority. On page 172 he said

that the causes of the disturbances of August

"were due to fears and antipathies which, I am

convinced, the Moslem and Arab leaders awakened

and fostered for political needs ." With reference

to the Mufti, Mr . Snell said on the same

page:

232 THE GREAT BETRAYAL

"I have not the least doubt that he was

aware of the nature of that campaign and

that he realised the danger of disturbances

which is never absent when religious propaganda

of an exciting character is spread among

a Moslem people. I therefore attribute to the

Mufti a greater share in the responsibility for

the disturbance than is attributed to him in

the report. I am of opinion that the Mufti

must bear the blame for his failure to make

any effort to control the character of an agitation

conducted in the name of a religion of

which, in Palestine, he was the head ."

Mr. Snell went on to state :

"If the campaign of political agitation had

for its objective the removal of grievances and

the securing of safeguards for the future, the

methods of propaganda adopted by the Arab

leaders were, in my opinion, ill-chosen and

futile ; if, on the other hand, the campaign

was designed to arouse Arab and Moslem passion,

those who participated in it, knowing

full well the results of like agitation in the

past, cannot have been unaware of the possibility

that serious disturbance would follow .

Though I agree, that the Arab Executive is

not of necessity responsible as a body for the

APPENDIX VI 233

words or acts of its followers or even its individual

members, I find it difficult to believe

that the actions of individual members of the

Executive were unknown to that body, or indeed,

that those individuals were acting in a

purely personal capacity ."

Mr. Snell next pointed out: (page 173)

"Finally, in regard to the campaign of incitement,

I am unable to agree that the conclusions

in the report acquitting the Moslem

religious authorities of all but the slightest

blame for the innovations introduced in the

neighbourhood of the Wailing Wall . . . . It

is my view that many innovations which followed

thereafter, such as the construction of

the zawiyah, the calling to prayer by the

muezzin and the opening of the new doorway,

were dictated less by the needs of the

Moslem religion and the rights of property

than by the studied desire to provoke and

wound the religious susceptibilities of the Jewish

people."

Mr. Snell finally repeated, on page 18o, that

the feeling of hostility and animosity on the part

of the Arabs towards the Jews

" . . . . was rather the result of a campaign

234 THE GREAT BETRAYAL

of propaganda and incitement than the natural

consequence of economic factors ."

After a close study of all the elements of the

problem to which M. Van Rees had devoted considerable

time, he had not the least doubt that

the responsibility for what had happened must

lie with the religious and political leaders of the

Arabs. This profound conviction had caused M.

Van Rees to associate himself entirely with the

remarkably well expressed account of the matter

that had appeared in an article written by M .

William Martin, published in the Nouvelle Revue

Juive for the month of April, 1930 (page 22) .

The only result of that proclamation on the

Arabs had been that they had maintained that

the Jews were alone responsible for the sanguinary

disorders, as could be seen from page 68 of

the report of the Commission of Enquiry. In

making such an inconceivably foolish statement,

they did not realise that they were showing exactly

the same mentality as that displayed in

British India at the present time . Since Gandhi

had openly declared civil disobedience, disorders

had occurred which he pretended not to have

desired but which must inevitably have occurred .

Nevertheless, it was still true that, in the eyes

of his partisans and in his own eyes, the British

APPENDIX VI

2 35

Government must be held responsible for the

victims of the madness which he had let loose .

It was true, that in British India there were no

Jews to whom the responsibility for what had

happened could be attributed.

It was very difficult to believe that, in spite of

its own doubts, to which M. Van Rees had just

referred and despite the delicate manner in which

those doubts had been expressed, the Commission

had been able to conclude that there had

been no premeditation or organisation of the

disturbances on the part of the Arab leaders . It

was even more surprising that the Commission

should have extended this conclusion to cover

the Head of the Supreme Moslem Council, the

Grand Mufti Haj Amin El Husseini, referred

to in several quarters as one of the principal organisers

of these disturbances.

On page 71 of its report, the Commission

stated that the Mufti had been implicated in the

troubles which had occurred in the month of

April i 920. The accused had been condemned in

his absence by the Military Court to a very severe

term of imprisonment .

The Commission also quoted a letter dated

August 22nd, 1929, on page 75 of its report inciting

the Arabs in unequivocable terms to take

part in the attacks on the Jews which were to

236 THE GREAT BETRAYAL

begin on the following day. The Commission

observed in this connection (page 76) that this

incitement to attack the Jews had been wrongly

attributed to the Mufti. It had confined itself,

however, to that declaration and had refrained

from stating whether the origin of the letter

quoted had been made the object of serious enquiry.

On the other hand, the Commission noted on

page 77 that the Mufti had not scrupled to bear

false witness. The Commission, however, had

drawn no conclusion from this.

Account should also be taken to two facts

which M. Van Fees thought particularly significant

.

According to a secret letter from the Chief

of Police at Jerusalem dated August 23rd, 1929,

a facsimile of which had been forwarded to the

Permanent Mandates Commission, a black list

had been drawn up as a result of a conference

of police officials held on July 2nd, that was to

say, a little before the outbreak of the disturbance.

The first name on that list was that of

Haj Amin El Husseini, the Grand Mufti.

In the British Parliament, the attention of the

Government had been drawn to the fact that

the Mufti had, on April 17th, 1930 sent a letter

to his colleague Sheikh Mustapha Ghalaini, PresiAPPENDIX

VI

237

dent of the Moslem Council at Beirut, urging

him to incite the Arabs in Syria to rebel against

the French authorities .

M. Van Rees considered that these facts, taken

in conjunction with his previous statements,

were not without importance for anyone whq

wished to arrive at the unvarnished truth .

APPENDIX VII

THE PASSFIELD WHITE PAPER

PALESTINE

Statement o f Policy by His Majesty's Government

in the United Kingdom

I . The Report of the Special Commission,

under the Chairmanship of Sir Walter Shaw,

which was published in April, gave rise to acute

controversy, in the course of which it became

evident that there is considerable misunderstanding

about the past actions and future intentions

of His Majesty's Government in the

United Kingdom in regard to the administration

of Palestine. It was realised that the publication

of a clear and full statement of policy, designed

to remove such misunderstanding and the resultant

uncertainty and apprehension, was a matter

of urgent importance . The preparation of such a

statement, however, necessitated certain essential

preliminary steps which have inevitably delayed

its completion.

The Report of the Shaw Commission drew

238