THE QUE iTION OF PALESTINE.
[To the Editor of the SPECTATOR.] Sin,—It is a pity that Mr. Israel Cohen should continue to make statements which do not accord with the facts, and should again display his inability to recognize the inherent rights of the Palestinians in their own homeland. Of course the cost of the civil administration is " defrayed entirely out of the local revenue," and it is the military expenditure which is thrown upon the British taxpayers. But Mr. Cohen informs your readers that " all that has been done, and is being done in Palestine in connexion with the promotion of the Jewish settlement is being paid by the Jews themselves." The cost of collecting Jews from various places, now including Fez, is doubtless so borne ; but it is must surely be obvious tha you cannot forcibly deposit some 23,000 aliens in a little country the size of Wales without involving direct and indirect charges upon its taxpayers. It was stated some time ago by Dr. Nordau that the influx of Jews might eventually reach eight or nine millions, and that half a million would be settled within a few years ! As many of these immigrants are non-pro- ducers and most of them impecunious, while some have proved to be Bolsheviks who in May, 1921, could proclaim " Long live the free women of the Communist Society," the charges falling upon the Arab cultivators must grow by leaps and bounds. The heavy increase of taxation, of which the Palestinians justly complain, is only a foretaste of what they may expect, and it is plainly impossible that Zionist contributions, even when swelled by the collection recently made by a Labour leader in America, can provide for all the expenditure entailed upon the administration by enforced Zionism.
The Turks governed the country with very little expense, and life and property were more secure in their time than in ours. What is now the total cost of the various internal security forcei, and how much of it is due to Zionism ? The military estimates which Mr. Cohen quotes from Mr. Churchill are unlikely to prove adequate, and may at any time be largely inflated ; but what the British people object to is the unprecedented use of the troops of the Crown to force aliens upon a people who received us with unsuspecting trustfulness.
Mr. Cohen says that the Balfour Declaration " is being faithfully observed " ; but, as I pointed out in the House of Lords, it is, in fact, being flagrantly violated. The Palestinians were promised that their " civil rights " would not be prejudiced. Force is being used to deprive them of , an elementary right, while the reassuring proclamation of General Allenby, posted in every town and village by order of the Coalition Government, has been torn to pieces. Mr. Cohen repeats the assertion that " The administration of Palestine is a British administration," and gives figures which are misleading. The Government is an autocracy in the hands of an " ardent Zionist," while posts of special importance to the lives of the people are held by Jews. Sir W. Joynson-Hicks gave a list, which was not complete, in the House of Commons, and British officers who showed sympathy with the Palestinians have been successively eliminated.
The Zionists, as many eminent Jews arc aware, have made a grave mistake, and the present situation, as you, Sir, have pointed out, cannot be allowed to continue, the League of Nations having neglected to comply with Article 22 of its Covenant. In an immortal play a bond, unwisely delivered at a time of stress, was pronounced invalid because it was held that " indirectly and directly " the holder had " con- triv'd against the very life of the defendant." The Zionist section, by prolonged activities which have now been in part revealed, has indirectly and directly contrived against the free life of the Palestinian people.—I am, Sir, &c.,
SYDENIIAM.
Previous page
