SIR,—If anything is likely to contribute to a state of
" peril in Palestine," it is an alarmist article like that of Brigadier Longrigg, with its exaggera- tions and misrepresentations. He alleges that " for twenty-five years the Palestine population has fought fiercely and bloodily for its own country against alien immigration." In fact, throughout the inter-war period the total duration of the Arab disorders amounted to less than three years. In 1920, 1921, 1929 and 1933 the riots lasted only a few days on each occasion, and in the rebellion of 1936-39 there was complete peace for eight months (from October, 1936, to June, 1937). Your correspondent chooses to designate as " alien immigrants " the people who have had an uninterrupted connection with Palestine for over 3,000 years, who had the only independent State that ever existed in it, and whose " historical connection with Palestine " is expressly recognised in the preamble of the Mandate as ground " for reconstituting their national home in that country."
Brigadier Longrigg's interpretation of the Mandate is refuted by the Report of the Palestine Royal Commission, which states (pp. 38-9): " Unquestionably, however, the primary purpose of the Mandate, as expressed in its preamble and its articles, is to promote the establishment of the Jewish National Home." (The italics are in the original.) He says that the present Zionist conception of the National Home was " unintended by the framer or the recipients of the 1917 Declaration." The Palestine Royal Commission wrote (pp 24-5): " Mr. Lloyd George, who was Prime Minister at the time, informed us in evidence: `. . . It was contemplated that when the time arrived for according representative institutions to Palestine, if the Jews had meanwhile responded to the opportunity afforded them by the idea of a national home and had become a definite majority of the inhabitants, then Palestine would thus become a Jewish Common- wealth.' " The Commission also stated that General Smuts (a member of the Imperial War Cabinet when the Declaration was issued) in 1919, Lord Robert Cecil in 1917, Sir Herbert Samuel in 1919, and Mr. Winston Churchill in 1920 " spoke or wrote in terms that could only mean that they contemplated the eventual establishment of a Jewish State."—Yours
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