>>July 1920 Zionist Aspirations in Palestine [Part I]
by Anstruther Mackay
I
THAT the Jews, once a powerful tribe and perhaps almost a nation, should, after the lapse of so many centuries, cherish aspirations to become a modern nation with a country of their own, is both commendable and romantic. But to-day, and indeed in all ages, aspirations must be made to fit in with hard facts. I propose in this article to discuss the question from a historical and practical standpoint, without sentiment in favor of either Jew or Arab, among both of which parties I have many friends.
I do not propose to consider Jewish history anterior to the exodus from Egypt. At that time they were a collection of tribes, twelve in number, of common descent, banded together with a common purpose and under common difficulties. As such, under very able leadership, they succeeded after many wanderings in squatting, just as the Bedouin tribes do to-day, on the cultivated and cultivable lands of a part of Syria, commonly called Palestine. In those days, and until the coming of the Roman Empire, society in the Middle East was entirely tribal. The ancient Israelites, where they could, drove out the tribes they found already settled on the soil, and where they could not dispossess their enemies, -- the Philistines, for instance, -- they dwelt side by side in uneasy proximity, with a constant inter-tribal war in process, with varying fortune.
So they dwelt in the land of Canaan for some centuries with considerable success, shining in particular in literature, producing what we now know as the Old Testament, praising and perhaps exaggerating their own exploits, and reviling their neighbors.
(It is believed to-day by many savants that the Old Testament description of Solomon's Temple was written by the Jews after their return from the Captivity, with the memory of the real splendors of Babylon fresh in their minds. It is possible that the actual temple was a simple place of worship. If it had been otherwise, it is hardly possible that no remains of it would be visible to-day, seeing that the temples of Egypt, which are so much older, remain, in some cases, almost in toto.)
Soon, however, the old cohesion among the Twelve Tribes vanished. Israel fell and disappeared from the earth. Judah remained for a few years and then was scattered to the uttermost ends of the old and new world. They have since lost their Eastern characteristics, both physically and mentally. To- day the Jewish settlers in Palestine are almost universally of Teutonic or Slavonic appearance, and all trace of Semitic or Eastern origin seems to have vanished from them.
Through the ages and through their wanderings they have kept, to a large extent, their religion, and that is a wonderful feat. But to-day some say that even their religion seems doomed. The younger and more virile of the Jewish settlers in Palestine sometimes profess openly, and more often in secret, the dogmas of atheism, agnosticism, or realism.
To-day it is the Zionist portion of this remnant of Judah, which, on the statement that for three or four centuries its ancestors owned the land from which nearly two thousand years ago they were driven, claims the whole of Southern Syria, the province of Palestine. These people even go so far, on what grounds is not clear, as to claim that their boundaries run from the town of Tyre on the north to the Egyptian village of El Arish in the Desert of Sinai on the south, and also, east of the Jordan, from the plain of Ammon to the Syrian desert, formerly the country of the Moabites.
Now if this interesting remnant was claiming an uninhabited country, or one in which the law of property did not exist, it might be an interesting though hazardous experiment to let them have it, and watch the result. Any practical experiment toward the attainment of a contented Jewish people would be welcome. At present, large communities of Jews never live in perfect amity with Gentile neighbors; and it would be instructive to see whether, in a self-contained Jewish state, they could live in amity with one another. It would also give them a chance to show whether they possess the attributes of a ruling people -- a question to which the answer is, at present, largely uncertain.
But the Syrian province of Palestine, about one hundred and fifty miles long and fifty miles broad, largely mountainous and sterile, contains at present a population of more than 650,000, divided as follows: Mohammedan Arabs, 515,000; Jews, 63,000; Christian Arabs, 62,000; nomadic Bedouins, 50,000; unclassified, 5000. Of these the Mohammedans and Christians are to a man bitterly opposed to any Zionist claims, whether made by would-be rulers or by settlers. It may not be generally known, but a goodly number of the Jewish dwellers in the land are not anxious to see a large immigration into the country. This is partly due to the fear that the result of such immigration would be an overcrowding of the industrial and agricultural market; but a number of the more respectable older settlers have been disgusted by the recent arrivals in Palestine of their coreligionists, unhappy individuals from Russia and Roumania brought in under the auspices of the Zionist Commission from the cities of Southeastern Europe, and neither able nor willing to work at agriculture or fruit-farming.
The old colonists believe that what is required to help the country is the immigration of a moderate number of persons, who should be in possession of some capital to invest in agriculture, or have technical knowledge of farming; not, as proposed by the Zionist Commission, an unlimited immigration of poor and ignorant people from the cities of Europe, who, if they are unable to make a living in Western cities, would most certainly starve in an Eastern agricultural country. The presence in Palestine of such agricultural experts as the late Mr. Aaronsohn, and Mr. Moses Levine of the Jewish Farm at Ben Shamer, near Ludd, both American Jews of great talent, is of the greatest advantage to the country, and is generally acknowledged so to be by all classes of the population. The arrival of more such colonists would be welcome to all but the whole population will resist the Zionist Commission's plan of wholesale immigration of Jews into Palestine at the rate of one hundred thousand a year, until a total of three millions has been reached, which number they claim the country can support if cultivated to its utmost.
The existing Jewish colonists would protest at such an experiment; but the Mohammedan and Christian Arabs would do more than protest. They would, if able, prevent by force the wholesale flooding of their country by Jewish settlers whom they consider strangers and Europeans. (The Jew in Palestine is always called by the Arabs 'Khawaya' -- Anglice, stranger.)
Any attempt at the creation of a Jewish state in Palestine, unless under the bayonets of one of the powers of the League of Nations, would undoubtedly end in a 'pogrom,' to escape from which in Europe is the Jew's main idea in coming to Syria. This hostility to the Jews is a bond of union between the Arab Moslems and the Christians, and nowhere in the East do these two denominations live in greater harmony, despite the traditional enmity between the Crescent and the Cross. (The Moslem-Christian Association was formed in 1918, with headquarters in Jaffa, to fight the policy of the Zionist Commission.)
It will be seen that, to fulfill their aspirations, the Zionists must obtain the armed assistance of one of the European powers, presumably Great Britain, or of the United States of America. To keep the peace in such a scattered and mountainous country the garrison would have to be a large one. Is the League of Nations, or any of the Western powers, willing to undertake such a task? But without such armed protection, the scheme of a Jewish state, or settlement, is bound to end in failure and disaster.
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