In the Promised Land

PALESTINE (British Mandate)

In the Promised Land

Balfour. On Nov. 2, 1917, Mr. Arthur James Balfour, British Foreign Secretary, issued a declaration on behalf of his Government: "His Majesty's Government view with favor the establishment in Palestine of a national home for the Jewish people ... it being clearly understood that nothing shall be done which may prejudice the civil and religious rights of existing non-Jewish com- munities in Palestine. . . ."

Last week, nearly seven and a half years later, the veteran Earl of Bal- four (Arthur James Balfour ennobled) set forth from the land of his ancestors for the Holy Land. Some days later, he arrived at Alex- andria, Egypt's greatest seaport. Thence went he to Cairo, the capi- tal, where he entered a special railway car provided by the Palestine Government and was whisked off across the Suez Canal to Palestine, land of two religions: Judaism, Christianity.* Lord Balfour went to Jerusalem, direct to Government House on the Mount of Olives. On a spur of the Mount of Olives, known as Mt. Scopus, stands the Hebrew Univer- sity which he had come to open -which all Zionist Jewry considers of the utmost importance in the growth of what may be called modern Is- rael. He arrived several days before the opening ceremony, was met en- thusiastically by the Jewish communities and by the Arabs with a parade of mourning and the silence of grief, a protest against the Bal- four Declaration.

He visited Jaffa (the Joppa of Biblical note), motored to its suburb Tel-Aviv, a purely Jewish town where, it is said, everybody lives by doing some one's else washing. He also went to Richon L'Zion, one of the oldest modern settlements of Jews, to Dilber and other more re- cent Jewish settlements. Everywhere the veteran Earl was received in manifest goodwill. Arabs vowed he must be a Jew to receive such welcomes and to delight in receiving them.

The Ceremony. The great day came. The University of Mount Scopus (consisting at present of a remodeled house, a copper-domed wing, an unfinished amphitheatre) was crowded by 8,000 clamoring spectators. The ancient city of Jerusalem was as festive as it could be without Arab cooperation. Jewish hawkers sold "Balfour biscuits," "Balfour keftas" (rissoles), "Balfour chocolate," which was not strange in a land which has a model village named Balfouria.

The inauguration exercises took place in the amphitheatre to which the Earl and Sir Herbert Samuel, British High Commissioner, drove from Government House. The central tribune contained many notables. Field Marshal Viscount Allenby, High Commissioner for Egypt, was there. He had been specially invited, as it was he who led the "ninth" or last crusade that delivered the Holy Land from its centuries-old Turkish domination. Others were: Dr. Chaim Weizmann, President of the World Zionist Organization; Grand Rabbis Dr. Hertz of Britain, Dr. Levy of France, Dr. Abraham Kuk, head of the Ashkenazic sect, Dr. Jacob Mead, head of the Sephardic sect. Behind, were professors of the University; to one side, were the consular representatives of foreign countries.

The proceedings were begun by Grand Rabbi Abraham Kuk, who pronounced a prayer. Dr. Weizmann declared the University open. Sir Herbert Samuel conveyed the good wishes of the British Government. Then, Lord Balfour arose and, as he did so, some 16,000 feet kept time to some 16,000 gesticulating arms waved by their cheering owners. Minutes passed before the distinguished speaker could speak. The ovation was such that the walls of the amphitheatre and the crowded boughs of nearby trees were endangered. At length -silence.

Lord Balfour spoke in his best Eton and Cambridge manner, dwelt upon the significance of the event in which all were participating and which had brought people from all the earth's cubbyholes. He touched briefly on the history of the surrounding sights and asseverated: "A new epoch has begun within the Palestine which came to an end so many hundred years ago." There followed some remarks on the idea of a Western University run on Western methods in an Eastern country and upon the beauty but questionable utility of the Hebrew language with which the Earl professed himself unacquainted. The speech ended on a Balfourian note: a graceful, tactful, courageous plea for Arab goodwill and cooperation, recalling that, in the 10th Century, the Arab and the Jew had worked in harmony for "the illumination of Europe" -a reference to the Moorish invasions of Spain.

A few days later, Lord Balfour left Jerusalem for a tour of the Esdraelon colonies to the north. Of the Arabs, who had stood quietly aloof during the whole visit, many regretted their stand, for they said they held the Earl in high regard and would have liked to extend their traditional courtesies. But, they pointed out, the only pacific means at their disposal for giving vent to their disapproval of British policy was to follow the course adopted in the hope of awakening sympathy for their cause.

History. The history of the Jewish peoples is to be found largely in the Old Testament; the following is a bare outline:

About 2,000 B.C., Abraham ("father of multitudes") was the Patriarch of the Hebrews ("those from the other side" -they came from Ur in Baby- lonia). Abraham had two sons: Ishmael by Hagar (ancestor of the Ismaelites or Arabians), Isaac by Sarah ("princess"). Isaac married Rebekah and they begat Jacob called Israel, the ancestor of the Jews. His male progeny became the heads of the twelve tribes of Israel.

Several hundred years later, Israel became a Theocracy and, later still, a kingdom under Saul of the Benjamin Tribe, annointed by Samuel "the last Judge in Israel." Other kings were David and Solomon, after whom the Kingdom was divided: Kingdom of Israel; Kingdom of Judah, which was at one time captured by Nebuchadnezzar who destroyed Jerusalem and carried the Jews into Babylonian captivity. The Kingdom of Israel was destroyed by Sargon, King of Assyria, in 772 B.C. The Kingdom of Judah came to an end when Titus destroyed Jerusalem in A.D. 70. Some 60 years later, the Emperor Hadrian put down a Jewish uprisal, forbade the Jews to enter Jerusalem, ordered the great Dispersal which scattered the Jews throughout creation.

Palestine subsequently came under the Byzantine Emperors, was lost once to Persia (c. 611) but regained before Islam, under Calif Omar, ploughed the country under in 637. Then came the period of the Cru- sades and the Prankish Kingdoms (1099-1291), followed by the rule of the Egyptian Mamelukes (1291 to 1516). This uneventful period was punctuated by a fleeting visit from Tamerlane in 1400. In 1516, Pales- tine was conquered by the Turks, from whom little more than 400 years later the country was delivered by General Allenby. And now, after nearly 2,000 years of exile and persecution, the Jews (who have supplied the world inter alia with Spinoza, Disraeli, Lord Reading, Albert Einstein, the Rothschilds) are free to go back to the Land which Jehovah promised them.

Significance. British policy* as continued in the Balfour Declaration has been called one of "reconciling seemingly irreconcilable peoples and parties." The Arabs, Semitic people descended from Ishmael, have a historic, ethnological, ethnographical claim, not only to Palestine, but to all Arabia. The claim is not disputed but another claim, that of the Jews, is made co-equal in Palestine. The Zionist Jews/- began slowly but are continuing steadily. More and more money is pouring in from scattered Jewry to Modern Israel. The Jews are showing an energy which contrasts sharply with Arab apathy. Everywhere small communities are developing the land. Great arid tracts arc being turned into fertile farms, while the Arabs, comparatively poor, do little but protest. Land is sold over the Arab fellahs' (peasants) heads by their rich brethren. Willingly they part with dry belts and swamps only to see them fertilized by irrigation and drainage. All Arabdom sees its native land being snatched from it. As between the Arabs and the Jews, since cooperation seems hopeless, there is no hope of reconciliation. That is why last week's ceremonies at Jerusalem loomed large from different angles in Arab and Jewish eyes.

*The home of the Jews as the land promised by Jehovah to the children of Israel; home of the Christians as the scenes of the birth, life, death and resurrection of Jesus Christ. *Since Palestine is mandated by the League of Nations, British policy there is tacitly a League policy. /-In general, Zionism is a political movement to repopulate Palestine with Jews. It achieved its greatest significance -before the Balfour Declaration -under the brilliant leadership of Dr. Theodor Herzl (1860-1904), a Hungarian Jew. Dr. Herzl negotiated fruitlessly with the Porte (Turkey) for a Palestine charter. He tried Britain, was offered sites on the Sinai Peninsula and in the East African Protectorate; but both these offers were rejected through the strong opposition of the ultra-nationalist Zionists who naturally coveted Palestine.