"Last Supper?"

In the back of the British imperial mind there has always lodged the desire of some day setting up a strong, independent Palestine and at the same time satisfying the Arab nations of the Near and Middle East. Reason: to safeguard for Britain her empire lifeline to India and the East. So if a showdown over Palestine had to come, it has long been a good bet that Britain's empire-conscious diplomats would decide the problem of the Holy Land in favor of the Arabs.

This week the showdown came. Unable to bring all the Arab and Jewish delegates together during three weeks of the abortive Round-Table Conference, the British Government, rather than allow the deadlock to continue, threw its cards on the table. In an "unofficial recommendation" submitted by Colonial Secretary Malcolm MacDonald to the Arab and Jewish delegations, the British Government proposed that they end their League of Nations mandate over Palestine and set up the Holy Land as an independent state, tied by treaty relations to Britain.

The British suggestion said nothing about the ultimate internal government of independent Palestine, but Secretary MacDonald was understood to have informed the Arab delegates at a private session at his country home that Britain contemplated the establishment of a mixed, Arab-Jewish government, in which the two races would be represented according to population. Unless an unthinkably heavy influx of Jews was allowed in the next few years, this would mean that the Arabs would outnumber the Jews two to one.

According to the British plan, the new Palestine would come into being around 1942-1944. Its government would have to give Britain the guarantee that minority rights for the Jews would be respected, that the places holy to three religions in the country would be protected and that Britain would get the right to maintain such military, naval, air bases and oil reserves as she pleased.

To create this new state, Britain proposed that Arabs and Jews send delegates and experts to another Round-Table Conference this fall, similar to the conferences which worked out the Indian and the Egyptian Constitutions.

Reaction from both Arabs and Jews was immediate. Jewish delegates refused to attend an official luncheon given in their honor by the British Government. Said one Jew: "It would be like going to a Last Supper, with the British Government as Judas." Day after the British suggestions had been made known, the Jewish delegation officially rejected them as a basis for further negotiations, but suggested they would continue their peace negotiations with the British and Arabs on some other basis. U. S. Ambassador to Britain Joseph P. Kennedy told British Foreign Secretary Viscount Halifax that the British plan would have a "disastrous effect on public opinion in the U. S."

For the Arabs, the British solution was a big victory. The extremist Arabs, followers of the exiled Grand Mufti of Jerusalem, Haj Amin el Husseini, were inclined to hold out for their original demands--complete Arab control of an independent Palestine--but the moderate Palestine Arabs and the Arabs from the other nations represented at the Round-Table meeting were disposed to accept the British plan. In Palestine, Arabs openly demonstrated their satisfaction with the British suggestions. Arab crowds took to the streets to celebrate "the reconquest of Palestine from the British." In the Holy Land this week bloody clashes among Jews, Arabs and British police in two days left more than 30 killed, scores wounded.

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