Denver labor bulletin., 1917-06-16
Wrestling PALESTINE FROM TURKS
By the Man on the Wall.

Any day, any hour, may bring the
| tidings-a consummation fondly hoped
for by countless millions long dead and
by other millions yet lving-that
Jerusalem has been wrested from the
grip of the Ottoman Turks Both to
the Christian and 10 the Jews of the
world the Wrestling of Palestine from
the Turks will bring great joy. To
the Christians It VIII mean the disap-
pearance of the crescent from the land
in which the Founder of that religion
was born, lived and died. To the Jews
IT will mean that the old Jewish Pal
estine may be revived, and that their
dreams of a state of Zion may be
realized. In passing it might well be
noted that the new Jewish state of
Zion, or republic of Palestine. is
finding strong advocates among lead
ers of thought and action, and there
is every evidence that the vision which
has animated the souls of all Jews
since the Babylonian Nebuzaradan de-
stroyed Jerusalem in 5SS B. C. may be
one of the realities born out of the
worlds travail
Colorful, picturesI que news is COM
ing from the lan1 of the Arabian
Nights" tales. 1t is filled with mental
pictures of dashes by the white-garbed
Bedouins over the starlit desert. the
beating of great drums in the narrow
streets of "the tavern at the cross
roads of the world" Bagdad. and the
victorious march thru it of the uni
formed conquerors, The cold type of
the printed cable dispatches becomes
alive with pictures formed in impress
sionable youth. H. the midst of this
horrifying and bloody struggle these
are events. .redoleut with the romance
of the mysterious East.
Bagdad. ancient seat of the Caliphs
and world power loot of the wild
horsemen of GhenCis Khan, who came
galloping out from he plains of mid
Asia to conquer the world, has fallen.
Babylon and Nineveh and Thebes and
Memphis have gone the way of the
dust. long ago. but Bagdad may yet
renew its youth and become n rival
of London or New ork or Paris.
Armies have passed Basrah and
taken Bagdad. No historian worthy of
the name could rush from Basrah to
Bagdad without recalling and reciting
that almost every mile of the way
tells its fascinatinE tale of civilization,
conquest, world-ambition. degenera-
ton, decay, revival and conquest, once
again in cycle after cycle. 1t begins
with Eden. Investigators there are
who connect the root of meaning of
this word with Paradise. and deny to
mans Biblical first home any definite
geographical location. But other
scholars insist on an exact location,
finding great similarity between the
name of Adams garden and the an
cient Babylonian word for plain"
The taking of Palestine by Christian
soldiers brings the possibility that an
other race may write its name in the
long list of those who have held pos
session of the Holy City, whose his
tory, covering, as authenticated, nearly
thirty-five centuries, has recorded so
many changes of sovereignty in which
the Israelite, the Assyrian, the Per-
sian, the Egyptian, the Roman. the
Greek. the Moslem and the Frank have
had their place. jew. Pagan, Chris
tian and Ottoman have in turn played
the part of besieged and besieger; and
it is now exactly four centuries since
the old walls were last threatened, for
it was in 1917 that the Egyptian Sui