The Birmingham age-herald., 1919-07-12
Z|ON|SM IS DANGER
 ID WORLD PEACE l SAYS CLAIR PRICES i JERUSALEM LETTER
Natives Bitterly Resent Jew ish Colonization, Whose Great Wealth Makes
 It Irresistible
 Force
ny CLAIR PRICE

ZioniSm.
 | The little link between the three con l tinents of Europe, Asia and Africa which l is Palestine has seen more fighting than
 any other land in the world turing it's 5JJ0 years of history. It will another war unless Zionism is arrested.
 l Given peaceful development under Brit ish direction, it will develop into the peak
 of the British empire, the keystone of the Cape Cairo Calcutta arch. But given the continued menace of Jewish immigration, it's population will break out into an anti-Zionist war which quite conceivasly may bring down Egypt Mesopotamia, Persia, Afghanistan and India and in- volve the world in new chaos. Zionists have permitted the supposition to go out that Palestines population be- fore the war consisted mainly of Turks
 and Jews and that now that the Turks have gone, there is a vacuum left which is waiting to be filled with a population. The fact is that Palestines population now, as before the war, consists of 6O,- 0o0 Arabs, all of whom are Moslems; 75- 900 Christians. large proportion of whom are natives; and 1000 Jews, third ot whom use the Arabic tongue, a third a jargon of Yiddsh corrupted by Spanish. German and the other languages of the countries from which they came and a third Hebrew.
 Before the menace of Zionism, Moslems and Christians alike are united. Never before have these TWO religions sunk their differences they have sunk them be- fore the common peril of Jewish colonial tion. They are no longer enemies. They are Palestinians.
 It is Zionist money that they Tear. Turkish tax collectors have left Pales- tine a poverty stricken country. The "osher" has left its mark everywhere in the arrested development of Palestine For years, the "osher," the principal tax in the Ottoman empire, was sold by pup lie tender in Palestine and was collected by it's purchaser or tax farmer whose urinary interest was collecting many times the amount he paid for it. Ihe only limit to the amount he could coi- lect was the necessity of avoiding com plaint to the Porte. Provided the tax farmer did not provoke reVolt, ne cou-u rob right and left.
 T,be result is that today the number of Moslems in Palestine whose personal fortunes exceed S250,0O0 could be natnea on the fingers of one hand. The vas. maiority of Palestinians live from day | to day.
 BUYING UP THE LAND | 1 Zionism, however, commands uhi iiili'eu ,e | wealth. There is hardly an Arab III bs paleetine who could turn down Jewish | ;n,mi igrant's offer of $500 for piece oi l land worth s1Oo Only this week Zionist l agents offered s15,00o,Qoo cash for pieee 1 of land on the Jerusalem Bethlehem roau'
 | worth at the most $10,oo0,ooo, belonging tQ
 H the Brotherhood of the Holy Sepu'chit
 II of the Greek church. Unless AiohiSn is II i checked at once, it will succeed m the
 H naxt few years in buying up all the gooo
 Il land in Palestine and in peopling 1t wl1n II -awish colonies leaving the 1oo,Voo pres Il ent inhabitants of Palestine as hireiinss
 | and strangers in their own homeiahu
 | None knows this better than the | | PaIestinians themselves
 | | Their answer to it is the Monam- l medan Christian society an organiza- | tion whose headquarters is in Jerusa- 1 1er ana whose branch offices now | cover Palestine like blanket. us | governing board consists or oo Mos iems and 10 Christians, divided 'hto four commissions for the educationa , | aqricultural. industrial and polltlcai I devaIonment of Palestine The indus | trial and agricultural commissions ace | alreadv engaged in an inyestlgauori | looking toward the development oi Palestines natural resources, not y the Jews, but by the Paiestinians themselves. With peace, sethed gov | ernment and adequate transport lacli- ities. Palestine, they say, shouio eN perience very sizable boom Ihe bulk of Palestine's resources, they find will always be agricultural put some mineral has been found in tfe land. Beds of phosphates have been found whose development could ne made profitable were transport avail ahle There are salt and sulphur de- nosits south of the Dead sea, but It is not known yet whether they are of commercial value. Deposits or as shall have been tapped in primitive way and there is known to be oil in southern Palestine.
 1T hnx possesses far greater possibilities than have ever been realized, It has three distinct climates, the sup-trop- icaI climate of the coast region, the continental climate of the mountains and the tropical climate of the Jordan
 valley. It has dry, hot summer ana a rainy. but comparatively warm Win- ter. It's spring and autumn seasons mass quickly It's first rains usually | fall in October and it is then that the | ground softens sufficiently after the | heat of the summer to permit plowinS | From December to February there arc heavy rains and crops grow luxuriant- lv During the long dry season lrri- l gation or dry farming alone makes , farming possible and in certain parts | l of Palestine, particularly by irrigation l 1 in the Jordan valley, dry season farm | | ing has been made qrne profitable | iGalilee in ancient times was regarded as the richest part of Palestine, and | to this day the great plain east of the l Jordan, the Hauran, is the granary of l Syria.
 | Large areas of the country which | have become worthless through ceh-
 Il turies of disuse can now be developed
 Il profftably, the society's commissions
 II say. Tn southern Palestine, which is
 II now for the most part barren, traces Il | can still be seen of the terraces which
 II held up the soil along the sides of the
 H hills on which vineyards and olive
 II groves once flourished. The terraces
 H are now destroyed, but restoration H of them would make possible again the
 H cultivation of hundreds of square miles
 H of now barren hill slope
 |ll It is not on these matters that the
 II bulk of the society's attention IS be-
 H ing spent at present. however Just
 | now it's political commission Is direct
 | ing all it's strength toward securing
 the passage of a law prohibiting all
 H Jewish immigration into Palestine
 s.During the war the United States
 nrohibited immigration they say
 III 'sWhv can't we prohibit Jewish immi-
 H grationr'
 WAR AGAINST ZIONISM
 N They are determined to fight Zion
 II ism to the end, even though Palestine
 I is bathed in blood before the ehl
 H comes. With them, it is matter of
 H Keeping their country from belns
 H taken out from under their feet and
 H sold to an alien race. Tn this they
 II come into direct clash with the .ii-
 H tended future of over 50 Zionist col