Evening star., 1940-03-18
Palestine Policy Seen
As Mandate Violation
Criticizes British Ban
On Purchases Of Lund.
BY Jews

BY Jews
To the Editor Of The Star:
The British government is handling
the Palestine situation in manner that
is disturbingly reminiscent OF Nazi
methods at their worst.
They have made scrap of paper of
their mandatory obligations by disre-
garding the League of Nations Man.
dates Commission and have seriously
embarrassed their American friends
who believed the British were fighting
the present war to uphold the sanctity
Of international obligations.
They have consistently fostered the
false impression that the Jews are dis
placing and destroying the whole Arab
people, who must be defended against
Jewish encroachment.
Nothing could be further from the
truth. The facts are these:
Palestine is only one, and the smallest,
Of the nine divisions Of the great Arab
peninsula, which covers a territory of
over 100000 square miles.
OF this vast territory, Palestine COM
prises only 10000 square miles, or one
hundred and twentieth of the Arab
lands, about the size of Vermont.
Half million Jews actually possess the
microscopically small territory of about
500 square miles, or only one-twentieth
of Palestine. About 100000 Arabs in
habit the whole peninsula. Under no
Interpretation could this be called a
Jewish displacement of the Arabs.
On the CONTRARY, Arabs from all the
other Arab states have flocked to Pal
estine since the Jews came. Jewish, not
British, medical care has raised the
Arab birth rate. lowered the death rate;
and Jewish, not British, agriculture and
industry have raised the Arab standard
of living and given employment to
thousands.
British insinuation makes the Jews
the sole cause of Arab disorders, with
utter disregard Of these relevant facts
In Syria. where there is no Jewish
problem, there have been at least 10
national revolutions since 1920.
Throughout the whole Arab peninsula,
the whole Middle East, all the way to
the northwest frontier provinces OF
India, there for decades have been, and
still are, sporadic outbreaks among the
native populations, demanding contin-
ued "quelling" by armed troops and air
patrols-and here likewise no Jews
are involved.
In Palestine the British say that the
Arab Moslems are majority and there
fore must be protected against the Jews.
In India the British say the Indian
Moslems are a minority and therefore
must be protected against the Hindus.
Actually. neither the Jews nor the Hin
dus have harmed the Moslems in any
way
The crux of the whole matter is that
the British are using all of them alike,
Jews, Arabs, other Moslems and Hin
! dus against each other, as sacrifical
goats on the mirage altar of imperial
interests. Thus, while driving the Jews
into an ever shrinking corner of Pales-
tine in defense of Arab interests, the
British have in the meantime "ac-
CURED for themselves the following
territories and dominating economic
rights:
In 1922 the British sliced off three
quarters of the original Palestine man.
dated territory, named it Transjordan,
placed an Arab chieftain puppet at its
head, and forbade the Jews to enter.
They partitioned the original "Juden-
frei state a full decade before Hitler.
and in the very Jewish homeland itself.
Through the 1raq Petroleum Co.
the British control the greatest nat
ural resource of the Arab peninsula
oil. But this oil does not flow for the
welfare. progress and development of
the Arab peoples; it flows to safeguard
British imperial interests
In 1887 the British quietly annexed
the Hadramaut over 1l1,000 square
miles of territory Q1 times as big as
Palestine) in Southern Arabia, adjacent
to Alden. They had no more moral
right" to the Hadramaut than Hitler to
Czecho- Slovakia or Mussolini to Ethiopia.
And today in Palestine-after leading
the Jews on for years to believe in their
homeland, and incidentally to invest
half billion dollars as we'll as half a
million lives in its development-th
British tear up the League Of Nations
mandate, revive the old bogy about
the uprising of the Arab world" herd
the Jews into another, only smaller,
Lublin reservation, designate the land
as restricted and prohibited by decree
from purchase by Jews, guard the Pal
estine coast line against their entry,
and command Balkan governments to
close their frontiers to Jewish fugitives
from Nazi terror.
The British are seriously misgauging
liberal opinion in this country if they
believe 1t to be ultimately Indifferent
to such tactics.
There can be no basis for a lasting
peace said Lord Lothian, Britain's dis
tinguished Ambassador, in his historic
and nobly worded address before the
Pilgrims, (which does not give to all
the nations of Europe their right to
autonomous freedom"
American agree whole-heartedlv with
this thesis They question only why this
right to autonomous freedom should be
restricted to "the nations of Europe, ="
| They wonder why this freedom should
not also be the right of the nations of
| tho Moor Eocf orl A,;o -.