Yeshiva University - Masmid Yearbook (New York, NY)

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M A S M I D Anyone who has watched the development of the national states in the Near East on the basis of nationalism, Europeanization, and religious reform can only compare them to the policy of the Mandatory power in Palestine. No attention has been paid to the wishes of the population. . . the Man- dato ry government admitting this in its re- ports for 1932. The government was actu- ally charged with the deliberate policy of keeping the Arab population in a state of illiteracy. ' - ' All this while — even in de- pression years — a surplus existed in the treasury. It perhaps would be better to class Palestine as a colony , as we can see from the abortive attempts to do so in the black papers of 1938, ' 39. Today, after four years of a war which has drenched humanity in a welter of blood, we hear cries of a people ' s war and we see, as in the Battle of England, a firm faith in the will and ability of a people to live. This show of spirit, be it in England, France or China, has led many to think that the millennium as far as social justice is con- cerned has come. We are still far from a sol ution, for a reconstructed world based on the four freedoms can only come with the leaders to carry them out. We can well recall how we were disappointed in the inability of the Labor government in the early 30 ' s to even budge colonial pol- icy. From the purely subjective viewpoint as Jews, we have only heard as yet a con- tinuation of the status quo in Palestine — the 1939 Black paper. In addition to the mass-killings in Europe we have to hear of Struma and Patria tragedies. This is the reality that we must face. What program can we Jews take in the immediate future to carry out our goal in the post-war world? Very few suggestions 11) Western Civilization in the Neco- East, by Hans Kohn. Columbia University Press, 1936, p. 92. 12) Ibid, p. 105. cover the subject or are foolproof. But on the basis of real istic appraisal the following seems worthwhile to think about. At the forthcoming peace conference it seems best for Jews and Arabs to put forth their claims before an impartial commission concerning the economic capacity of Pales- tine. For politically and legally the Arabs can have no claim, and the Jews need rec- ognize none. The Balfour Declaration and the Mandate did away with such a pos- sibility of Arab legal claims. This com- mission will sift, weigh and check the evi- dence without English interference, which in the past has proved biased and harmful after each wave of terror perpetrated by the Arabs. Public opinion must be aroused to demand this of England in order finally to do justice to the Jew against whom the most horrible crimes have been committed. Arab claims to independence in other areas, such as Syria, ought to be supported by the Jew. The Arabs deserve a land which is clearly Moslem by tradition and fact. However, Palestine ' s independence must not be made contingent on that of Syria ' s or any Arab state. The point must be made in accordance with the Weiz- mcmn-Faisal agreement of January, 1919, that, while Arab nationalists like King Faisal have recognized a Jewish State at one time, no Jewish nationalists have ever recognized an Arab Palestine as even a remote pos- sibility. Unparalleled waves of Jewish immigra- tion into Palestine are to be demanded as the only possible humanitarian act to aid the Jews of Europe. It is important to make Palestinian Arabs aware that Economic conditions in Palestine are by now so close- ly bound with Jewish immigration that Arabs would lie faced with the prospect of eco- nomic hardship if immigration be closed (Partition Report, p. 43). Under control and support of the great powers emigration of Twenty-eight

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M A S M I D portance is hard to cverestimate. The Arabs themselves have neither the capital nor the initiative to develop the latent possibilities of Palestine. Jev ish experts have clamored for years to buy the Negeb (Southern Pales- tine). The same Partition Commission that forbade land sales in this area states (p. 225): The Negev is desert and desert it v ill remain until Jewish enterprise and capital develop it. ' ' Some Arabs admit that the Jev s have turned some of the potentialities into actual- ities. Jewrish capital and labor have great- ly contributed to the economic development of the country and to a rise in the wages of Arab labor. ' But even these Arabs point to Jewish purchases of inhabited and farmed land from rich Arab owners with the results that the tenants are forced to vacate suddenly as highly unjust. Actu- ally such instances are rare. Reclaiming unused and gutted land is on essential part of the Zionist program. Wherever purchases of inhabited lands take place, fair warning is given to the tenant to allow for a period of adjustment. The Jews cannot be ex- pected to pay double — one price to legal owners and an equal amount to the ten- ant, for as it is the prices are exorbitantly high. Even if the land were not sold, the owner could evict his tenants. Neverthe- less, the Jews actually help the tenants, as is proved by the case of Petach Tikvah. Formerly 300 Arabs needed 20,000 dunom land to subsist. New Petach Tikvah sup- ports on 35,000 dunam 15,000 Jewish and 2500 Arab workers. The above facts give a fair idea what a boon a Jewish Palestine has been and would continue to be to the Arabs. One can visualize Eretz Yisrael with important industries in Haifa and Tel Aviv. An Eretz Yisrael of a flourishing tourist trade, of great technical improvements promoted by a Technical College in Haifa, of Iremendou.T health improvement in hospitalization and combatting of disease; an Eretz Yi.srael which will serve as a center of learning for the whole Near East through its Hebrev University. And above all, equal opportun- ities will be given to the Jew and Arab-- for Jews are downtrodden strangers in other lands but in our own land, our own law provides for fair treatment of the strangers. Between visualization and realization there remains the barrier of stubborn oppo- sition. As Duker so well points out, ' ' Little or no progress can be reported concerning the future of the Jev ish National Home. . . . There is no clear indication as to what line of action the United Nations will follow in the disposition of the Holy Land. . . . How- ever, there is increasing support on the part of the British of Arab aspirations for a Federation of Arab States to include Pa- lestine. The fostering of a strong national- Arab state backed by British capital seems to bode bad tidings for Jewish hopes. No- where can we find proof that such an Arab state would enjoy a budding ultra-modern minority within its bounds. The eventual result could well similize the ruthless Turk- ish nationalization cf the Kurds. Despite the need for Jewish immigration to Palestine in the past decade an analysis of official Mandatory policy shows on un- bridled attempt to divide and rule, hinder wilfully and wantonly Jevnsh eccncmic and political development and to intend to trans- form Palestine into port of the mosaic of British imperialism. The theoretical possi- bilities attributed in the past to Palestine hove become realities. Haifa Bay, fac- tories. Dead Sea chemical resources, air and rail transportation centers, oil line ter- minus are all destined to transform Pales- tine into the great center of the Near East. 8) Ibid, p. 361. 9) Arab Awakenina, ' op. cit., p. 407. 10) Jewish Social Service Quarterly. SepL 1942. Political and Cultural Aspects of Jewish Post-War Problems, by A. Duker. riccii j(-sere!i

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M A S M I D those Arabs who desire to leave Palestine should be made feasible. The 1922 Greco- Turkish exchange of population can be worked out again in a better manner, to help those Arabs who desire to settle en masse in their native and holy land, Saudi Arabia. A huge international loan should be floated to carry out the settlement of Jews on those lands to be bought from the Arabs, All adverse legislation aimed against Jewish interests are to be removed. In brief the great powers must be made to recognize the fact that a Jewish Palestine, an Eretz Yisrael, is not a solu- tion for ameliorating Jewish hardships and struggles in the lands of their exile — rather it is the only solution for the Jewish people. The past twenty years have been a period of great importance for world Jewry. The great Jewish centers hove been weak- ened or destroyed. The inroads of assimi- lation have been great, especially in the new center in America. Only Eretz Yisrael has created an auto-emancipated Jewry which has returned to recreate its former grandeur. It is there that our hope lies. The Jew has been used to seeing things in the last century from the geo-political viewpoint. Today grim reality has knocked at his door and he finds himself the object of the greatest mass-extermination scheme. This is a definite war aim of the axis powers. Reality tells him that he can have little hope for a future unless he concen- trates his energies on one thing — self- preservation as a group based on our past culture. As a writer so well put it, Jews hove been benumned by the fear of anti- Semitism and are so overwhelmed by the line-up of forces against them that many of them are incapable of taking a vigorous stand on anything. ' ' We find the orthodo c few pessimistic and the assimilated one optimistic. American Jewry can become the de- cisive force if it but heeds the words of such messengers from Palestine Jewry as Rabbi Berlin and Moshe Shertok. They have brought word that in spite of every- thing the Yishuv stands firm. In actuality it acts and functions as a semi-autonomous group. Even in the face of the nearing Nazi forces they stood up firm and resolute. American Jewry can only help them if it becomes one solid body of united opinion and demands our right to a Jewish state in Palestine. For an era of Eretz Yisrael will see not only the mundane success of a people but a spiritual revival in the only land where the full life in the spirit of the Torah can exist. 13) Political and Cultural Aspects of Jewish Post-War Problems, by A. Duker. op. cit. T oenty-nine