THE PROBLEM OF PALESTINE

Hawke's Bay Herald-Tribune, Issue 158, 22 July 1937, Page 5

THE PROBLEM OF PALESTINE

(British Official "Wireless.)

What The Arabs Have Gained DEBATE IN COMMONS

(Received 22, 1.0 5p.m.) RUQBY, July 21. ' A motion asking for the approval or the House of Commons for the Palestitt# Royal Commission's proposals was d*4 bated in the House. The Labour Partjr moved an amendment proposing a clos«l examination of the proposals by a joinfc select committee before Parliament should be committed. *The Colonial SeeH retary, Mr Wt Ormsby-Gore said that Palestine was not purely Jewish nor purely Arab nor purely Christian terri-' tpry but all three creeds had interest* in it and no settlement of the question was possible unless the interests of Mos« • lem, Jew and Christian were recogniseda Speaking on Arab independence, MU Ormsby-Gore observed: "I " think it fair to remind the Arabs of the inde^ pendence they enjoy throughout tha peninsula of ATabia in Iraq in Syria and which, if this goes through, they will enjoy throughout trans-Jordania and

the greater part of Palestine. This could not and would not have been achieved but for the fact that there are 16,000 British graves in Palestine and a great many more also in Iraq." Answering assertions as to wKethet the troubles in Palestine were economie or were due to weak or mistaken administration, Mr Ormsby-Gore said: "You, do not recognise the elements of the problem. in Palestine ^unless you re-» cognise that there is the keenest Jewish nationalism and again the vivid Arab nationalisation. The trouble in Pales* tine is politieal and not economic. It is natural that Arab nationalism should have been stimulated by the FrancoSyrian treaty while the fires of antiSemitie persecution have transformed the Jewish version of Palestine from ft cultural centre into a refuge^'