FUTURE OF PALESTINE.

Manawatu Herald, Volume XXXIX, Issue 1696, 10 April 1917, Page 2

FUTURE OF PALESTINE.

THE Turks, in the <>2)inion of Hr. A. W. Averill, Anglican Bishop- of Auckland, cannot he allowed to remain longer in Turkey. Constantinople, added the bishop, can only properly belong to Russia, and the Turk in Europe must go. Dr Averill went on to suggest that, with the four armies of the allies gradually enclosing them, the Empire of the Turks is surely coming to an end. The British Army based on Suez was now reported at Gaza; soon we should probably hear of it at Askelon, and next at Jaffa, whence (here was a mil way to Jerusalem. Probably the enemy would destroy the Railway line, but the formation would remain. There was also a road from Jaffa to Jerusalem, with blockhouses along its course. As to the probable actions of the Turks when they found Jerusalem untenable, Dr. Averili was afraid they would destroy the sacred places. He doubted if they would touch the Temple courts, because there were two celebrated mosques on its site, while the Moslems reverenced the rock on which once stoo’d the altar of the Temple as much as did the Jews and Christians, one of their traditions being that Mahomet ascended to heaven, from that particular stone. Probably they would smash the Church of the Holy Sepulchre, which covered the place of

the Crueification and Resurrection, and the tomb of the Saviour. The Greek cathedral built on the site of the garden of Joseph of Arimathea was probably also in jeopardy. Adverting to the re-peopling of Palestine by Jews, Dr. Averill said that 100 years ago there were only a few hundred of them in the country; five years ago there were 00,000, and the Turks had allowed them a kind of home rule. The repatriation of the whole race was unthinkable, because only a fraction of them could find room in (he eonnti'y, but there was no reason why they should not make it their centre. He thought that after the war Palestine would probably become a Jewish neutral country.