JEWS AND ARABS

New Zealand Listener, Volume 11, Issue 280, 3 November 1944, Page 5

JEWS AND ARABS

»ir,-i realise that you could not print everything that was said in the interview I gave The Listener, but should be grateful if you would allow me to add two facts that to me are most important. ‘ 1. We _ were originally promised Biblical Palestine. Later, Transjordania and other pieces were cut away from the original Palestine. As a result the Jews to-day occupy in Palestine about seven per cent of one-third of the area originally known as Palestine. 2. We do not dispossess Arabs. The population of Palestine in 1917 was about 58,000 Jews and 450,000 Arabs. To-day it is 600,000 Jews and over 1,000,000 Arabs. In other. words, for every Jew who has entered Palestine under the Balfour Declaration an Arab has also entered (about 550,000 in each case).

IDA M.

SILVERMAN

(Auckland)_

THE RHINE Sir-Your contributor, A.M.R., draws a picture of the Rhine and the surrounding country which, if not quite false, yet conveys an entirely wrong impression in telescoping happenings which are separated by several centuries. It is incorrect that: 1, "Englishmen brought the fabulous age of the Rhineland to an end." 2. That the MHohenzollern’ were actively involved in the Crusades. 3. That Neukollin (which incidentally is spelt with Il, whilst Koln is spelt with one | only) is a "colony of the Rhineland." 4. That the robber-barons were the most important political factor during some centuries. The ecclesiastical princes, the Archbishops of Trier, Cologne and Mainz (the last-named was Chancellor of the Reich) should at least have Seen mentioned in this connection. 5. That one can-without explanation -jump from the Battle of Tannenberg (1410) to Bismarck’s foundation of the Second Reich in 1870, without even mentioning either the Great Elector or Frederick the Great, who laid the foundation stone of Prussia. 6. That the Cult of the Rhine has always existed. It is of comparatively Tecent date, and was a_ deliberate creation (we would term it propaganda to-day) of German Romantic writers before and during the Wars of Liberation (1813-14): Men like Schenkendorf, Arndt, the creator of the slogan "The Rhine a German river, not the German border"; and others who like the brothers Grimm and Brentano, revived interest in German folk lore, folk songs and legends centred round the banks of

the Rhine

PERNICKETY

(Welling-

ton).

[A.M.R. pleads-‘l. Guilty: ‘fabulous’ should read ‘heathen.’ 2. to 6.: Not guilty-I never done it. The alternative to telescoping history is not to write it.’"’]