"The Jews Will Win Through"

New Zealand Listener, Volume 14, Issue 363, 7 June 1946, Page 11

"The Jews Will Win Through"

— #. HM. 8. Crossman on the Palestine Report

TT British and United States Governments are still considering the report on Palestine submitted by the Joint Anglo-American Committee of Inquiry. In the BBC’s Radio Newsreel the other even-

ing, one of the six British members of that Committee,

R. H. S.

Crossman

, gave some of his personal opinions of the report in an

interview (which we print below) with Elsa Knight Thompson.

€¢ HE first thing I'd like to know (he was asked) is this: Did the Commission go into the field with a binding Government. brief — limitations within which they had to work?" "Of course I can only speak for the British members. Actually the question asked is one our American colleagues asked until they finally decided that the facts, though incredible, were true. And the facts are that the six English members were selected chiefly because they hadn’t committed themselves on the subject.of Palestine, and they were sent off on their travels without even an interview with the Foreign Secretary or going near a Cabinet Minister, and they had no contact with anybody in London until they returned and handed in their report. Those are the facts, and I have a feeling that the Government was quite willing to put the responsibility for Palestine on us for those four months. Nobody specially wanted to brief us because that would have meant making up their minds what brief to give us; Which no one wanted to do at that time." "And do you honestly feel that the ten recommendations with which the Committee emerged are valid and can be implemented?" "I am quite certain that the shortterm recommendations could be impiemented at once, and that they’re valid both in the sense that they are just to both sides ‘and that they reduce to a minimum the danger of bloodshed in Palestine." Long-term Problem "And what about the long-term ver-dict-the setting up of the Jewish-Arab state?" "You’ve got every right to be more dubious about that. The idea that Jews and Arabs of Palestine, both communities perfectly fit to rule themselves, should stay under a mandate or a trusteeship for an indefinite period-well, the idea depresses me. And I know that it won't work except on one condition: that the power which exercises the trusteeship or the mandate has the full *backing in future of the other United Nations, and works strictly to a United Nations policy laid down by the Trusteeship Council. The present situation, in which Great Britain tried to carry out a policy in the teeth of opposition from the Arab states and the Moslem world and the Jewish world, from public opinion in the U.S.A. and so on and so on-well, it hasn’t worked in the past and it won't work in the future." "Ts it your interpretation that the Balfour Declaration, morally and legally, signified the intention of the British people to set up a Jewish state?"

The Balfour Compromise "Oh no, quite definitely no. The Balfour Declaration, like all declarations, was a compromise-a formula designed in this case to bridge the gap between Mr. Balfour, Mr. Lloyd George, and the other members of the 1917 Cabinet, who definitely looked forward to a Jewish state, and on the other hand, the group in the Cabinet headed by the leading British Jew, Mr. Montague, who was against international Zionism, and opposed the whole notion of the Jewish state. As a result the Balfour Declaration carefully left it open and uncertain whether there would ever be 3 Jewish state in Palestine. And that's half the trouble. Mind you, if I had sat in that Cabinet knowing what I now know, I think I’d have been against it. But that’s neither here nor there now. Now it’s not a matter of wise or unwise decisions in the past, because the National Home is there-a real live fact. Already 500,000 Jews believing Britain's pledged word have packed their bags and gone to Palestine, and they’ve planned and they’ve achieved more than any other colonists in the history of the world. So what’s the good of asking what one would have done in 1917? In 1946 nothing which anybody says or anybody does is going to liquidate the National Home. It’s there, and it’s going to stay, and it’s going to grow, whatever policy is laid down by whatever Government. Its growth may be delayed, but in the end the Jews will win through to selfgovernment because they believe in what they’re doing, and because the peopie who are trying to stop them don’t. Ar least that’s how I feel." "You had some pretty sharp things to say in the report about the Jewish attitude to the Arabs." "Yes, but not nearly so sharp as the things we said and implied about the British Government’s attitude to the Arab, One Arab girl in eight can go to school-after 25 years of British administration of Palestine. That’s quite a fact." "Yes, the tremendous gap between economic and cultural level of the Jewish community and the Arab community must be a basic factor. How much would its solution contribute to the solving of the problem?" " Social Discrepancies "Well, the basic factor of it all of course is national, but social discrepancy as gross as it is in Palestine does embitter and intensify the national struggle. Just let me give you one in-. stance. There are some 2,300 engineers. in. Palestine with proper qualifications, Of these I believe 2,200 are Jews. Now how can two peoples even try to get together when they have no point of con-tact-when there’s no Arab of middle

class to correspond with the Jewish middle-class; when the Arab worker is illiterate, and the Jewish worker literate; when the Arab worker is just beginning to have Trade Unions, and when the Jew has achieved a closed shop; worst of all, when the Jewish worker on an average receives twice as much from the Jewish employer for the same work us the Arab worker receives from the Arab employer? Economic and social discrepancies in fact make it impossible for the individual Arab and Jew to have common interests, or to begin to look for a common solution to a common problem." "And what is the attitude of the British official towards the two com. munities, Jew and Arab?" "It’s dangerous to generalise. The best thing I can do is to quote to you the view of an officer who spent many, many years trying to indoctrinate policemen and make them impartial. I asked him the same question you asked me. And .he told me that you have to face the fact that despite every effort, roughiy 75 per cent. of the British in Palestine feel biased in favour of the Arabs. Now that doesn’t necessarily mean that they are biased, because in fact they are taught to counteract that prejudice, but it does mean that both in the police and the civil service there is an undeniable natural anti-Jewish bias in Palestine to-day. And no honest official would deny it." "What is this prejudice, in your opinion, based on?" "Well, my police friend told me that in his view it wasn’t just anti-Semitism as I had supposed. His theory is that the Englishman likes the rich Arab because he’s both cultured and charming, and he likes the poor Arab because he can feel superior to him. An English. man dislikes the Jew in Palestine because the Jew is, more often than not, far abler than the Englishman, and doesn’t hesitate to say so. I must say I was astounded by the Palestinian Jews. They are not a people which asks for sympathy or patronage, or which suffers fools gladly. They are the toughest community I have ever met in my life." The Hagannah "So there is something in the argument that the 10,000 from Europe, if they’re allowed in without disarmament taking place, might strengthen the Jewish Hagannah?" "Oh yes. To be perfectly honest, any Jew capable of bearing a weapon who arrives in Palestine to-day strengthens Hagannah whether he’s a 12-year-old boy or a 60-year-old grandfather. Because the Hagannah is like the Swiss army. It simply is the Jewish people in its part-time capacity as conscripts in the Hagannah. If you want to get an idea of what it’s like, think of the Jews in Palestine as a resistance movementfar better organised than the French Maquis, or Tito’s Partisans, certainly far more heavily armed, certainly with far more money, and, above all, with no quislings." (continued on next page)

PALESTINE REPORT (continued from previous page) "Do you feel that it’s either justifiable or practical then to make the granting of the 100,000 certificates conditional on the disarmament of the Jews and Arabs in Palestine?" "Well, it’s certainly not in accordance with the unanimous findings of our Committee. Since two American members »/ the Committee have made a public statement about this it’s now no secret, and the proposal to make disarmament a free condition of the 100,000 was in fact discussed by us.at length and it was rejected, firstly because you can’t do it; and second, and much more important, because the attempt to impose this condition would, in our view, almost cer. tainly lead to a war between the British Army and the Jew. By the way, don’t misunderstand me about one _ thing. Every decent JewI met in Palestine regrets the Hagannah, the atmosphere of conspiracy, the wild propaganda in the schools, the growing intolerance of the youth. Democracy in Palestine used to be one of the finest and the freest in the world. To-day it has all the tension of a resistance movement fighting for its life, and it’s lost most of its freedom in the process." Concession to Arabs "What about the Arabs? Have they an illegal army?" "No. After three years, and by employing some four and a-half divisions, we liquidated the Arab illegal army in 1939, and we then proceeded to concede to the Arabs more than their wildest dreams, which the Jews interpret as a lesson that violence pays in Palestine..So the Arabs have no need of an illegal army or of violence at the moment, because they have got what they want." "That hardly coincides with their statements about the Palestine Report." "Well, the report hasn’t been adopted by the Government yet. If it is, the Palestine Arab leaders will try to organ-

ise guerrilla warfare, and they’ll hope for assistance from the other Arab states. No military expert on the spot with whom I talked thought that largescale Arab resistance was an immediate possibility, Indeed just to show you the difference between opinion in London and that on the spot some people out there who really ought to know hold the view that if. the British withdrew the Jews would occupy the whole of Palestine in a few weeks, would easily defeat the Arabs, and it would take many years for the Arabs to organise an army which could defeat the Jews. So I don’t think immediate Arab armed resistance to this report as against isolated acts of violence is very likely." "How greatly in your opinion does the international aspect.of this, as it affects the-Big Three level operate? Is the fear of Russia an important factor in our policy in Palestine?" "I don’t know about the Big Three level. But I do know something about how the British- residents feel in the Middle East on this subject of Russia. I hate to say so, but some people out there seem to be mesmerized by Russia now just as they were mesmerized by Hitler 10 years ago. They spend their time asking, ‘What will Russia do?’ and doing nothing themselves. Actually of course there’s no evidence whatsoever that Russia would interfere in any way in Palestine affairs. But the facts have got to be faced. The Arab states have the choice between an Eastern and a Western alliance, and they will choose the alliance which brings them the biggest concrete benefit. If we can make it worth their while to be friends with us, they’ll be friends, whatever we do in Palestine. By worth their while I mean by lending them money, by helping them develop their country, by co-operation in cultural and education matters, and, above all, by irrigation schemes. If we can propose nothing of that sort to the Arab states, and if we simply treat them as strategic puppets, they will regard us as a selfish great power and they’li treat us accordingly."