THE FUTURE OF PALESTINE

New Zealand Tablet, 11 March 1915, Page 9

THE FUTURE OF PALESTINE

(For the A .Z. Tablet, by the Very Rev. Dean Mahoney, Onehunga.) ' Among all the speculations rife concerning the future of the Turkish Empire there is one portion of its territory which, so far, I have not seen discussed, and that is Palestine. It is now generally recognised that ,the Sick Man of Europe is moribund—sick unto death from an acute attack of German measles, coming on a constitution already enfeebled by the Balkan wax:, and’ after this present war the Ottoman Empire ends. Turkey will in future be numbered among the Asiatic Powers, and instead of being spread over three continents, she will be confined to one. The province of Anatolia, the Mysia and Bithynia of the ancients, will be the chief centre. The future capital of Turkey, no doubt, will be Smyrna, that is the political and commercial capital, for the religious capital, the seat of the Caliphate, will be Mecca. Smyrna is known to many people to produce principally figs and earthquakes. When I was there in 1891, the Cathedral had a huge crack in the wall behind the high altar, the effect of a quake a short time before, but the clergy thought nothing of it, as it did not seem to affect the stability of the structure. As the city possesses the finest harbor in Asia Minor, It ought to excel Constantinople in commerce, as under the Greek emperors it rivalled the capital in trade and importance. And so the shadow of Islam is lifting from the beautiful dome of St. Sophia, where it has hung for* four and a-half centuries, and on the walls of Stamboul will soon be written ‘ Ichabod ’ ! The magnificent Church of Justinian is fated once more to pass into schismatic hands. For exactly 400 years St. Sophia was the Cathedral of the schismatic Patriarch of Constantinople, and for 461 years it has been the chief mosque of the Moslems in Turkey. Whether in God’s mercy it is to remain much longer separated from the centre of unity, who knows ? Will there ever resound within its walls, Or emus pro Pontifice nostro Benedicto, which words, or their Greek equivalent, were last heard nearly 900 years ago, when the eighth Benedict sat oil the throne of Peter ? But if European Turkey is to pass once more under Christian rule, what about Palestine ? It hardly seems congruous that the cradle of Christianity should any longer be left in the hands of the infidel. That is a matter of vast interest to the whole of Christendom. Or, is it to become a second Albania ? As a nation it is just as little homogeneous as Albania is. If the Allies decide upon wresting it from the Turk, which of the three great Powers is to be paramount ? I am assuming that Italy, which has of late years extended her influence very much in the Holy Land, does not join in the war. Will Russia, France, and England divide it into different spheres of influence, or establish a tripartite control ? Another factor to be considered is the influence of the eat Jewish financiers who are providing in great part the sinews of the present war. The Zionists may try to realise their dreams of restoring the Kingdom of Israel. To that Russia will never agree. She has promised a great deal to the Jews who are fighting in her ranks, just as she has promised the Poles to restore their kingdom, but the German and Austrian Poles seem to realise the value of such promises for they still go on fighting Russia. Were a Jewish state to be formed, composed of Hebrews from, every nation whfere they are at present found, there would be two difficulties at least to face at the outset. The first would be as to what form of (government would be best suited to people who had lived under every form from autocratic to democratic, from the tyranny of Russia to the tolerance of the United States. A return to the ancient theocratic 'form would be out of the question in these days, when the laws of God enter so little into the polity of modern nations. It would be considered an anachronism. The second difficulty would be the language question. Outside of the synagogue the Jews of different nationalities

have no common tongue. The Yiddish, or Juedisch, as its name indicates, is ;of German origin. It is at best a jargon composed of corrupt Hebrew and old German it is not a literary language, though it has its newspapers, and it is not spoken by the vast bulk of the Slavic or Latin Jews. Hence the modern Israelites have nothing in common with one another but their faith; their language, customs, habits of thought differ according to the countries in which they live, and to men with such strong commercial instincts as most Jews have, sentiment is not powerful enough to make them give up all the political and social advantages, which they possess, in such countries as for example England and the United States, to settle in Palestine under conditions that would be only experimental. The three chief Allies might consent to divide Syria, Palestine, and part of Arabia, into spheres of —France taking Northern Syria, where most of the Christians live and where her influence was once all powerful; Russia probably from the Sea of Galilee to the confines of Idumea, and England contenting herself with Idumea and as far down Arabia as the Gulf of Akaba, making the Sinai Peninsula a protecting buffer to Egypt and the Canal. Russia has already established colonies of her people, not Jews, about Jerusalem. In her attitude towards the Chosen People she is just as intransigent as the Turk, if not more so. Should the Holy Places pass into Russian hands, so much the worse for the Church, as no Catholic priest will be allowed to say Mass again in the Holy Sepulchre or in the Church of the Nativity at Bethlehem —a privilege always allowed or at least for many years past by the Grank Turk. Compared with the Russian, the Turk is the very soul of tolerance. I was able to say Mass or assist at it without let or hindrance in the African, Asiatic, and European parts of Turkey ; in fact, I was never asked for my passport anywhere within Ottoman territory, but when I tried to enter Holy Russia I was only granted permission to do so on condition that I did not attempt to offer up the Holy Sacrifice within the Empire : indeed, it was hinted that I was expected to break the record in time between Yladivostock in Siberia, and Abo in Finland. I did not break the record, however I determined to break my journey instead, and so had my passport impounded for forty-eight hours by the police in collusion with the hotelkeepers, both at Moscow and St. Petersburg.