THE FUTURE OF JERUSALEM

New Zealand Tablet, 9 August 1917, Page 28

THE FUTURE OF JERUSALEM

. Ecclesiastical circles in Rome are following the victorious inarch of the English on Jerusalem with a great and natural interest. The occupation of the Holy City is believed to be only a matter of weeks. I need not point out how this event, which will not be one of the least sensational of the present war, will affect all Christendom. It will very likely result in Palestine having a new status. Saved at last from the Turkish yoke, it will be placed under the protectoiate of the Great —Catholic, Protestant, and Orthodox. Before the war the population of Jerusalem was about 60,000; 45,000 of these were Jews, 8000 Mahomedans, 6000 Orthodox Greeks, 3000 Latin and Greek Catholics, and about a thousand Protestants. Most of the religious institutions belonged to France and Italy. It is only during the last few years, especially since the famous voyage in, the East of Wilhelm 11., that the Germans have tried to develop their influence in Palestine. Wilhelm 11, presented the German Benedictines with a piece of land known as the Dormition, on which a monastery has been built. There are also two other German monasteries, but all these institutions together, small as they are, cannot compete with the innumerable establishments of every sort, schools, hospitals, orphanages, churches, convents, seminaries, etc., which France and Italy have built—especially France, who from the time of Francis I. has enjoyed the privilege of having a protectorate over all the Christians in the Holy Land. It is obvious that war has changed all this. Since Turkey came into the struggle nearly all the monks and nuns who were subjects of the Allies have been expelled and their monasteries and convents looted and turned into barracks. From the point of view of the Catholic hierarchy Palestine forms a diocese governed by a bishop having the title of patriarch, and who is nearly always an Italian. It is unknown what has happened to the present Patriarch of Jerusalem, Mgr. Camassei. For many months the Vatican has iecei\ed no news from him. All that is known is that the German monks, who used to be a very small minority before the war, are to-day the masters of Jerusalem. This has naturally not stopped the Turks from committing every sort of profanation and vandalism under the benevolent eye of the German Consular authorities. When the British troops enter Jerusalem—and everything leads us to believe that the day is not far distantlet us hope that they ill not find too much destruction and ruin. Just one thing is causing the Vatican anxiety at the moment : this is lest the dream of Zionism may be fulfilled and Palestine become a Jewish kingdom instead of remaining the inalienable property of all the Christian Powers. An Italian paper, discussing the question of Zionism, recently made an interesting comment : it is that the re-constitution of Palestine as an independent Jewish state would have as its necessary consequence the denationalisation of all the Jews in Europe, who, as a result of the re-establishment of their nationality, would be regarded and treated as foreigners in all the countries where they live at present. Now the Jews have no interest in changing their present position for that of the subjects of a little Asiatic state. It is therefore unlikely that tire coming peace congress, when it considers the question of Palestine, will seriously consider this idle fancy of Zionism which haunts the imagination of a small minority of Jews. What appears to be certain is that the Holy Land will be internationalised and put directly under the great Christian Powers. Journal de Geneve (Rome correspondent).