← Covering Palestine

San Francisco Chronicle · San Francisco, California · 20 November 1927

CP-1927-008

Palestine Is Celebrating Its Ten Years of Progress

Holy Land Is Becoming an Industrious Country, Officials Report · Proclamation Pledging Aid of Great Britain Improves Conditions

Palestine Is Celebrating Its Ten Years of Progress — San Francisco Chronicle, 20 November 1927
San Francisco Chronicle · San Francisco, California · 20 November 1927

Transcribed from the clipping

“I have visited Palestine twice — two years ago and this year. I went to Palestine with a sense of fear that I might be disillusioned. I was afraid that Palestine was but a dream of the dreamers, that the lovers of Zion had painted a picture that was more beautiful than real, more dream than actuality. And so I feared that Palestine might prove at close range only a painful disappointment… Palestine Transformed Into Living Land Again. I traveled throughout the little land from Hebron up to Kfar Gileadi. I visited the old and the new Jewish colonies, the old and new cities, and what I found may be described as a veritable miracle of today. The Jews, in less than eight years, have transformed Palestine into a living, throbbing beautiful little land… The antagonism between the Arabs and the Jews is dying out slowly and gradually. The great difficulty is caused by the difference between the two civilizations, that of the East represented by the Arabs, and of the West represented by the Jews.… Dr. Chaim Weizmann, president of the World Zionist organization, who was instrumental in securing the Balfour declaration during the World war, said: ‘The restoration of Palestine to Israel now is nothing short of a miracle…’ ‘We are attempting to build a home in Palestine and we are conscious that this building can only be successful if it will be done in co-operation with the peoples of Palestine. We are coming into Palestine not as conquerors. We are taking our place according to our merits and our achievements. The Arabs and Christians have to recognize that we have a right to do what we intend to do. Just as we recognize that Palestine is going to be the common homeland for Jews and Arabs, we want the Arabs to recognize that we have a right to come into Palestine, not on the back of anybody, but with them, to work and create new values of which Palestine is capable.’ ‘Palestine has a population of about 700,000 non-Jews, an overwhelming majority of Moslems, a small minority of Christians and another small minority of Jews. Roughly speaking, there are 500,000 Moslems, 100,000 Christians, and 150,000 Jews.’… During the last eight years the Jewish population of Palestine has grown from 50,000 to 150,000… In 1911 Palestine was visited by 5700 tourists. In 1923 it was visited by 15,500 tourists, and in 1925, by 20,000… In Palestine the most interesting experiment in modern times is taking place. From all corners of the earth the dry bones of Israel are gathered… They come there as builders, as messengers of peace, not of war.”

Photograph caption

“Tourists in Central India derive much amusement from trading at the open air fruit markets, such as that shown above. The vendor always quotes a price for his wares that is two or three times their value, and the purchaser must be a good trader to get value for his money. The lack of rain in the summer permits the markets to be maintained outdoors.”

Context added by this archive

The whole page marks ten years of the Balfour Declaration, and the single large photograph on it is a fruit market in Central India, captioned as a fruit market in Central India. Nothing on the page connects the picture to the subject. The text is worth keeping for its own figures: 500,000 Moslems, 100,000 Christians and 150,000 Jews, with the Jewish population having tripled in eight years, and Chaim Weizmann saying in the same column that the Jews are coming into Palestine not as conquerors and that it is going to be the common homeland for Jews and Arabs.

Cite this item

"Palestine Is Celebrating Its Ten Years of Progress," San Francisco Chronicle, 20 November 1927. Covering Palestine archive, CP-1927-008. https://coveringpalestine.org/archive/cp-1927-008

Elsewhere in the archive

This record is part of Covering Palestine, an archive of American and Anglophone newspaper clippings about Palestinians, 1812 to 2022. Researched and assembled by Maria Robles.

The clipping belongs to the newspaper that printed it, or to the wire service that supplied the copy. It is reproduced here for research, criticism and commentary. The city is derived from the masthead, not read off the clipping.

Something wrong here, or something you know about this clipping? The archive is still being built and corrections are wanted: maria@rozumstudio.com, quoting CP-1927-008.

See it in the archive reel · Full text of every clipping · Dataset