PALESTINE FACES NEW BLOODSHED

Arab-Jewish Conflict Becomes Great Britain's Thorniest Problem

Webb Miller, United Press, London

PALESTINE FACES NEW BLOODSHED — The Buffalo News, 29 July 1938 — The Buffalo News · Buffalo, New York · 29 July 1938

Send this clipping to somebody

Transcribed from the clipping

“LONDON, July 28 (U.P.). — Great Britain faces in Palestine perhaps the thorniest problem of her imperial history, with little hope that any formula for solution will prevent long and violent conflict between Arabs and Jews.

The British wartime government made seemingly irreconcilable commitments for establishment of an independent Arab state and for creation of a Jewish nation in the same land on the eastern shores of the Mediterranean. Both Jews and Arabs demand fulfillment of these pledges. The result has been a series of killings, bombings and other outrages approaching civil war.

The 9000 troops, warships, armored cars and airplanes which Great Britain has sent to police Palestine prove futile against guerrilla warfare. Just as futile have been the investigations and recommendations of officials and commissions.

I am convinced that British authorities are basing their hope for a settlement on partition of Palestine into three parts—Arab, Jewish and British—with arrangements for British arms to enforce the division. A friend in Jerusalem in touch with the British commission now studying the problem outlined to me the main points of the probable recommendation.

‘The partition of Palestine into three parts along the lines already suggested by the Peel commission but with slight alterations for strategic purposes is probable,’ he said. ‘One alternative would be to add to the Jewish state the ridges which control the Sharon valley, leaving the Negeb region undivided for development under British mandate.

The Arab state would be joined to Trans-Jordania under Emir Abdullah. Since voluntary acceptance of these recommendations is improbable, they would have to be imposed by force. That probably would mean more bloodshed.’

The Jewish agency representing the Zionist movement already has officially indicated willingness to negotiate with the British regarding establishment of a Jewish state under a partition scheme. The faction known as Revisionists aims to eventual Jewish domination of all Palestine.

Arabs object to the partition theory, in which they see the death knell of their aspirations to rule a territory which they regard as theirs by right of 13 centuries of occupation. An exiled Arab leader gave the following explanation: ‘We believe the British in desperation are going to try to force partition upon us. We shall never accept.

Aside from the fact that the British promised us independence, we object to partition that would leave Arabs only rocky, infertile hill regions unable to support their population. Establishment of a Jewish state could not solve the problem of world Jewry because such a state could not hold more than a fraction of Jews who want to escape oppression in Europe.’”

Context added by this archive

The same correspondent who filed the ten-point Arab case in December 1937, writing from London five months earlier. An exiled Arab leader, unnamed, is given the last word, including the argument that a Jewish state could not hold enough of the Jews fleeing Europe.

Cite this clipping

"PALESTINE FACES NEW BLOODSHED," The Buffalo News, 29 July 1938, p. 1. Covering Palestine archive, CP-1938-001. https://coveringpalestine.org/archive/cp-1938-001