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y£?/9 Printed for the War Cabinet. October 1017.

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SECRET.

THE F U T U R E OF PALESTINE.

I AM not concerned to discuss the question in dispute between the Zionist and
anti-Zionist Jews, viz., whether it is possible to reconcile the reconstitution of a
national home For the Jewish race in Palestine with the contented assimilation of
many millions of Jews in other countries where they have acquired nationality and
made a home.
1 am only interested in the more immediately practical questions :—
(a.) What is the meaning of the phrase " a National Home for the Jewish Race
in Palestine," and what is the nature of the obligation that we shall assume
if we accept this as a principle of British policy ?
(6.) If such . a policy be pursued what are the chances of its successful
realisation ?

For important as may be the political reasons (and they seem to me almost
exclusively political) for adopting such a line of action, we ought at least to consider
whether we are encouraging a practicable ideal, or preparing the way for disappointment
aud failure.
If I seek guidance from the latest collection of circulated papers (The. Zionist
Movement, G.-164). I find a fundamental disagreement among the authorities quoted
there as to the scope and nature of their aim. A " National Home for the Jewish race
or people " would seem, if the words are to bear their ordinary meaning, to imply a
place where the Jews can be reassembled as a nation, and where they will enjoy the
privileges of an independent -national existence. Such is clearly the conception of
those who, like Sir A. Mond, speak of the creation in Palestine of " an autonomous Jewish
State," words which appear to contemplate a State, i.e., a political entity, composed
of Jews, governed by Jews, and administered mainly in the interests of Jews. Such a
State might naturally be expected to have a capital, a form of government, and
institutions of its own. It would possess the soil or the greater part of the soil of the
country. It would take its place among the smaller nations of the earth.
The same conception appears to underlie several other of the phrases employed in
these papers, e.g., when we are told that Palestincis to become " a home for the Jewish
nation," " a national home for the Jewish race," " a Jewish Palestine," and when we
read of " the resettlement of Palestine as a national centre," and " t h e restoration of
Palestine to the Jewish people." All these phrases are variants of the same idea, viz.,
the recreation of Palestine as it was before the days of the dispersion.
Oh the other hand, Lord Rothschild, when he speaks of Palestine as " a home
where the J e u s couid speak their own language, have their own education, their own
civilisation, and religious institutions under the protection of Allied Governments,"
seems to postulate a much less definite form of political.existence, one, indeed, which is
quite compatible with the existence of an alien (so long as it is not a
Government.
At the other extreme the late Lord Cromer, who favoured the Zionist cause,
explains that the resuscitated Palestine is only to be " t h e spiritual centre of the J e w s "
and a reservoir of Jewish culture—aspirations whici are wholly different from those
which I have just recorded, and which appear to be incompatible with the evolution of a
comparatively email and for the most part agricultural or pastoral community.
I call attention to these contradictions because they suggest some hesitancy in
espousing a cause whose advocates have such very different ideas of what they mean.
. But I must proceed further to point out that, whichever interpretation we adopt,
Palestine would appear to be incapacitated by physical and other conditions from ever
becoming in any real sense the national home of the Jewish people.
That people numbers, we are told, about 12,000,000, scattered in all parts of the
world. Of this total 9^ millions are in Europe (including .6 millions in Russia) and
[1104] :
 2 millions in North America. The number in the United Kingdom is 245,000 ; the
number already in Palestine was, before the war, 125,000.
Now what is the capacity as regards population of Palestine within any reasonable
period of time? Under the Turks there is no such place or country as Palestine,
because it is divided up between the sanjak of Jerusalem and the vilayets of Syria and
Beirut. But let us assume that in speaking of Palestine in the present context we ,
mean the old Scriptural Palestine, extending from Dan to Beersheba, i.e., from Banias
to Bir Saba. This is a country of less than 10,000 square miles, including 4,000 to the
east of the Jordan, i.e., it is a country which, excluding desert lands, is not much bigger
than Wales. . Now Wales, in spite of having one city of nearly 200,000 people, and two
others of 200,000 between them, only supports a population of 2,000.000 persons.
Palestine, on the other hand, before the war contained a population the highest
estimate of which was between 600,000 and 700,000 persons, of which less than one­
quarter were Jews and the remainder (except for small Christian communities or
settlements) Moslems. The Jews were to a large extent congregated in the few towns,
e.g., in Jerusalem, where, out of a total population of 80,000, 55,000 were Jews—for
the most part living on alms or charity, or old men come to end their days in the
Holy City. The Jewish colonies, about which so much has been said, contained a
population of only 11,000. The remainder of the Jews'were in the other towns and
parts of the country.
Since the war the Turks have reduced the country to a condition,of abject debase­
ment. The Jewish colonies have either been dislocated or broken up, the various
missionary establishments, except the German and Spanish, have disappeared, the local
inhabitants have been conscripted and. to a large extent destroyed on the front, the
urban populations have been reduced to beggary, and colonies of Turkomans,
Circassians, Kurds, and other savage races have been planted about to hold the country
in subjection.
Before the war it was calculated by competent authorities who bad lived for years
in the country that for many years it could not support an increased population. After
the devastation wrought by the war it will be many decades before we can contemplate
a population that will even remotely approximate to that of Wales. This is a position
due not merely to the ravages of war, but to the present physical conditions of the
country, brought about by centuries of neglect and misrule. Before any considerable
revival can be expected there must be a colossal expenditure on afforestation, on
irrigation, on the rebuilding of the broken-down terraces which formerly supported the
cultivation. The Scriptural phase, a land " flowing, with milk and honey," which
suggests an. abounding fertility, must be read in relation to the de-ert features of
Sinai, to which it stood in glowing c mtrast, and loses somewhat of its picturesque
charm when we realise that the milk was that of the flocks of goats that roamed, and
still ream, the hills, while the honey was the juice of the small grape that was used as
a substitute for sugar and still makes a palatable wine.
Further, let it be borne in mind, when we speak of this devastated country as
a national home for a great people, that in the steamy Jordan valley no Europeans can
live or rear children, that only the higher parts of the country are suited for settlers
who come from more northerly climes, that malaria, fever, ophthalmia, and other
ailments abound, not to be eradicated save by great outlay and after a long time.
Palestine is, in fact, a poor land, containing no mineral wealth, no coal, no iron ore,
no copper, gold, or silver. It depends entirely on livestock (i.c, mainly, goats which crop
the bare hills) and agriculture. In parts, but in parts only, where there is sufficient
water and a good climate, excellent crops of wheat and barley are produced. Olive oil,
sesame, and oranges are the chief exports.
Such is the country—a country calling for prolonged and patient toil from a people
inured to agriculture—and even si only admitting after generations of a relatively
small population-that we are invited (if we can get hold of it, which we have not yet
done) to convert into the national home of a people, numbering many millions, brought
from other and different climates, and to a large extent trained in other industries and
professions.
There arises the further question, what is to become of the people of this country,
assuming the Turk to be expelled, and the inhabitants not to have been exterminated by
-the war ? There are over half a million of these, Syrian Arabs—a mixed community with
Arab, Hebrew, Canaanite, Greek, Egyptian, and possibly Crusaders' blood. They and
their forefathers have occupied the country for the best part of 1,500 years. They own
the soil,, which belongs either to individual landowners or to village communities. They
profess the Mohammedan faith. They will not be content either to be expropriated for
Jewish immigrants, or to act merely as hewers of wood and drawers of water to the
latter.
Further, there are other settlers who will have to be reckoned with. There are
100,000 Christians, who will not wish to be disturbed; east of the Jordan are large
colonies of Circassian Mahommedans, firmly established; there are also settlements
of Druses and Moslems from Algeria, Bulgaria, and Egypt.
No doubt a prodigal expenditure of wealth will secure the expropriation of some of
these. But when we reflect that the existing Jewish colonies, in the most favoured
spots, after a prodigious outlav, extending over many years, have only in a few cases as
vet become self-supporting, it is clear that a long vista of anxiety, vicissitude, and
expense lies before those who desire to rebuild the national home.
I spoke earlier of the dreams of those who foresee a Jewish State, with possibly
a Jewish capital at Jerusalem. Such a dream is rendered wholly incapable of
realisation by the conditions of Jerusalem itself. It is a city in which too many peoples
and too many religions, have a passionate and permanent interest to render an)' such
solution even dimly possible. The Protestant communities are vitally interested in the
churches and in the country as the scene of the most sacred events in history. Tne
Roman Catholics collect annually large sums and maintain extensive establishments at
Jerusalem and Bethlehem. The Greek Orthodox Church regards the Holy Places
with an almost frenzied reverence. Great pilgrimages come annually from the Slav
countries and Russia. I recall a flourishing Russian monastery on Mount Tabor. The
Hellenic clergy have large properties in the country.
Finally, next to Mecca and Medina, Jerusalem is the most sacred city of the
Mohammedan faith. The Mosque of Omar, on the site of the Temple of Solomon, is
one of the most hallowed of the shrines of Islam. It contains the great rock or
stone, from which Mohammed ascended on the back of his miraculous steed to
Heaven, and which is regarded with so much awe in the Moslem wot Id that when,
a few years ago, an Englishman was alleged to have been digging under it, the uproar
spread throughout the Moslem world. It is impossible to contemplate any future in
which the Mohammedans should be excluded from Jerusalem. Hebron is a site scarcely
less sacred to Islam. It is no doubt from a full consciousness of these facts that the
wisest of the Zionists forgo any claim to the recovery of Jerusalem as the centre and
capital of a revived Jewish State, and hope only that it may,remain as a sort of enclave
in international, if not in British, hands.
But is it not obvious that a country which cannot within any proximate period
contain anything but a small population, which has already an indigenous population of
its own of a (iifferent race and creed, which can possess no urban centre or capital, and
which is suited only to certain forms of agricultural and pastoral development, cannot,
save by a very elastic use of the term, be designated as the national home of the
Jewish people ? It mav become the home of a considerably larger number of Jewish
settlers than now, mainly brought from the eastern parts of.Europe (though the chance
of their coming in large numbers or being sent for political reasons from Austria and
Germany is by no means to be ignored) ; this colonisation ma)' be supported by the
expenditure of large sums of money; the productiveness and health of the country
may be slowly improved by the application of enterprise and science; a Jewish com­
munity, freed from the misrule of the Turks and enjoying equal rights with other
sections of the population, may become prosperous and even powerful. But again I
ask, is this what we contemplate when we say in our proposed formula that " His.
Majesty's Government view with favour the establishment in Palestine of a national
home for the Jewish race " ? If we contemplate no more, is it wise to use language
which suggests so much mi re ? *
In reality is not the maximum policy that we can possibly hope to realise one
which, if the Turks are defeated and turned out of Palestine, will—
(a.) Set up some form of European administration (it cannot be Jewish adminis­
tration) in that country,
(b.) Devise a machinery for safeguarding and securing order both in the Christian
and in the Jewish Holy Places,
(c.) Similarly guarantee the integrity of the Mosque of Omar and vest it in some
Moslem body.
(dj Secure to the Jews (but not to the Jews alone) equal civil and religious
/ights with the other elements in the population,
(e.) A- range as .far as possible for land purchase and settlement of returning
.. / Jews, .;. .. , . - ­
 If this is Zionism there is no.reason why we should not all be Zionists, and I
would gladly give my adhesion to such a policy, all the more that it appears to be
recommended by considerations of the highest expediency, and to be urgently demanded
as a check or counterblast to the scarcely concealed and sinister political designs of the
Germans. But in my judgment it is a policy very widely removed from the romantic
and idealistic aspirations of many of the Zionist leaders whose literature I have studied,
and, whatever it does, it will not in my judgment provide either a national, a material,
or even a spiritual home for any more than a very small section of the Jewish people.
C. of K.
October 26, 1917.

PlilJiTED AT THE FOREIGN OFFICE BY C. K. HAKKISON.-27/1 f/1917 - \

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