Part 25 (2/2)

During these three terrible days several Jews were killed, hundreds were wounded (many of these being old men, women and children), rape was perpetrated, Synagogues were burnt, and tens of thousands of pounds worth of Jewish property was looted or destroyed.

The pogrom was confined to that part of Jerusalem within the walls of the old City, where the Moslems greatly outnumber the Jews--in fact the latter are here a small and helpless minority. They take no part in politics, not even in political Zionism, but are absorbed in religious practices and observances, and abhor all things worldly. Even self-defence is repellent to them, and all forms of violence anathema.

These harmless people dwell in half-a-dozen narrow tortuous streets and bazaars, in one corner of the old City. This Jewish quarter is quite easy to defend. A few armed men posted at the narrow entrances could hold any mob at bay. Why did not the military authorities see that this was done? It was not until the third day that effective action was taken. In the meantime, h.e.l.l was let loose on these unfortunate people.

Even the wretched few who got to the City gates, unless they possessed special permits, were refused permission to escape and were forced to return to the devilries being enacted by the murdering, raping, looting mob.

It is a black page in our history, and those responsible should not be allowed to escape just punishment.

To cover their own blunders the local Administration looked round for a scapegoat, and arrested Jabotinsky and some score members of the Jewish Self-Defence Corps.

Jabotinsky was tried on a ridiculous charge of ”banditism, instigating the people of the Ottoman Empire to mutual hatred, pillage, rapine, devastation of the country, and homicide in divers places”--in fact the Ottoman penal code was ransacked to trump up these absurd charges against him. Jabotinsky had been guilty of nothing except that he had organised the Self-Defence Corps with the full knowledge of the authorities, many weeks before the outbreak, and it was owing to the existence of this Corps that the pogrom did not take much more serious dimensions. By far the greater part of the Jews, and practically all the Zionist Jews, dwell outside the old City in the modern part of Jerusalem, and it would naturally be upon these that the mob would have fallen, but not a Jewish house outside the City walls was raided, for the simple reason that the Jewish Self-Defence Corps was there and ready to act.

The Self-Defence Corps did nothing whatever against the British Authorities, and many members of it were in fact used by the Administration to police the environs of the City. Nevertheless, a British Military Court, which publicly stated that it would be bound by no rules of procedure, was found, which convicted Jabotinsky, and inflicted upon him the savagely vindictive sentence of FIFTEEN YEARS'

PENAL SERVITUDE!

This trumping up of the preposterous charges mentioned is a disgrace to British Justice, and the whole history of this atrocious outrage is a foul stain on our fair fame.

It may be noted in pa.s.sing that two Arabs caught raping Jewish girls during the pogrom received the same sentence as Jabotinsky, whose only crime was that he was a Jew.

Jabotinsky was cast into prison, clothed in prison garb, had his hair cropped, and was marched in company with the two Arabs convicted of rape through Jerusalem and Kantara, places where he was well known as a British officer. Even the worst Hun that we have read of could hardly have exceeded the savagery and tyranny shown by the Military Authorities of the E.E.F. towards Jabotinsky, an officer who fought stoutly for us and helped England and her cause in every possible way to the full extent of his power during the War.

Of course a storm of public indignation was aroused. In fact one of our leading Statesmen, on seeing the telegram announcing the barbarous sentence, was heard to remark:--

”The Military in Palestine must have gone mad.”

The matter was raised in the House of Commons, and Mr. Churchill, who was then Secretary of State for War, was called upon to make a statement. The War Office took action and, in a very short time, the sentence was annulled.

It apparently required this outrage to open the eyes of the Home Government to what was going on in Palestine. As soon as they realised the situation, matters began to move in the right direction, and one of the first steps taken was the removal of the Military Administration which had failed so hopelessly to carry out the policy of the Imperial Government.

CHAPTER x.x.xVI.

THE DAWN.

While Jerusalem was yet plunged in sorrow and filled with lamentation, the glad tidings arrived from San Remo that the Allied Council had endorsed England's promise of a National Home for the Jews in Palestine, and that Great Britain had been appointed the Mandatory Power.

England, to emphasize her determination to deal justly with Israel, wisely decided that the ruler of Palestine should be a Jew, and appointed Sir Herbert Samuel as first High Commissioner of the Holy Land.

When the great roll-call is made of those who have helped in bringing about the Restoration, the name of Baron Edmund de Rothschild will take a high and honourable place. His boundless munificence to the Zionist cause and to the Zionist Colonists in Palestine has helped the movement enormously.

Palestine will loom larger and larger in world importance as the years roll by. We have seen that it is the very keystone of our policy in the Near and Far East, and when it is colonized by a friendly people working hand in hand with England then the vexed question of our interests in those regions will be solved.

There is plenty of room in Palestine for both Jew and Arab, and, in fact, one is the complement of the other. At present there are about 650,000 Arabs in the country, but when Palestine is watered and tilled and made a fruitful country once again, it will support a population of five or six millions of people.

Not only would the Jews not injure the Arabs, but, on the contrary, Jewish colonization and Jewish enterprise will prove extremely beneficial to all the dwellers in Palestine.

The Jewish immigrants now going into the country are full of boundless enthusiasm, ready to work and give even life itself to bring about the reconstruction of their ancient Homeland.

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