PALESTINE: Vengeance Into Murder

When an ugly fact bobbed up to bother Queen Victoria she knew how to tuck the thing away comfortably out of mind. There are still Britons with that talent. Last week His Majesty's government decided to tuck away the fact of racial conflict between Jews and Arabs in Palestine (TIME, Aug. 26, et seq.]. The thing was attempted by Prime Minister James Ramsay MacDonald in the course of his great speech outlining policy (see p. 25). Said he:

"There was no racial conflict in what happened in Palestine the other day. It is a situation where the leaders of both races ought to join together and with common voice and with a passion shared equally in both their hearts condemn what was nothing less than an ordinary piece of political crime.

"This is no conflict between Moslem and Jew; this is simply an uprising of lawlessness and disorder, whatever its motive may be. So far as we are concerned it is not a question of Moslem or Jew, Christian or nonChristian. It isn't a question like that at all. . . ."

Intellectually such words are nonsense. Emotionally, they may prove to be the acme of British commonsense. The situation in Palestine had become quiet last week, with 5,000 British troops policing the land, disarming both, Jews and Arabs, recovering loot seized in the riots, massacres and town-burnings of last fortnight. Quite possible the best way to quench the strife of Islam v. Israel was to make both factions feel that further slaughter would be common murder, not glorious and justifiable vengeance taken upon a rival race and creed.

Mopping Up. The colonial secretary in charge of Britain's Palestine mandate is famed Economist Sidney Webb, Baron Passneld. Last week he instructed the British High Commissioner at Jerusalem, Sir John Chancellor, to take steps for "the collection of evidence before it disappears" as to whether the Jew-Arab clashes which began last month at Jerusalem's famed Wailing Wall were "spontaneous or pre-conceived." This evidence will be sifted by a special British parliamentary com- mission, created last week by Baron Passfield and chairmanned by Sir Walter Shaw, recently Chief Justice of the British Straits Settlements, a colonial jurist of tact and renown.

All week ephemeral charges were made by Arab and Jewish organizations in Palestine and throughout the world, each race trying to put major blame on the other. But the colonial office ignored all such manifestations, prepared to finish the mopping up as a matter of police methods and British justice. Said Baron Pasfield:

"Britain does not intend to abandon her duties; despite the unthankful character of her job. We will continue the difficult task of maintaining order and upholding the national Jewish home in Palestine."