Palestine

Part of the debate – in the House of Commons at 12:00 am on 11 December 1947.

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Photo of Sir Henry Legge-Bourke Sir Henry Legge-Bourke , Isle of Ely 12:00, 11 December 1947

I do not think I can recollect any day, either in my Army career or in my short life in this House, when I found it more difficult to make up my mind as to what is right than on this occasion. I fully endorse what my hon. Friend the senior Burgess for Cambridge University (Mr. Pickthorn) said when he declared that it would be wrong to say anything in this Debate which one felt was likely to lead to greater harm than has already been done, and that remark has caused me a great deal of thought. Therefore, I feel very hesitant about saying what I propose to say.

First, I must tell the House that I reject this plan completely, because I believe that it will lead inevitably to world war. I believe that partition cannot work in Palestine, and I believe that, if we have a problem which is very grave and apparently insoluble, it is no use dividing it into two, so that in each part we reproduce the same problem. I feel that I should tell the House the reasons which lie behind my decision. I believe that the main principle which matters in this world from the democratic point of view, is that we do not achieve prosperity until we have established peace, and that we do not achieve peace until we have established justice. I maintain that there are three incidents in the whole of the Palestine picture and in the history of our rule in Palestine for which there is no justification whatever.

The first was the Balfour Declaration. I maintain that that cannot be found to be just in any way, and it was made clear by Mr. Landman, one of the younger Zionists, who, at Dr. Weizmann's request, was transferred from M.I. 9 in 1918, that the price of American aid at the end of the first war was considered to be an effort to secure Palestine for the Jews, and he emphasised that the new Jewish leaders were anxious lest a Jewish Palestine should affect their civic rights here in this country, and that they were also generally concerned for the Arab inhabitants of Palestine. The second injustice to me is that the Mandate for Palestine conflicted with Clause 4 of Article 22 of the Covenant of the League of Nations, and was therefore unjust to the Arab population. The third injustice is the subsequent action in implementing the Balfour Declaration without the Arabs having either agreed about immigration or as to the Mandatory Power, and I maintain that that injustice has simply served to exacerbate any rivalry or jealousy which may have been in existence between Jew and Arab at the time of the Mandate.

These conclusions on the subject of these injustices are the three premises which I have in mind when approaching the problems which we are discussing today, and I would now like to try to apply the principle which I mentioned at the beginning, when I said that a solution which had to be just must also promote peace. The U.N.O. proposal splits Palestine into two. I am quite convinced that the inevitable result of that is world war. I think it is only right, however, that, if I criticise and challenge this U.N.O. scheme, I should at least try to provide an alternative, and that is, of course, the hardest task of all today. Before I put forward my views and suggestions, I want to say a few words about Zionism. On page 11 of the Report of the General Assembly, paragraph 9, these words appear: In physical resources … Palestine is extremely poor, having neither coal, iron, nor any other important mineral deposits. Indeed, the only considerable non-agricultural resources are the potassium and sodium salts which are extracted from the Dead Sea. Then it goes on: Oil, on which some people have set hopes, has not been discovered in payable quantities, though tests are proceeding in the South. I maintain that that statement is fundamentally incorrect. The resources of the Dead Sea are enormous, but at the same time they are themselves but a small part of the total resources, most of which are underground. The largest of these underground resources are potash and oil, but there are other resources in Palestine, including gold in solution in the Dead Sea which has been valued at between £10,000 million and £5,000 million, and the magnesium chloride, which was estimated by the Crown Agents for the Colonies in 1925 to amount to 22,000 million tons. As long ago as 1864, it was suggested to the Turks that potash could be produced in the Dead Sea, and I mention the date of that because I think it is important that it preceded by 33 years the first Zionist Congress of 1897. Since then, various Zionists have commented on future economic prospects, and, at a meeting addressed by Mr. Ettinger on 29th May, 1929, of the Zionist Federation of Sydney, Australia, Mr. Ettinger is reported to have said this, referring to the Novomeysky concession which since has become the Palestine Potash Company: Had we lost this concession, our whole future in Palestine might have been in danger. All these matters are of an economic nature, but it is in this sphere that our political work is most important. A year before that, the late Lord Melchett, addressing a conference of Zionists and non-Zionists at the Biltmore Hotel, New York, on 20th October, 1928, said, in urging non-Zionists Jews to join the Zionist movement: Let me tell you, you cannot afford to wait. While we are discussing, other people are acting. Whereas we have reports as to the possibilities in Palestine, Gentiles are acquiring land and beginning to take possession of all the best things in the country …. If we do not get together and do something within the next five years, the opportunities may be so slight, and the ideal we have set before us in Palestine may never be realised. I am not troubling about the economic development of Palestine. That is assured. The problem is who will do it. A debate took place in another place on 20th March, 1929, in which Lord Melchett did his best to discourage unwary investors from thinking that there was what he called "a golden fortune in the Dead Sea potash." It is, perhaps, naturally difficult for hon. Members of this House who are also Zionists to avoid it, but, throughout the history of this movement, there has been a tendency towards what I might call "political schizophrenia," which is borne out by the two quotations which I have given. The concession was granted on 1st January, 1930, to Mr. Novomeysky. Sir John Hope Simpson, in his Report of 30th October, Command 3686, page 117, said: If the Dead Sea concession proves to be a successful venture, it is impossible to forecast the magnitude to which the chemical industry arising therefrom may expand. It is obviously true that the idea of a National Home has appealed to the less-informed Jews, but the interests of political Zionism have other aims in view. In his book, "The Jew in Revolt" W. Zuckerman said: A Jew can do nothing but follow the road shown by the Soviet Union. There is no other way for him. As a Jew he must join the army, fighting for the social revolution, or perish. … Spiritually, the social revolutionary movement is saving the Jews for the world. I do not suggest that all Jews automatically agree with that, but I submit that the inspiration of political Zionism is similar to that which lay behind Bolshevism in 1918. The Netherlands Minister when in Petrograd on 6th September, 1918, and as reported in Letter No. 6, Command Paper 8, which was the White Paper entitled "Russia, No. 1, 1919," said: I consider that the immediate suppression of Bolshevism is the greatest issue now before the world, not even excluding the war which is still raging, and unless, as above stated, Bolshevism is nipped in the bud immediately, it is bound to spread in one form or another over Europe and the whole world, as it is organised and worked by Jews who have no nationality and whose one object is to destroy for their own ends the existing order of things. I submit that the aim of people who finance Zionists is to get control of the economic resources of Palestine which have been deliberately kept out of the public eye. I hope it will be realised that there is a far bigger issue in this than a mere war between Arabs and Jews. It is an economic war, and power politics of the very worst sort.

I would commend to the attention of the House the oral evidence given by the Communist Party of Palestine to the representatives of U.N.O. on 13th July this year. I am not going to read it to the House, but hon. Members will find it on page 145 of Annex A, Vol. 3, of Supplement No. 11 of the Official Record of the second session of the General Assembly. I suggest that they should compare it with Dr. Weizmann's remarks on page 78 of that report and with Mr. Preminger's remarks on pages 235 and 237. I believe that once Arabs and Jews are left to the mercies of an unsupported Commission, as is, apparently to be the case, "the big show" will start to develop. If this proposal of U.N.O. goes, forward, and we acquiesce, we shall have sown the seeds for the next world war, and the harvest may be far earlier than we expect, and may produce a bumper crop.

How, then, is peace to be maintained? I maintain that partition is an impossible way. The only way it might work—and even then I think it is remote—is when it is enforced. Partition multiplies by at least two the present troubles, however forcibly it is imposed. I recommend that His Majesty's Government should, before it is too late, go back to U.N.O., and say that this country cannot possibly agree with its decision.

I suggest that His Majesty's Government should propose a three months' moratorium, announcing that, at the end of that time, they are prepared to meet both sides in Palestine, or all the Jewish and Arab representatives throughout the world. If at the end of that three months' period nothing has transpired, and neither side has come forward and agreed to meet, Great Britain should herself impose the following. A provisional elected government of Arabs and Jews in the relation of two-thirds to one-third, excluding all those on both sides who have bad criminal records behind them; maintaining law and order by giving at long last the British Army a completely free hand. I would then suggest that the Palestine Police Force which, apparently, is already moving in the right direction, should gradually have its British element thinned out, as has been done in the Egyptian Police, and that the Defence Force of Arabs and Jews should be gradually Palestinised, as the Indian Army was Indianised. We should set then a provisional period of nine years in which to complete this process, allowing three three-year elected assemblies in that time.

I do not think that anybody hoped more than I that U.N.O. would be a success, and would unite the world in a just peace. Therefore, I feel it all the more bitterly that, in the first real testing which U.N.O. has had, it should, apparently, have shown itself quite incapable of discerning where true justice lay. Justice is more important than the judges, even if the judges happen to be the United Nations. Because I believe that, I cannot accept this proposal, which I can foresee resulting in mass bloodshed. It does not matter whether that blood be Jewish, Arab or British. Some will inevitably be shed. Let us see, at all costs, that the blood shed is as little as possible, and that what has to be shed is shed in the cause of justice, and not in the perpetuation of yet another unjust blunder which gives the final shove to the tottering foundations of peace. If and when His Majesty's Government accept what I propose, and recommend it to U.N.O., I believe that, when the time comes for setting up the joint state, the only way to do it will be, in the words of the Duke of Milan in the last scene of the "Two Gentlemen of Verona": Know then, I here forget all former griefs, Cancel all grudge, repeal thee home again, Plead a new state in thy unrivall'd merit, To which I thus subscribe.