Page:Zionism 9204 Peace Conference 1920.pdf/58

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46
THE FUTURE OF PALESTINE
No. 162

a Jewish administration would be acceptable to the Arabs and would possess their confidence. The writer attaches great importance to the name of the country. He thinks it should be called 'Israel', and the inhabitants 'Israelites', whether they profess the Jewish religion or not. Hebrew is to be the language of the country, the governor a Jew, preferably one who has distinguished himself as an administrator in the British Empire. The governor is to be assisted by a State Council, partly nominated and partly elected. There is to be complete religious toleration, but Jewish law is to be the fundamental law of the land, and Jewish Sabbaths and Holy Days are to be the recognized days of rest.

This scheme seems somewhat premature, but, so far as the Arabs are concerned, the son of the King of the Hejaz, the Emir Feizul, is reported to have stated in London on December 11 that

Arabs are not jealous of Zionist Jews and intend to give them fair play, and the Zionist Jews have assured the Nationalist Arabs of their intention to see that they too have fair play in their respective areas. Turkish intrigue in Palestine has raised jealousy between the Jewish colonists and the local peasants; but the mutual understanding of the aims of the Arabs and the Jews will at once clear away the last trace of this former bitterness.

Dr. Weizmann himself, on his return from Palestine, has reported to the Zionists in such wise as to disappoint some of the keenest nationalists among them. They fear that the future condition of Palestine, as he foreshadows it, is by no means ambitious enough. They are inclined to regard his proposals as merely colonization and 'the settling on the land of a number of peasants, presumably those who are unable to live in other countries, and who would be glad to go to Palestine on charity lines'. He is not sufficiently nationalist for them, and they fear that his Zionism is merely that of the old Chovevi Zion philanthropist. They ask whether this is not precisely the formula of the Conjoint Committee of March 3, 1916, which