Lawrence of Arabia, Zionism and Palestine - The World War I ...

J18 ZIONISM AND PALESTINE
but the Government was undoubtedly right in resisting
a nomenclature intolerable to the vast majority of
Palestinians, and in substituting the device, relatively
inoffensive to all parties (though giving complete satisfaction
to none), of adding to "Palestine" in Hebrew
the two Hebrew initials (E.Y.).
We cannot look ahead more than a certain distance ; as
the Emperor William I answered Benedctti at Ems, no
man can guarantee anything à tout jamais. It may be
that the Arabs, spurred by honourable rivalry, will
attain a privileged position and a degree of civilization
inconceivable without Zionism. 1 The National Home
is beyond question unshakably established. Already its
numbers exceed that of the Cypriot nation. 2 If (as many
hold for their only belief), religion is dying, or if, with
the same result, some passionless Nordic creed should
reduce Holy Places to mere Ancient Monuments, then
Palestine would be an easier place to govern. Three
great faiths and a dozen denominations would look back
with incredulous pride to the battles each fought to
maintain its ideal. That time, if ever it come, is many
generations distant. But even if Mecca went, and Medina,
Jerusalem will bear it out unto the crack of doom;
and reasonable tolerance in the visiting and use of the
Holy Places—the Dome, the Sepulchre and the Wall—
I " Hospitable to various ethnic types and cultures, Palestine
has always been a Land of tribes and sects, and very seldom, if
ever, the country of one nation and one religion and under one
king." Sir G. Adam Smith, Legacy of Israel, p. 3.
1 "There exists in Palestine to-day, as the result of fifty years
of Zionist enterprise, a Jewish National Home containing some
three hundred and fifty thousand souls, which fulfils the purpose
of a spiritual centre for Jewry. It is now possible for a Jew to
be bom in Palestine and pass through an all-Jewish kindergarten,
school and University without ever speaking anything but Hebrew:
to work on a Jewish farm or in a Jewish factory, to live in an
all-Jewish city of 150,000 inhabitants, to read a Hebrew daily
newspaper, to visit a Hebrew theatre and to go for a holiday
cruise on a steamer flying the Jewish flag. So far the Zionist aim
may be said to be accomplished." Nevill Harbour, A Plan for
lasting Peace in Palestine (Jerusalem, 1936), p. 15.