by the Foreign and Commonwealth Office

“ A Zionist is something more than an 'advocate of colonizing of Palestine by modern Jews' as he is defined in the Oxford dictionary. Whether he looks forward to a 'political' or to a merely 'cultural' Jewish occupation of Palestine, whether he is himself religious or non-religious, or even anti-religious, he has been imbued by the history of his race with a passionate love of the Zion of Scripture ”

“ The Jews would form the nucleus of an industrious, orderly population, consisting of men who have been trained to live as citizens—who know the value of domestic peace assured by laws—and are not likely to become the tools of ambitious Pashas aspiring to independence. In the present temper of the Jews, a large body of immigrants might apparently be attracted to Palestine, were the Ottoman Government to enter into a definite contract with them and induce England—or a Committee of European Powers—to become guarantees for its observance. ”

“ The institutions of the Ottoman Empire would afford the Jewish colonists large scope of local self-government. Were a number of Jewish agricultural settlements established at moderate distances from each other, the superior intelligence, industry, and wealth of their members would lend them importance and their numbers and union deter alien tribes from aggression. Secure themselves, they would as it were inoculate the population of Syria with steady industrious habits. ”

“ Persecution of the Jew throughout the world had convinced him that Jews were likely to remain strangers wherever they dwelt, that emancipation was difficult to reconcile with Jewish national feeling, and that a Jewish Nationality was the only solution of the problem. ”

“ In the eighteenth century imaginative and emotional religion tended to be superseded or overshadowed by Rationalism. Jews were as 'enlightened' as Gentiles; and the scientific movement of the time found expression in the French Revolution. Montesquieu, the philosopher, commenced the enfranchisement of the Jew; Mirabeau, the patriot, carried it on; and Napoleon completed it. It was this that led to the eventual emancipation of the Jews of western Europe and a renaissance of Jewish literature under Mendelssohn. ”

“ The Romans planted colonies in Palestine with the express intention of preventing the political regeneration of the Jew. But, excluded from Palestine, the Jews strove in the first place to establish, upon the ruins of Hellenism, actual commonwealths in Cyrene, Cyprus, Egypt, and Mesopotamia. There were repeated insurrections of the Jews under several Roman emperors. In the fourth century the Emperor Julian actually contemplated restoring Palestine to the Jews. The passionate longing for Palestine has always remained a Jewish characteristic. ”

“ His argument against the idea that Jewish Nationalism unfits the Jews for complete civil rights outside Palestine is worth quoting.
But it is said, the Scriptures declare that the Jews are to be restored to their own country; and the whole nation looks forward to that restoration. They are therefore not so deeply interested as others in the prosperity of England. It is not their home, but merely the place of their sojourn, the house of their bondage. ”

“ He claims that Zionism is not incompatible with patriotism, that it has brought inspiration to the Jews in the Diaspora, and that three million American Jews—a fifth of all the Jews in the world—may well insist that
Jews are a distinct nationality, of which every Jew, whatever his country, his station or shade of belief, is necessarily a member. Let us insist that the struggle for liberty shall not cease until equality of opportunity is accorded to nationalities as to individuals. ”

“ The Hebrew language is already spoken in many parts of Palestine by thousands of inhabitants and by more people than any other language except its sister-tongue—the Arabic. For the adoption by non-Jews of a Jewish dialect Zionists can point to the instance of Salonika, where Spanish Jews form about half the population and their Ladino or Spanish Hebrew has been to some extent adopted as the language of commerce by Jew and non-Jew alike. ”

“ His Majesty's Government View with favour the establishment in Palestine of a national home for the Jewish people, and will use their best endeavours to facilitate the achievement of this object, it being clearly understood that nothing shall be done which may prejudice the civil and religious rights of existing non-Jewish communities in Palestine or the rights and political status enjoyed by Jews in any other country. ”

“ The Bible first, and then text-books of science and art, history and geography, poetry, and even novels, were written in German but printed in Hebrew letters, so that the Jew of the time, illiterate except as to Hebrew, should be able to read them. But the Mendelssohnians were also assimilationists, and thus introduced the only vital change into Judaism since the conquest of Jerusalem by the Romans. ”

“ After nearly fifteen hundred years of living in the exile and persecution, God remembered unto his people his covenant with their fathers, and brought them back from their captivity, one of a city and two of a family, from the corners of the earth to the land of glory, and they settled in the city of Safed, the desire of all lands. ”

“ Though it is less than twenty-five years since Theodor Herzl in his Jewish State suggested Zionism as a solution of the Jewish question, it is also the oldest nationalist movement in history. The earliest books of the Bible make Palestine the rallying-point of Israel and the Nations. Moses, Isaiah, Malachi, all preached the love of the Holy Land. The Zionism of the Bible is far anterior to the exile of Israel even the first exile. ”

“ The letter assumes that Palestine is to be under British suzerainty, but to be forthwith administered by a 'Jewish Commonwealth'. Inasmuch as the Jews are at present by no means a majority of the population, the principle of self-determination cannot yet apply; but it is admitted to he essential that such a Commonwealth must be acceptable to the present inhabitants, and that no landowner should be expropriated. It suggests that such a Jewish administration would be acceptable to the Arabs and would possess their confidence. ”

“ The enterprise which seems to be laying strong hold of the imaginations of a large portion of the European Jews appears at first sight feasible enough. The population of Syria has been reduced to a tithe of what the country could easily support; whole districts are uninhabited. With the permission of the Ottoman Government, the Jews wishing to colonize in Palestine could easily find lands. ”

“ In 1876 George Eliot's Daniel Deronda appeared—a famous novel in which both emancipation and nationalism are claimed for the Jew. Mordecai is the prophet of the hope that 'our race shall have an organic centre, a heart and brain to watch and guide and execute; the outraged Jew shall have a defence in the court of nations'. ”

“ At first he was looked upon askance by the great bulk of Western Jews, who, in easy circumstances and sometimes in high positions, were well on the way to assimilation in the countries of their birth and adoption. Even in eastern Europe, ultra-orthodox Jews viewed his projects with disfavour, because they feared that his schemes were independent of religious ideals, and saw in him a political enthusiast but not a descendant of the prophets. ”

“ The distinction between the business or agricultural Jew and the scholar or saint, who cares nothing for material gain, and is satisfied with his share of the Halukah provided by the charitable Jews of Europe and America, has subsisted to this very day. ”

“ Throughout Christian times the Jews have clung to the firm belief in their ultimate return to the Holy Land. Such belief has induced them to lend credence to pseudo-Messiahs, who claimed to be their deliverers appointed to bring about the promised Messianic Kingdom. ”

“ The claim that Russia itself, once the restrictions of right of domicile are abolished, would become a sort of Paradise for the Jews is untenable, 'in the light of the fact that anti-semitism is prevalent even in the countries where there are no Jewish masses.' In the ten years after 1892 over 120,000 Galician Jews out of a population of 850,000 emigrated to America. ”

“ Most of them spread into Galilee, Syria, Egypt, and beyond the seas, so that in the second century B. C. the Jewish Sibyl says of the Diaspora, 'Every land is full of thee and every sea', and Strabo, Philo, Seneca, and the author of the Acts of the Apostles prove that the Jewish race was disseminated in their time over the whole of the civilized world. Philo says that in Egypt alone there were a million Jews, an eighth of the population.
The Maccabeans preserved the independence of Palestine, in spite of the growing imperialism of Rome, until Pompey took Jerusalem in B. C. 63. ”

“ It was now argued, however, that it might prove valuable because it would bring educated people into Palestine and advance friendly relations between the Arabs and the Jews, and that the students whom it educated would go out into the world and spread Palestinian ideals among their co-religionists. Even Nordau did not deny that it was practical to make agricultural, economic, and educational experiments in the Holy Land, such as model farms, a Herzl forest, co-operative societies, and a University. ”

“ They could only become a living nation by beginning to live as a nation and strive for the realization of their national aspirations. ... A home must be found for oppressed Jews, especially Russian Jews.' His chief disciple, the well-known Hebrew writer and philosopher, Asher Ginzberg, known as 'Ahad Ha'am' ('one of the people') , has, since 1889, suggested a rather more idealistic solution. Palestine, as a home for Jews, must also be a new moral centre for spiritual inspiration and guidance. ”