Palestine

“ Whoever knows by experience how dear Palestine is still to every plain Jew, how his heart swells—sometimes even to the point of joyful tears—when he reads or hears of the revival of the Hebrew language among the children in Palestine, or of the success of the Hebrew colonies there—whoever knows this cannot deny that the actual work of building up a centre in Palestine, even before it approached its goal, could have had a wonderful influence on the spirit of the people in the lands of our exile. ”

“ The new paths bring new days fraught with possibilities. In time they may bring a new Palestine: not the mystic land of the Zionists but the promised land of which the prophets and poets of Israel sang. Old Palestine died in nineteen-fourteen with the rest of the world that was and will never be again. New Palestine is born. What its future shall be depends upon the souls of those who follow the new paths. They may lead only to temporary triumph, to the selfish goals of the kingdoms of men: they may lead to the Kingdom of God. ”

“ Over the hills of Gibeon and the vale of Aijalon has the sun of progress stood still, and, while the rest of the world has been moving onward, Palestine yet lingers among the earlier centuries, and amidst its sacred and venerable scenes we feel the presence of an ancient dominion. ”

“ Tell me, Yüdel, I ask you: Why, because one wants to bestrew himself with Palestinian earth after death, is one an orthodox Jew; and when one desires to give oneself wholly to Palestine in life, should one be 'one of them'? Now I ask you—all those Palestinian Jews who came to me with their bags of sand, and were my very good friends, and full of anxiety to preserve my body after death, why have they turned against me on hearing that I wished for a bit of Palestinian earth while I live? ”

“ Nothing proves and exemplifies all this more strikingly than the apparently unreasonable view of the fertility, beauty, and general perfection of Palestine which its inhabitants have always cherished. Visitors from the West are often disappointed, and as they move from place to place their wonder grows as they recall the Biblical descriptions of the land flowing with milk and honey. Allowing for the many centuries of misrule and deterioration, it still remains obvious that Palestine never can have been that dreamland of natural delight which piety has imagined. ”

“ A Jew is no stranger, no intruder, no immigrant in Palestine. He is at home. History and the links of history, an attachment unbroken for thousands of years in spite of all vicissitudes, in spite of expulsion on expulsion, have made Palestine our inalienable Homeland. ”

“ The great variety of scenery, climate, and life, however, made Palestine an epitome of all the world. It was pre-eminently fitted to be the home of a people called to speak a vital message in universal terms to all the races of the earth. Its striking contrasts and its marvellous beauty and picturesqueness also arrested the attention of primitive men and explain the prominence of nature worship among the early inhabitants of Palestine and the large place that its rocks, brooks, hills and meadows occupy in Israel's literature. ”

“ Nothing illustrates this loving appreciation of their land better than the play of imagination which has created the place-names of Palestine. Hebrews, Arabs, and Crusaders vie with each other in the poetic beauty of their nomenclature. It is a little land, but there is much witchery in it. For its inhabitants it lives personified, and its masses of mountain scenery are often named from parts of the human body. ”

“ The most fascinating and lureful land on the globe is the little country we call Palestine. Since it was wrested from the unspeakable Turk during the world war, the eyes of the world have been focused upon it to a greater degree than ever. It is the dearest spot to civilization. From it have gone the greatest and most powerful influences for good that ever affected humanity. It produced the one great character which is today the great center of history. ”

“ But how many are there in Russia, in Poland, in Hungary, in Roumania, in Arabia, and amongst God’s hidden ones throughout the world, who look on Palestine as the long lost home of their fathers, and who are crying and sighing for the recovery of Jerusalem! And why should not they hasten there as soon as Palestine is safe? They have all that is required, the capital and the enterprise. ”

“ In prosperity and adversity they are still the objects of the same vigilant Providence which reserved them for a great purpose to be accomplished in the latter days; while the Israelites themselves, as if conscious that their election was to be crowned with momentous results, still kept their thoughts fixed on Palestine, as the theatre of their glory, not less than as the possession of their tribes. ”

“ Palestine is our ever-memorable historic home. The very name of Palestine would attract our people with a force of marvelous potency. If His Majesty the Sultan were to give us Palestine, we could in return undertake to regulate the whole finances of Turkey. We should there form a portion of a rampart of Europe against Asia, an outpost of civilization as opposed to barbarism. We should as a neutral State remain in contact with all Europe, which would have to guarantee our existence. ”

“ But the last twenty-five years have witnessed a conscious effort to make of Palestine a rallying point for the Jewish people, a place where Jewish life may be lived to its fullest extent and which may serve as a beacon light to all parts of the Diaspora. Many a waste place has been made to blossom again; and much of the culture and learning acquired by the Jews in the long centuries of toil and effort has been made available to revivify the Land of Promise. ”

“ In spite of all blustering and quarrelling, however, the fact cannot be denied that, for the greater portion of the Jews, Palestine is something more than a mere geographical notion; and that all the weaning of centuries, and all the enlightenment of modern times, have been unable to banish a longing for that land from their hearts, or to destroy the memory of it in their thoughts. ”

“ Great Britain had and has in the Eastern Mediterranean strategic and political interests which make it impossible for her to regard the future of Palestine with indifference, and which give her every motive for desiring to see its empty spaces filled up by a stable and well-disposed population, able and anxious to co-operate in rendering it self-supporting.
But beyond these self-regarding considerations are other of a loftier character. For two thousand years Palestine has remained the lodestar of Jewish idealism. ”

“ He is sent as a youngster to Palestine, through peril to life, through great privation, through heart-breaking drudgery, he pursues his work until he has completed a map of all western Palestine to the amazement and delight of his employers. ”

“ The physical characteristics of Palestine were well fitted to develop active, industrious inhabitants. The constant pressure on their borders by Arabs, who could be held back only by a strong, organized civilization, was a powerful spur. The natural division of the land among independent and usually hostile races made eternal activity and watchfulness the price that must be paid for life and freedom. ”

“ Our capitalists rule the markets of Europe, our generals lead armies, our great men sit in the Councils of every State. We are everywhere—a thousand thousand stray rivulets of power that could be blent into a mighty ocean. Palestine is one if we wish—the whole house of Israel has but to speak with a mighty unanimous voice. ”

“ Palestine will soon become a direful field of contention to the infernally armed forces of the European Powers, so that it is calculated to provoke a curse to the world of the most appalling character. ”

“ THE INVADERS Since the days of the ancient Canaanites Palestine has been often invaded. The composite life of the towns we have already noted. The history of Palestine shows how composite the life of the whole land has become. Its central position among the nations is known to every one. To the south, shut off by but a strip of desert, are Egypt and Africa; to the east lie Arabia, Persia, and the farther Asiatic continent; easily accessible on the north are Asia Minor, Turkey, and Russia; while ships almost daily arrive which unite it on the west with Europe and America. ”

“ In Rome it is called the Golden Age. It is not quite that in Palestine. Yet the world's greatest era is just beginning there. In how small a territory the world's greatest deeds are about to be enacted! Palestine, taken all together, did not make much of a country in area; many of the states in the American union have more square miles, but all the nations in the world combined have no such history. Palestine is a strip of territory reaching along the Mediterranean for one hundred and fifty miles on one side, and along the Arabian desert on the other. ”

“ East of Moab and Gilead the arable land merges gradually into the rocky desert and the Arabs to-day, as in the past, claim as their own all the land to the Jordan and Dead Sea valley, except where the settled population successfully contests their claim by arms. Palestine, therefore, has always been powerfully influenced by the peculiar life and [17] centralized government and fierce rivalry between tribes and petty peoples—these are but a few of the characteristics of Palestine's history that are primarily due to its openness to Arabia. ”

“ At any rate, to understand anything more than the colour of a land—indeed even to understand that, as we shall see—it is necessary to begin outside it and know something of its surroundings. For Palestine, environment means sea and desert—sea along a straight line for the most part unbroken by any crease or wrinkle of coast-edge which might serve for a harbour, and desert thrown round all the rest, except the mountainous north. Palestine is a great oasis—a fertile resting-place for travellers making the grand journey from Egypt to Mesopotamia ”

“ People are not wrong when they say, 'The apple falls close to the tree'! You are drawn to the root, and you love the soil of Palestine, only in a different way, like your holy forefathers, may they be good advocates! You are young, and I am old, and I have heard how they used to bestrew their head-dress with it in their lifetime, so as to fulfil the Scripture verse, 'And have pity on Zion's dust,' and honest Jews shake earth of Palestine into their shoes on the eve of the Ninth of Ab, and at the meal before the fast they dip an egg into Palestinian earth—nu, fein! ”

“ There is, in fact, in the scenery and manners of Palestine, a perpetuity that accords well with the everlasting import of its historical records, and which enables us to identify with the utmost readiness the local imagery of every great transaction. ”

“ In formulating a new policy for Palestine, the expert delegations accepted as a basis the principles laid down in the third recommendation of the Anglo­-American Committee, that Palestine as a whole can be neither a Jewish nor an Arab State, that neither of the two communities in Palestine should dominate the other, and that the form of Government should be such as to safeguard the interests in the Holy Land of both Christendom and the Moslem and Jewish faiths. ”

“ The Arab does not want Palestine to be passed over into the hands of the Jews. Many of the Jerusalem Jews express no pleasure whatever over an influx of their brothers from many lands. The problems of Palestine today are very grave and only great wisdom, unselfishness and patience will solve them. ”

“ He learns, moreover, that this little spot called Palestine is despised and scorned by those proud kingdoms, whose wise men would not for a moment allow themselves to imagine, that any speculation or tenet arising from so ignoble a quarter could have the slightest influence upon their belief, or affect, in the most minute degree, the general character of their social condition. ”

“ Whether the Jews as a nation will ever settle in Palestine is a question the future alone will solve; certainly the wise policy of the British and French governments offers them every inducement, if they really wish to become a nation again in their own ancient land. If the prophets are to be believed Jerusalem will one day be the capital of the world—but it will not be in our day. ”

“ Palestine, because of its physical characteristics and central position was destined to be ruled by rather than to rule over its powerful neighbors. And yet this close contact with the powerful nations of the earth inevitably enriched the civilization and faith of the peoples living within this much contested land. It produced the great political, social, and religious crises that called forth the Hebrew prophets. ”

“ That all the great European powers are jealous of each other's influence in, or possible occupation of, Palestine, and that this favors the giving of it to such an energetic small nation as the Jews under international guarantees and protection. ”

“ The volumes on Palestine hitherto laid before the public will accordingly be found to contain either a bare abridgment of the annals of the Jewish people, or a topographical delineation of the country, the cities, and the towns which they inhabited, from the date of the conquest under Joshua, down to the period of their dispersion by Titus and Adrian. Several able works have recently appeared on each of these subjects, and have been, almost without exception, rewarded with the popularity which is seldom refused to learning, and eloquence. ”