Oldnewland in Politics
THE interdependence of Palestine in Central Asia may appear remote, the suggestion shadowy, yet to a careful observer many things stand revealed which prove the nexus to be much closer than anticipated. The problem of the future of Palestine conjures up so many dangers and complications and is fraught with so many vital consequences that the Armaggedon spoken of from ancient times ceases to be the picture of a perfervid imagination of a poetic though gruesome exaggeration. It haunts the mind when it is once grasped in its full significance. The highest interests, religious, political and commercial, seem to clash in Palestine.
Palestine is not a commonplace land of which one could speak with dispassionate calmness as in the case of other countries. That land was and is the Holy Land for the untold followers of the three great religions of the world. When discussing its future one beholds again like Moses the flaming and yet unconsumed bush in the wilderness. The fiercest flames have raged round that bush in the wilderness. And who knows how many more fires will be kindled and burn fiercely round the same apparently barren strip of desert lit up by the fiery contests of nations. It is curious to watch the ebb and flow in the destinies of coun-
tries. Flourishing for a time they are then neglected, to be brought back again to their old position. A great change has come over the nations of Europe during the last 50 years. An expansion has been going on, on an unprecedented scale. Acquisition of new territories have become their ruling ambition. The motive power for these new adventures is, so we are told, to extend commerce, to strengthen the industrial development. We must get new openings for our wares, new markets for the growing commerce. This may be the driving power with many, who are merely tools in the hands of that wise Power which rules the destinies of man and uses human weakness and frailty for the accomplishment of that design, which a few can dimly discern in moments of great spiritual exaltation.
When away from the noise of the market and from the shout of the competing crowd, we hear the whispering still voice from the mountain. It speaks then to us, as the national conscience. We formulate it when standing on a higher plane and we call it then, though dimly perceived, by a name that changes with the time, but has one meaning that war and