Palestine: The Real Country*
THERE is no country under the sun, small or large, on which such an overwhelming number of books has been written as on Palestine, and yet the country may safely be said to have remained, up to very recently indeed, a terra incognita.
Owing to its geographical position in the eastern Mediterranean basin, and owing to its geological structure, Palestine presents striking analogies with Algeria and Tunis.
The amount of rainfall.in all these countries is the deciding factor of life or death, of high fertility or barren sterility. It is worthy of note that Palestine everywhere gets more rain than Tunis, a fact of itself a guarantee of higher fertility. And if Palestine does not get a heavier rainfall than Algeria, it benefits better by it on account of its milder winters. Not only on the high pla- teaux, but. even along the coastal plains and foothills, the -winter temperature of Algeria is, at times, low enough to stop the growth of the annual plants. Thus the bulk of the rain falls there, as well as in Tunis, at a season when the vegetation of annual plants can least avail itself of its benefits. In Palestine, on the contrary, owing to its mild winters, the growth of annual plants is continuous during the rainy season. They, therefore, get the highest benefit from the rainfall, and this explains the higher yield of cereals, for instance, in Palestine compared, caeteris paribus, with those of Algeria and Tunis.
But. great as the analogies are between Palestine and: Algeria or Tunis, the analogies between Palestine and California: are still more striking. This. has been for the first time scientifically established in an official publication of the United States Department of Agriculture, from which we learn that Palestine is: more like the state of California than any other in the Union in everything except size. It is practically a California reduced to about one-twentieth in size, but markedly similar in general topog-
* This article is reprinted from Palestine, the organ of the British Palestine Committee. Our contemporary refers to this contribution as "the work of the greatest living authority on this subject."