The Maccabaean

Y the Clemenceau-Lloyd George agreement setting the B temporary frontiers of French Syria and British Palestine, Avizeeyah, a movable Bedouin village Iying half-way between the Waters of Merom and the Litanus River, is the northern boundary of English rule. Here two gendarmes, wearing English khaki and firing the English rifle, constitute the frontier post. From here northwards should be France. But the French are not there. They came after the British evacuation, left not because they wanted to, and now the entire region is No Man’s Land. Into the vacuum created by the peaceful evacuation of the English and the forced evacuation of the French, have rushed bands of wandering, marauding Bedouins and Arabs actuated by the primary desire to plunder, but likewise by their natural hatred of the stranger and their belief in an undivided Arabia. The Jewish colony, Metullah, and three Jewish workmen-co-operative-agricultural groups lie in this territory where musket is sceptre, where robbery is the rule, and armed attacks a daily occurrence. This northern part of the Upper Galileean Jewish settlement has consequently been the victim of the prevailing untoward conditions. Metullah, once prosperous and flourishing, is now completely empty—its people refugees, its wealth carried off. Chamara, one of the groups, has been razed to the ground. Tel Chai and Cfar Gileadi are at present in a state of war. Raids are frequent, deaths have been caused and the danger continues.

We come, after this broad outline of ihe situation to a detailed discussion of the causes, the effects and the probable final outcome. When the French succeeded the British as military occupants of Syria and the upper half of Upper Galilee, the step was looked upon with disfavor by the Arabs. In Syria there are minor factions that would be pleased with the suzerainty of France, but the masses are unalterably opposed to foreign domination and especially to the foreign domination of the French, which, as they see it, is clearly imperialistic and selfish. Armed resistance began as soon as French arms made themselves felt in the country. The causes for the attacks in this place or in that place were varied, yet the underlying reason is the desire of the Syrians to be independent, free from the exploitation of a European power. No mistake should be made in thinking that the peoples of the Near East are not sufhciently cultured or advanced to grasp such matters, that their demands are merely the demands of leading politicians and effendis. The spirit is very elementary; most natural to the freedom-loving native. There is then an expressed and conscious agreement to oppose French protection. The Emir Feisal and some of the high Arab government officials may have been forced to speak in different tone, and to accept conditions not quite palatable to the masses—this because Feisal and his advisers have perhaps been beaten at the game of international diplomacy, and because they realize that Syria without foreign assistance will have a hard road to travel. The nation, however, will have none of the Parisian treaties.

Feisal is their darling prince, but they threaten to oppose even him if he fails to present and insist on the maximum demands for Syria and Arabia.

We find, therefore, that though the Arab government in Damascus is officially on friendly terms with the French administration, the people are actively antagonistic to it. War has broken out in three sections of the country. What is to us the northern section of Palestine is one of these fronts. Here the Emir Mahmond Faour is chief of a large army of his own, and chieftain of many tribes of Bedouins which, during the winter, leave the Hauran for Palestine. When French troops occupied Metullah and the surrounding district, Emir Faour sent his forces to harass them; pitched battles took place in which the Moroccan and Algerian Colonials showed far from soldierly qualities. As a result of the determined Arab opposition, all French troops have been withdrawn from Upper Galilee, their southermost post being J'deeda, a town north of the Litanus, the line proposed by Jews as the northern boundary of Palestine.

Between Avizeeyah, then, the northernmost English station and J’deeda, the southernmost French station, no organized power exists. It should be understood that while Emir Faour has the influence to organize his subjects for fighting purposes, he cannot control their actions when they leave his camp. Then every’ effendi, every sheik, every individual becomes‘ a lord in himself and follows the dictates of his own heart. Metullah, Chamara, Tel Chai and Cfar Gileadi have therefore become the objects of attempts. ‚to, rob and pillage. That these attempts do not savor to a very great extent of anti-Jewishism is quite clear. I saw a group of Bedouins carry off three head of cattle from Tel Chai and gallop immediately to a nearby Arab settlement where Ihey were seen to make away with a yoke of oxen. Christian villages, and Arab villages, even, share the fate of Metullah, which was entered some ten days ago by two hundred riders, and plundered. A flock of sheep, a herd of cattle is booty, no matter who the owner be.

This does not mean, however, that the situation in this zone of anarchy may not take on a different appearance. To date two Jewish dead have been incidental to robberies. But the Jewish workmen, valiantly guarding Jewish land and Jewish honor at Cfar Gileadi and Tel Chai are exposed to the danger of new developments of an unfavorable turn. First, the hitherto unbreakable armed resistance of the Jews to attack by infinitely superior numbers may arouse the pride and anger of the native inhabitants of the entire neighborhood, whereupon they might take more organized measures to reduce the defenders. Secondly, a new and serious complication has recently put in its appearance. The Emir Mahmoud Faour, of the family of the Caliphs of old, has gone to Damascus, and in his place sits now a Palestinian Arab, and Anti-Jew. While Faour promised to Kalverisky, the Jewish Colonization Association representative, that in all his actions in Upper Galilee he had no evil intentions towards the Jews, who, he said in fact, might