The Maccabaean

Special Correspondent of THE MACCABAEAN in Palestine

THE message that the Balfour Declaration has become, through an international act at San Remo, an irrevocable decision was proclaimed in the time-worn "Hurva" Synagogue of Jerusalem twenty-seven days ago. Worshippers were assembled on that day in the "Hurva" and other synagogues, seeking atonement in "penitence, prayer and charity"—and fasting—for the transgressions which brought on the Pesach Pogrom, imploring the Almighty to prevent a recrudescence of murder, arson and rape. The footsteps of the Messiah—audible to those who on the second, third and fourth day of Pesach were convinced in their hearts that it was impudence of this sort which the Talmud confidently expressed would herald the redemption—resounded clearly in the labyrinthine passages. The ancient stones of the Wailing Wall, inundated with the tears of hundreds of thousands of broken-hearted Jews who in the course of centuries approached in spirit of humility and stood thrice-stooped before the mute shrine, re-echoed on that day, for the first time perhaps in history, the strains of our "Hatikvah." . . . Old men willingly, beamingly shed the proverbial sackcloth and ashes and sang out, "Thou hast turned my mourning into a feast." And young men seemed to understand the western wall of the Temple as they had never understood it before.

There have been no public celebrations. Martial law prevailed in Jerusalem and, as we have since been informed, still prevails not only in Jerusalem but throughout all of our country. But even the officer commanding the Eighth Brigade, who is, by the way, a martial law officer par excellence, did not find it in his heart to issue an order forbidding Jews to rejoice inwardly, solemnly and impressively. It is doubtful whether public rejoicings would have taken place even under normal conditions. Strange as it may seem, Palestine Jewry is the least, not the most, demonstrative of our people. They accepted the San Remo decision as a postponed act of justice which was finally vindicated and for which a not inconsiderable price had been paid during the Pogrom, during the course of events which led up to it and the dark fortnight which followed it. The gratuitous interference of the Chief Administrator himself coming in the form of a "tip" to refrain from garrulous celebrations was therefore a piece of advice as bad as its taste. Jews were in no mood to offer the slightest provocation to their misguided neighbors.

What has followed in the space of the last month has indicated pretty clearly that while dignified thanksgivings were in order, it was still premature to display signs of unbounded joy. The pledge vindicated at San Remo has not yet spanned the vast gulf between promise and fulfillment, which has always marked the difference—both in spirit and in distance—between London and Jerusalem.

While Westminster is displaying the keenest interest in the causes and effects of the Pogrom, the authorities who, to put it very mildly, permitted it, are in their seats on the Mount of Olives and presume to interpret and to modify the edicts of San Remo.

While in Westminster ambiguous replies are prepared in answer to perfectly candid questions about the sentence and imprisonment of members of the Self-Defense, Mr. Jabotin-

sky and his nineteen comrades are confined as "second divisional" (political) prisoners at Fort Acre.

The much discussed military Court of Enquiry was convened by the very officer who would himself not be immunized probably by a civilian court. The monotony of its sessions, many of which are held in camera, is only relieved by the occasional braying of a donkey. It is too much to expect of this court to fix the responsibility for the Pogrom and to bring to book and mete out punishment to those who are responsible for it.

While on the one hand Reuter brought the news of Mr. Herbert Samuel's appointment as High Commissioner for Palestine and the speedy inception of a civilian administration, the present Chief Administrator sent a trite notification that the Elected Assembly, scheduled for the 26th of May, may not be held "until further notice"—this after the elections had been held in public, after a feverish election campaign during which the names of the candidates and the agenda of the Assembly had been written large and clear, so that the most obtuse official of the Criminal Investigation Department may run and read.

Ere the Commission supposed to inquire into the destiny of the Holy Places had been constituted, non-Jewish workmen were sent—at the instance of the "Wakyf," the Moslem religious society, and with the knowledge of the Military Governor—to weed out the moss and plaster the stones of the Wailing Wall. Only after one of the stones had fallen on an aged worshipper on Sabbath morning and after vigorous protests on the part of the Jewish representatives were the repairs by non-Jews on the Wailing Wall temporarily suspended.

In the meantime a whole issue of National Fund Stamps was suppressed because on its covers it gave as one of the objects of the Fund the restoration of the Holy Places. It appears that the administration holds that of all people Jews are not entitled to regain their holy places.

While in the House of Commons the Secretary of War reassures his anxious interrogators that only some seven thousand British (sic) troops are garrisoning Palestine, he omits to mention two vitally important facts: that there are at least three Indian (mostly Moslem) soldiers to every Britisher, and that the Judean Battalion is rapidly dwindling down—leaving in all of Palestine a total of a few hundred Jewish troops in place of the thousands who were here this time last year and the thousands who would flock to the Judean banner on the first sign of the most limited and selective recruiting. Thus the Jewish Battalion is dying, in spite of the suave assurances from the Foreign Office that its demobilization cannot even be entertained. . . .

Galilee is still a disturbed area with many big slices practically "No Man's Land." The excesses and ruthlessness and destruction of Ain Abel, a prosperous Christian village lying in the "French Zone" between Tyre and Acre, show only too clearly which way the solution of the frontier problem lies. At Ain Abel, on the 5th of May, nomad Bedouin hosts had a most tempting taste of blood and plunder. They killed in cold blood and burned alive something like two hundred