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Palestine subsequently came under the Byzantine Emperors, was lost once to Persia (c. 611) but regained before Islam, under Calif Omar, ploughed the country under in 637. Then came the period of the Cru- sades and the Prankish Kingdoms (1099-1291), followed by the rule of the Egyptian Mamelukes (1291 to 1516). This uneventful period was punctuated by a fleeting visit from Tamerlane in 1400. In 1516, Pales- tine was conquered by the Turks, from whom little more than 400 years later the country was delivered by General Allenby. And now, after nearly 2,000 years of exile and persecution, the Jews (who have supplied the world inter alia with Spinoza, Disraeli, Lord Reading, Albert Einstein, the Rothschilds) are free to go back to the Land which Jehovah promised them.
Significance. British policy* as continued in the Balfour Declaration has been called one of "reconciling seemingly irreconcilable peoples and parties." The Arabs, Semitic people descended from Ishmael, have a historic, ethnological, ethnographical claim, not only to Palestine, but to all Arabia. The claim is not disputed but another claim, that of the Jews, is made co-equal in Palestine. The Zionist Jews† began slowly but are continuing steadily. More and more money is pouring in from scattered Jewry to Modern Israel. The Jews are showing an energy which contrasts sharply with Arab apathy. Everywhere small communities are developing the land. Great arid tracts arc being turned into fertile farms, while the Arabs, comparatively poor, do little but protest. Land is sold over the Arab fellahs' (peasants) heads by their rich brethren. Willingly they part with dry belts and swamps only to see them fertilized by irrigation and drainage. All Arabdom sees its native land being snatched from it. As between the Arabs and the Jews, since cooperation seems hopeless, there is no hope of reconciliation. That is why last week's ceremonies at Jerusalem loomed large from different angles in Arab and Jewish eyes.
*The home of the Jews as the land promised by Jehovah to the children of Israel; home of the Christians as the scenes of the birth, life, death and resurrection of Jesus Christ. *Since Palestine is mandated by the League of Nations, British policy there is tacitly a League policy. †In general, Zionism is a political movement to repopulate Palestine with Jews. It achieved its greatest significance−before the Balfour Declaration−under the brilliant leadership of Dr. Theodor Herzl (1860-1904), a Hungarian Jew. Dr. Herzl negotiated fruitlessly with the Porte (Turkey) for a Palestine charter. He tried Britain, was offered sites on the Sinai Peninsula and in the East African Protectorate; but both these offers were rejected through the strong opposition of the ultra-nationalist Zionists who naturally coveted Palestine.