While those two big Christian chieftains, Neville Chamberlain and Adolf Hitler, were conferring at Godesberg on world peace last week, in Palestine another peace conference was held between its biggest two Mohammedan terrorist leaders, seven-foot-tall Abdul Rahim Haj Mohammed and Arif Abdul Razik, former Iraq Army officer. Each of these potent terrorists has been signing himself "Commander-in-Chief" of the Arab revolutionary forces. Each has persisted in issuing orders to the other.
These mutual insults generated so much heat that finally last week neutral sub-chieftain Abu Khalid arranged a meeting near Jaffa. At the unexpected approach of British troops this meeting broke up, but at a second conference, in the parched hills of northern Palestine, matters were settled amicably. Each chief agreed to allow the other to retain the "Commander-in-Chief" title, but only over separate districts. Neither is now to give the other orders, although "requests for cooperation" will be heeded. To celebrate this "peace" in true Arab fashion, the two chieftains and their henchmen roasted a sheep and brewed a kettle of black Arab coffee. Just when huge hunks of mutton were being devoured, British bombers appeared and the party scattered. The rebels put their losses at three dead, six wounded, guffawed heartily when British aviators reported Arab casualties of 100.
Latest noted U. S. journalist to report in detail on Palestine is exuberant, redhaired, I. N. S. Correspondent H. R. Knickerbocker. According to Mr. Knickerbocker, if Arabs run short of ammunition, they take it from the police. If they lack money, they rob a British bank. If annoyed at Jewish ownership of land, they destroy deed records in the Land Registry Office. Not one British policeman risks murder by patrolling Jerusalem streets after midnight. Knickerbocker conclusions: "Nowhere in the British Empire, save perhaps among the savage tribes of the Northwest Frontier [India], do such conditions of disorder and contempt for British authority exist as today in Palestine."