Newspaper Page Text
No Gain
T adventurous spirit as against the dic-
• -s of statesmanlike calculation—that is
im motif today. A cynical thinker has said
that every beginning is adventurous until it
reaches success. I cannot of course undertake to
defend every manifestation of adventurousness.
Hut where the Zionist situation of today is con
cerned I should like to examine the possibilities
with a \ iew to determining whether it might not
tor us to sanction an adventurous course
;1> a normal result of abnormal circumstances.
Take, for example, the close restriction of
Jewish immigration into Palestine. A measure
fraught with disaster for the moral health of our
people, of our youth. Thousands of the finest of
our youth spent years in psychological preparation,
changed the entire trend of their education and
training, quarreled with their elders. While a
few thousand immigrants were permitted to enter
Palestine annually the remainder of these youths
still had a pale light of hope before them. But
now! Now even the granting of a thousand im
migration certificates for this year or next will
bring no comfort. For now it is clear that the
rulers of Palestine will never countenance a large-
scale Jewish immigration ; that of those who have
been preparing to help in the building of Palestine
ninety per cent will never have an opportunity to
participate in this work, while Palestine keeps its
present rulers. And disaster threatens to he horn
of this high-strung tensity of effort, of repressed
mass energy.
I he question of what political means can relieve
the situation is one which has often been discussed.
Hut today it is another phase of the problem that
interests us:
Suppose a young man going up to his father
and asking: What shall I do? Not “we,” but 1 !
' a!; 1 how to the British ruling and stay home?
Hut I may not be able to endure staying “at
home ; I may turn to other paths. Or shall I
mllou the call of the adventurous spirit, attempt
t" smuggle myself into Palestine as the Jews of
• Id smuggled themselves across European borders?
• s uch questions must be answered very carefully
mdeed. It would be easy to explain to the young
man that the borders of Palestine are more dif
ficult to smuggle through than those of old Russia.
( n one side the sea, on another the Suez Canal,
■*nd hostile Arab countries for the rest. The
eate>r danger here is that this argument might
canince him—that he would lose every vestige
(,f hope and would turn to other paths which can
haul to no good.
: is this argument incontrovertible. 1 know
iuntiers of Palestine. Difficult to pass, yes;
impossible. Without going into details 1
s;i V that the adventure here indicated has
s for success as well as for failure. One
' self-evident: A people, and particularly
ut h, must not, cannot be expected to bow to
regulations that cut off its salvation. We
continue fighting for our redemption. And
hould “adventurous” means be discarded in
ruggle? History teaches us that such ad-
j us means have often been valuable weapons,
marly when they have been used not by a
individual but by many individuals. It
not be ineffective if every morning, day'
(ia .v, the British police would have to nab
immigrants at the Palestine border, im-
them and deport them. It would be no
if England should suddenly discover an
lt, °n of Chalutz-smugglers bringing con-
Jevvs into the Jewish national home, if
*ish government should prosecute such an
ation. In the midst of such a prosecution,
\ England would unexpectedly find herself
r ole of defendant.
Po
mu
ou
ver
Pa i
sin
Wo
aft
ill,-
Pr
tra
or.
tra
the
or.
Per
in
SOUTHERN ISRAELITE
Without Adventure
why the Revisionists Are Fortified in Using
Demonstration Methods By VLADIMIR JABOTINSKY
delend! /!^ ‘" l ^ rn ' r Jabotinsky, leader of the Zionist Revisionists in which he
the Cener,! 7\ AT A A f orce to P r »test against the "wi shy-washy” policy of
, a,ut tflr Mandatory Rower in Palestine. An article that will arouse eon-
th> \ must a stormy petrel of Zionism tells in clear rut language why he approves of
i i is urhances created by the Revisionists in the Hebrew University against Xorman Bentwieh.
Vladimir Jabotinsky
My own youth lying quite definitely behind me,
1 am in no position to give direct advice in this
matter. But if I were young today 1 would laugh
at their visas and restrictions. Impossible? Keep
that story for the old women. \ ery,. very dif
ficult, of course, hut in this difficulty lies the ad
venture. If I were young today I would institute
a new type of propaganda, with the slogan. Euugh
at their laws and prohibition. England has lost
every claim to our respect for her Palestine legis
lation. All her actions in Palestine constitute an
affront to sincerity; just as we despised the laws
of Czarist Russia, we must scorn the British
rule of our country. The physical power is Eng
land’s, the power to work her will. But no moral
force stands behind Great Britain in Palestine to-
dav Gone are the days when we felt it to he our
duty to give England our moral sanction, to sup
port the British rule even at the cost of incon
venience to ourselves. Today the British sov
ereignty in Palestine is mere tragic injustice un
relieved by a trace of ethical significance. 1 o-
dav every defiance of the British laws is ethically
good and to be recommended.
Or let us look at the Jewish community in
Palestine, the Yishub.
The Yishub is dissatisfied. The V ishub expects
no good and much ill from the government. What
should the Jews do? Continue to cooperate with
the government? Continue helping French with
his reports, again accept a hundred and seventy-
five immigration certificates to avoid offending the
new High Commissioner? Join in the parliament
which soon will he instituted, there to sit as a
powerless minority, as ridiculous as the Jews on
the Jerusalem Municipal Council? Doubtless some
Jews recommend this course. But what about
those who can no longer tolerate such conditions?
Suppose a parliament is instituted; suppose the
great majority of Jews refrain from voting for
representatives, hut a few individuals do vote and
thus create the impression that the Yishub is co
operating. What is to he done then? I bis is
where the spirit of adventure must gaily come to
tlie fore, loudly to proclaim to the world just
what is the nature of the new “democratic” instru
ment for the promulgation of anti-Jewish legis
lation.
()r take the Hebrew “University.” (Even Dr.
Weizmann has now given up the idea of its being
purely a research institution). Its head is a man
of no scientific attainments who openly preaches
against Zionism. In his opinions he is joined by
fully a third of the faculty. Soon another such
anti Zionist will he there Herr Hans Cohn, the
gentleman who described the 1929 pogroms as
an Arab national revolt and who in non-Jewish
(ierman papers chided High Commissioner Chan
cellor for criticizing our Arab brethren. A chair
on Mount Scopus was inevitable for him. In the
meanwhile another chair has been given Mr. Nor
man Bentwieh, who was an important figure in
the Palestine government through all these years
of anti-Jewish and anti-Zionist policy, never pro
testing, frequently taking an active part in the
legislation. Ungratefully the English removed
him from his post none the less, frankly because
of his Jewish descent; and still he is loyal to them.
To top it all, Mr. Bentwieh is nursing a plan for
the preserving of the character of a research in
stitution for the Hebrew University and for the
establishment of a true university for Palestine,
for both Jews and Arabs, by the British, with
English as the language of instruction. And what
does our “University” do? Why, it gives Mr.
Bentwieh the Chair of International Law, that
he may the better preach his view that the Man
date gives us Jews mere minority rights in Pales
tine.
I ask the reader: If you were young and a
student at that “University” what would you do?
Would you calmly watch the transformation of
a Jewish institution into a nest of traitors bent on
destroying our national government into an agency
of Passfield aides? Would you watch this calmly
and submissively, without a single “adventurous”
thought ?
'There lives in Palestine a remarkable young
Jew by the name of Abba Achamair. A highly
cultured young man, a linguist, a gifted publicist,
a profound thinker. He will come to play an im
portant part in the affairs of world Jewry, for he
is one of those rare individuals who believe it to
he useless to “protest” against an evil. An evil
must be stopped, or at least practical attempts must
be made to stop it, without too much calculation
of strength or weakness. (Continued on page 18)
[7]