[Herbert, later Viscount, Samuel, a Liberal politician and a supporter of Zionism, had been been appointed as the first High Commissioner for Palestine in 1920 before the British Mandate.]
IT CANNOT be said that the Samuel rule in Palestine is a success. Our Jewish High Commissioner seems to have mixed himself up with an ecclesiastical dispute which he had far better have left alone, and unquestionably the Pope is anxious about the trend of his policy. Opponents as we are of Anti-Semiticism, we cannot view without anxiety the readiness with which the ideal of the Jewish National Home is supported even by politicians as respected as Lord Robert Cecil. It is all very well for Mr. Churchill to insist that there is no danger to the Arabs in the scheme. The Arabs think differently, and, besides the Arabs, there are the native Christians to consider. Why is not representative government established? It looks very much as if the British policy was to hold down the inhabitants of the country until a sufficient number of Jewish colonies have been established. We have no objection to the migration of suitable Jewish colonists, but unless the natives of Palestine have a right of veto of uncongenial immigrants, trouble is certain, and, if trouble comes, England will not shed its blood for Zionism.
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