◆ SpookStack

com for suit stay sees tem elds ates ade. laad sion gto 10 18 Jy to srifie pic ofits een Sees Y APRIL 14, 1947 De Books i in Review HU EAT HUSHd SURE pet Mita) a f = Sins of the Fathers L: Palestine: Black, White and Gray N A WORLD of violent and impas- I sioned controversies there is no issue more packed with emotional dynamite or more capable of evoking an instinc- tively sympathetic response from gen- erous spirits than the matter of a home- land in Palestine for the small number * of European Jews who escaped the Nazi holocaust. In terms of decent human feeling the case seems plain. The tragic survivors of the Hitler terror are doomed exiles in Europe, and Palestine looms as the country of their dreams. Further- more, it was promised to them by the famous Balfour Declaration. But divorced of emotion, the Pales- tine issue is perhaps not so open and shut. The Arabs, one recalls, are a large majority in the country and have been there for centuries. Is it proper demo- M cratic procedure to force them into a minority and turn their country over to foreigners without their consent? It is true that the Jews would bring un- heard-of material progress to Palestine, but wasn’t this what Mussolini said about the Italian occupation of Ethiopia? The struggle cf the Jewish underground against the British is often compared to the Sinn Fein revolution in Ireland, but wasn't the Irish battle foe control of their own country and against the domi- nation of the half-alien Anglo-Irish as- cendancy more like the sise of Arab nationalism in Palestine? Why should tiny Palestine and not the vast United States provide a new home for the refu- gees from Europe? Would not the estab- lishment of a Jewish nation merely make for additional anti-Semitism? To one who, like this reviewer, has long been deeply disturbed by the con- flict between the emotional appeal of the case for a Jewish national state and the less moving but persuasive claim of the Arabs to the country, the almost simulta- neous publication of the English Rich- ard Crossman’s Palestine Mission (Has- “pet's, $2.75) and the American Bartley C. Crum’s Behind the Silken Curtain (Simon and Schuster, $3) is most wel- come. As prominent and influential lib- erals and members of the Anglo-Ameri- thankless job. Yet, while they have £ much in common and reached many ¢.' the same conclusions, their reports a:- strikingly different in method and mat: ner, and I must confess that I found tt’ can Committee of Inquiry Regarding the Englishman's book the more Jinterestia: Problems of European Jewry and Pales- tine, appointed by Truman and Attlee late in 1945, the two men—the former a Labor MP favorably known for his skepticism about his party's foreign pol- icy, and the latter an independent Re- publican Catholic who has supported both Roosevelt and the Spanish Loyal- ists—were in an excellent position to observe, to understand and to interpret their findings for us. AVING served on the same commit- tee, the authors naturally cover much of the same ground and supple- ment each other. In many ways they have a lot in common. They are of the same generation; they are equally independ- ent and progressive in their thinking; they are apparently of a similar kind of sanguine temperament; and they at times stood alone against the rest of the com- mittee. It is apparent that they have considerable respect for each other and, after reading their books, one fecls that the respect is entirely justified and that Crossman and Crum were excellent choices for a difficult, important and A and valuable. e oe Te however, is an entirely pe; sonal matter. Having, as I have sai? somewhat conflicting cmotions abor., Palestine, I. found Crossman’s questior ing more persuasive than Crum’s certais ties. From the beginning the Americz®. seems to have had few doubts. He tenc, to see things in terms of British dupli+ ity and Arab guile. The issue is com: fortingly black and white, and any oj? position to the Jewish case is dismisse ’ with considerable scorn. Behind he Silken Curtain is a vigorous and out spoken presentation of the Jewish cae’; and it has a short way with dissenter>: The Englishman, on the other hana: gives the impression of being less coc sure and superficial. He sees fewer vi lains than the American and moce hor. est differences of opinion. You feel th, : his investigations in Palestine and amor: the tragic refugee camps of Europe we . F made, not to justify a position alreacs held, but in an honest effort to reac” a thoughtful and intelligent solutic: of a complex problem. The only tia: The New Pelestine>. s y-