Aus dem Bericht von Earl Peel, 1937
Palestine Royal Commission, Report. Presented by the Secretary of State
for the Colonies to parliament by Command of His Majesty [=PEEL-BERICHT],
London: By his Majesty's Stationary Office, 1937.
It is, indeed, one of the most unhappy aspects of the present situation—this
opening of a breach between Jewry and the Arab world. We believe that not
in Palestine only but in all the Middle East the Arabs might profit from
the capital and enterprise which the Jews are ready enough to provide; and
we believe that in ordinary circumstances the various Arab Governments would
be ready enough on their side to permit a measure of Jewish immigration under
their own conditions and control. But the creation of the National Home has
been neither conditioned nor controlled by the Arabs of Palestine. It has
been established directly against their will. And that hard fact has had
its natural reaction on Arab minds elsewhere. The Jews were fully entitled
to enter the door forced open for them into Palestine. They did it with the
sanction and encouragement of the League of Nations and the United States
of America. But by doing it they have closed the other doors of the Arab
world against them. And in certain circumstances this antagonism might become
dangerously aggressive. Like everyone else, the Jews must realize that another
world-war is unhappily not impossible: and in the changes and chances of
war it is easy to imagine circumstances under which the Jews might have to
rely mainly on their own resources for the defence of the National Home.
There, then, is a second and a very potent reason for haste [neben dem Antisemitismus
in Europa]. The more immigrants, the more potential soldiers. " There is
safety in numbers," said a Jewish witness. And again: " If we are kept in
a state of permanent minority, then it is not a National Home, it may become
a death-trap." (S. 124)
To sum up:—
The establishment of the Jewish National Home has so far been to the economic
advantage of the Arabs as a whole.
Jewish nationalism is as intense and self-centred as Arab nationalism. Both
are growing forces, and the gulf between them is widening.
What the Arabs most desire is national independence. What they most fear
is Jewish domination.
What the Jews most desire is freedom to develop fully the ideas inherent
in the National Home and in particular to admit to it as many immigrants
as they themselves think can be "absorbed". What they most fear is a crystallization
of the National Home as it is, leaving the Jews in a permanent minority in
Palestine, exposed to the possibility of Arab domination or even, in certain
not inconceivable circumstances, of suffering the fate that befell the Greeks
at Smyrna or the Assyrians in ‘Iraq. (S. 136)