Written 100 years ago: David Lloyd George's essay on antisemitism and Zionism still resonates ~ EoZ

Friday, July 21, 2023

Written 100 years ago: David Lloyd George's essay on antisemitism and Zionism still resonates

This essay, by former British premier David Lloyd George, was published in many newspapers during July 1923.

Strangely enough, I did not find the full contents online in any digital text format, so I transcribed it and am publishing it here.

The essay is notable for a number of reasons.

It describes antisemitism in an accurate way that is just as true today as it was a century ago.

It argues that only Jews can possibly turn what he describes as the neglected wasteland of Palestine into a successful nation.

He notes that antisemites love the oppressors of the Jews no matter how vile they are.

And he argues that Zionism is not meant to be for Jewish supremacy but to give Jews equal rights among the nations.

If anything, Lloyd was too pessimistic. He said that the land could not be restored in a single generation, and could not have imagined that the Jews would have turned the country into a workable independent nation in only 25 years.

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London, July 14 (1923) —Of all the bigotries that savage the human there is none so stupid as the antisemitic. It has no basis in reason—it is not rooted in faith—it aspires to no ideal —it is just one of those dank and unwholesome weeds that grow in the morass of racial hatred.

How utterly devoid of reason it is may be gathered from the fact that it is almost confined to nations who worship the Jewish prophets and revere the national literature of the Hebrews as the only inspired message delivered by the Deity to mankind, and whose only hope of salvation rests on the precepts and promises of the great teachers of Judaism.

Still, in the sight of these fanatics, Jews of today can do nothing right. If they are rich they are birds of prey. If they are poor they are vermin. If they are in favor of a war, that is because they want to exploit the bloody feuds of Gentiles to their own profit. If they are anxious for peace they are either instinctive cowards or traitors. If they give generously - and there are no more liberal givers than the Jews .-. they are doing it for some selfish purpose of their own. If they don't give—then what would one expect of a Jew?

If labor is oppressed by great capital, greed of the Jew is held responsible. If labor revolts against capital—as it did in Russia—the Jew is blamed for that also. If he lives in a strange land he must be persecuted and pogrommed out of it. If he wants to go back to his own he must be prevented. Through the centuries, in every land, what ever he does or intends or fails to do, has been pursued by the echo of the brutal cry of the rabble of Jeru-salem against the greatest of all Jews—"Crucify Him !"

No good has ever come of nations that crucified Jews, It is poor and pusillanimous sport lacking all true qualities of manliness. and those who indulge in it would be the first to run away were there any element of danger in it. Jew baiters are generally of the type that found good reasons for evading military service when their own country was in danger.

The latest exhibition of this wretched indulgence is the agitation against settling poor Jews in the land their fathers made famous. Palestine under Jewish rule once maintained a population of 5,000,000. Under the blighting rule of the Turk it barely supported a population of 70,000. The land flowing with milk and honey is now largely a stoney and unsightly desert. To quote one of the ablest and most farsighted business men of today, "It is a land of immense possibilities in spite of the terrible neglect of its resources resulting from Turkish misrule. Its glorious estate has been let down by centuries of neglect. The Turks cut down the forests and never troubled to replant them. They slaughtered the cattle and never. troubled to replace them."

It is one of the peculiarities of the Jew hunter that he adores the Turk.

If Palestine is to be restored to a condition even approximating to its ancient prosperity it must be by settling Jews on its soil. The condition to which the land has been reduced by centuries of the most devastating oppression in the world is such that restoration is only possible by a race that is prepared for sentimental reasons to make and endure sacrifices for the purpose.

What is the history of Jewish settlement in Palestine? It did not begin with the Balfour declaration. A century ago there were barely 10,000 Jews in the whole of Palestine. Before the war there were 100,000. The war considerably reduced these numbers, and immigration since 1918 has barely filled up gaps. At the present timorous rate of progress it will to many years before it reaches 200,000.

Jewish settlement started practically 70 years ago. It started with in 1854 — another war year. The Sultan had good reasons for propitiating Jews in that year, just as the Allies had in 1917. So the Jewish settlement of Palestine began. From that day onward it has proceeded slowly but steadily. The land available was not of the best. Prejudices and fears had to be negotiated. Anything in the nature of wholesale expropriation of Arab cultivators, even for cash, had to be carefully avoided. The Jews were therefore often driven to settle on barren sand dunes and malaria swamps.

Everywhere the Jew cultivator produces heavier and richer crops than his Arab neighbor. He has introduced into Palestine more scientific methods of cultivation, and his example is producing a beneficent effect on the crude tillage of the Arab peasant. It will be long ere Canaan becomes once more a land flowing-with milk and honey. The effects of fie neglect and misrule of centuries cannot be effaced by the issue of a declaration. The cutting down of trees has left the soil unprotected against heavy rains, and rocks which were once green with vineyards and olive groves have been swept bare. Terraces which ages of patient industry built up have been destroyed by a few generations of Turkish stupidity. They cannot be restored in a. single generation. Great irrigation works must be constructed if the settlement is to proceed on a satisfactory scale.

Palestine possesses in some respects advantages for the modern settler which to its ancient inhabitants were a detriment.

Its one great river with its two tributaries are rapid and have a great fall. For power this is admirable. Whether for irrigation or for the setting up of new industries, this gift or nature to Palestine is capable of exploitation impossible before the scientific discoveries of the last century. The tableland of Judea has a. rainfall which if caught in reservoirs at appropriate centers would make of the "desert of Judea" a garden. If this were done, Arab and Jew alike would share in the prosperity.

There are few countries on earth which have made less of their possibilities. Take its special attractions for tourists. I was amazed to find that visitors to Palestine in the whole course of a year only aggregate 15,000. It contains the most famous shrines in the world. Its history is of more absorbing interest to the -richest people on earth, and is better taught to their children, than even that of their own country. Some or its smallest villages are better known-to countless millions than many a prosperous modern city.

Hundreds of thousands ought to bow visiting this sacred land every year.- Why are they not doing so? The answer is Turkish misrule scared away the pilgrims. Those who went there came back disillusioned and disappointed. The modern "spies" on their return did not carry with them luscious grapes of Eshcol to thrill the multitude with a desire to follow their example. They brought home depressing tales of squalor, discomfort and exaction which dispelled the glamour and discouraged further pilgrimages.. The settled Government gives the Holy Land its first chance for 1900 years. But there is so much undeveloped country demanding the attention of civilization that Palestine will lose that chance unless it is made the special charge of some powerful influence, The Jews alone can redeem. it from the wilderness and restore its ancient glory.

In that trust there is no injustice to any other race. The Arabs have neither the means, the energy nor the ambition to discharge this duty. The British Empire has too many burdens on its shoulders to carry this experiment through successfully. The Jewish race, with its genius, its resourcefulness, its tenacity and, not least, its wealth, can alone performs this essential task. The Balfour declaration is not an expropriating but-an enabling clause. It is only a charter of equality for Jews. Here are its terms:

"His Majesty's Government views with favor the establishment in Palestine of a national home for the Jewish people, and will use their best endeavors to facilitate the achievement of this. object, it being clearly understood that nothing shall be done which may prejudice the civil and religious rights or existing non-Jewish communities in Palestine, or the rights and political status enjoyed by Jews in any other country."

This declaration was subsequently endorsed and adopted by President Wilson and the French and Italian foreign ministers.

The Zionist ask for no more. It has been suggested by their enemies that they are seeking to establish a Jewish oligarchy in Palestine that will reduce the Arab inhabitant to a condition or servitude to a favored Hebrew minority. The answer to that charge is to be found in the memorandum submitted by the Zionist Association to

the League of Nations:

"The Jews demand no privilege unless it be the privilege of rebuilding by their own efforts and sacrifices a land which,- once the seat of a thriving and productive civilization, has long been suffered. to remain derelict. They expect no favored treatment in the matter of political or religious rights. They assume as a matter of course that all inhabitants of Palestine, be they Jews or non-Jews, will be in every respect on a footing of perfect equality. They seek no share in Government beyond that to which they may be entitled under the constitution as citizens of the country. They solicit no favors. They ask, in short, no more than an assured -opportunity of, peacefully building up their national home by their own exertions and of succeeding on their merits."

This is a modest request which these exiles from Zion propound to the nations. And surely it is just for it to be conceded, and, if conceded.- then to be carried out in the way men of honor fulfill their bond.

There are 14 millions of Jews in the world. They belong to a race which for at least 1900 years has been subjected to persecution, pillage, massacre and the torments of endless derision, a race that has endured persecution which, for variety of torture, physical, material and mental inflicted on its victims; for the virulence and malignity with which it has been sustained; for the length of time it has lasted, and, more than all, for the fortitude and patience with which it has been suffered, is without parallel In the history of any other people.

Is it too much to ask that those amongst them whose sufferings are the worst shall be able to find refuge in the land their father made holy by the splendour of their genius, by the loftiness of their thoughts, by the consecration 'of their lives and by the inspiration of their message to mankind?.

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