'File 11/32 Royal Commission on Palestine' [‎21v] (42/308)

(iv) As a set-off to the loss of territory the Arabs regard
as theirs, the Arab State will receive a subvention from the
Jewish State. It will also, in view of the backwardness of
Trans-Jordan, obtain a grant of £2,000,000 from the British
Treasury; and, if an agreement can be reached as to the
exchange of land and population, a further grant will be made
for the conversion, as far as may prove possible, of uncultivable
land in the Arab State into productive land from which the
cultivators and the State alike will profit.
The advantages of Partition to the Jews may be summarized as
follows :—
9
(i) Partition secures the establishment of the JewistfL
National Home and relieves it from the possibility of its being
subjected in the future to Arab rule.
(ii) Partition enables the Jews in the fullest sense to call
their National Home their own ; for it converts it into a
Jewish State. Its citizens will be able to admit as many Jews
into it as they themselves believe can be absorbed. They
will attain the primary objective of Zionism—a Jewish nation,
planted in Palestine, giving its nationals the same status
in the world as other nations give theirs. They will cease
at last to live a “ minority life.”
To both Arabs and Jews Partition offers a prospect—and
there is none in any other policy—of obtaining the inestimable
boon of peace. It is surely worth some sacrifice on both sides if the
quarrel which the Mandate started could be ended with its
termination. It is not a natural or old-standing feud. The Arabs
throughout their history have not only been free from anti-Jewish
sentiment but have also shown that the spirit of compromise is
deeply rooted in their life. Considering what the possibility of
finding a refuge in Palestine means to many thousands of sufferir^|
Jews, is the loss occasioned by Partition, great as it would b^^
more than Arab generosity can bear ? In this, as in so much else ^
connected with Palestine, it is not only the peoples of that country
who have to be considered. The Jewish Problem is not the least
of the many problems which are disturbing international relations
at this critical time and obstructing the path to peace and prosperity.
If the Arabs at some sacrifice could help to solve that problem, they
would earn the gratitude not of the Jews alone but of all the
Western World.
There was a time when Arab statesmen were willing to
concede little Palestine to the Jews, provided that the rest of
Arab Asia were free. That condition was not fulfilled then, but
it is on the eve of fulfilment now. In less than three years’ time
all the wide Arab area outside Palestine between the Mediterranean
and the Indian Ocean will be independent, and, if Partition is
adopted, the greater part of Palestine will be independent too.