Papers of the War Cabinet's Eastern Committee [‎189v] (378/544)

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there is good cultivation and great possibilities in the future. Everybody wants to get
out of the steaming Jordan Valley and on to the uplands beyond, and we are
undoubtedly face to face with a movement which is growing on the part of the Zionists,
that Palestine is now to include what certainly it lias not included for many centuries,
if it ever did, and what would be regarded by the Arabs as part of their domain.
Finally, there is the southern boundary of Palestine. Here, a number ot difterent
considerations come in. On the one hand there are those who will say that the
cultivable areas south of Gaza ought to be part of Palestine because they are necessary
to the subsistence of the people. On the other hand, there are those who say : “ Do
not complicate the Palestine question by bringing in the Bedouins of the desert, whose
face looks really towards Sinai, and who ought not to be associated with Palestine at
all.” I therefore suggest, in passing, when we are dealing with Palestine and 'when
we go to the Peace Conference, that we sh;dl have to make up our minds as to what is
the kind of policy we propose for the northern, eastern, and the southern boundaries of
Palestine.
Now comes the question of the future administration. I quoted just now the
terms of the Sykes-Picot Agreement, under which the scheme then in contemplation
was international administration to be agreed upon between the Allies and the Arabs.
I do not suppose you will find a single person in any country now in favour of that
solution. Not only is international administration wherever it has been tried in
Oriental countries a failure, but it is singularly unsuited to the conditions of Palestine.
I doubt if at the Peace Conference a single voice will be raised in its favour. If I
am right in that, and if a tutelar Power is to be appointed, either by a League of
Nations under General Smuts’ scheme or by the Peace Conference itself, or by the
selLdetermination of the people, there then arises the question who that Power should
be. Only three are really deserving of consideration: France, America, and ourselves.
I do not think I need seriously discuss the case of France, because, whatever may
be her own feelings*, nobody else wants her there. Her presence there would be quite
intolerable to ourselves, and it is clear it would be equally unwelcome to the people.
There remain the United States and Great Britain. When the matter was brought
before the Imperial War Cabinet, a good many of us, anxious to curtail our respon
sibility in that part of the world as much as we could, and filled with a desire, strongly
recommended by Sir Robert Borden, to interest America in responsibilities in other
parts of the world than the American Continent, felt disposed to urge that America
should be made the custodian of Palestine. I believe I myself expressed a view in its
favour. The more I think of it the more doubtful I am whether that is really a wise
solution. I ask the Committee to contemplate the position of the Americans placed,
as they would be if the French ambitions as regards Syria are fulfilled, midway between
the French and ourselves. It would be a position that would almost certainly result in
friction with both parties. Look at it again from the point of view of Palestine itself.
I imagine that we have not conquered this country merely in order to recover it from
the Crescent ; we have conquered it in order that it may prosper and flourish under
the Cross. If that is to be so, believe me, Palestine can only flourish and have any
future before it if its interests— political, commercial, and otherwise—are considered in
relation to the States that lie around it. You cannot treat Palestine as an insignificant
little country—although it is nothing else really—which merely has to be kept from
outside invasion ; if you are to develop it you must develop it in connection with Syria
in the north, Arabia on the east, and Egypt on the south. A further point. If you
put the Americans into Palestine—the world will be difficult enough as it is—will you
not open up the possibility of a good deal of friction between the Americans in Palestine
and ourselves in Egypt? Remember the Americans have no experience of this sort of
work or this kind of people. Their standards of administration, their methods of work,
are entirely different from our own. Their method of handling Eastern people would
be different from ours, and 1 suggest that the Americans in Palestine might be a source
not of assistance but very much the reverse to ouuselves in Egypt.
It follows from what 1 say that we ought to consider very carefully the alternative
of Great Britain being invited to assume charge of Palestine, at any rate for a period,
perhaps longer. The considerations that seem to me to point to this conclusion are
these : In the first place, the commercial development of Palestine, upon which I laid
stress just now, must really always proceed from, and be controlled by, the Egyptian
factors in the case. The ports of Palestine itself are miserable ; nothing very con
siderable could ever be made out of them. In the future, if Palestine is to have a
future of prosperity, its trade will come, its imports and exports will move, from the
direction of the Suez Canal. In the course of the war there has been developed a place