Mussolini as revealed in his political speeches (November 1914-August 1923)

by Benito Mussolini

ITALY, SIONISM, AND THE ENGLISH MANDATE IN PALESTINE

Same speech delivered in the Chamber, 21st June 1921.

Hon. Mussolini. I come now to another very delicate question that must be faced, because it is historically necessary and because, in view of the recent Pontifical Allocution before the Secret Consistory, it can no longer be put off.

We must choose: the Government must decide what line it is going to take up. Either it must adopt the English attitude in favour of the Sionists, or that of Benedict XV. I do not think that I shall be boring the Chamber if I run over the antecedents of this question.

On 2nd November 1917, the English Government declared itself in favour of the creation in Palestine of a national centre for the Jewish race, it being clearly understood that nothing would be done to offend the rights, civil or religious, of the non-Jewish communities already existing in Palestine or of the Jews in the rest of the world. Later the Allied Powers agreed to this, and finally, in Article No. 222 of the Peace Treaty, confirmed on 20th August at Sèvres, Turkey renounced all her rights in Palestine, and the Allied Powers chose England as mandatory.

Now it has come about, that while the civilised nations of the West have not altered the common régime of liberty for the different religions, in Palestine just the reverse has happened, and this in particular because the administration of the State in embryo has been entrusted to the political organisation of the Sionists.

But there have been Arabs in Palestine for ten centuries. There are 600,000 now, and 70,000 Christians, while the Jews only number 50,000. In this way an extraordinarily interesting situation has been created.

The native Jews, who have lived for years under the shadow of the mosque of Jerusalem, cordially dislike those immigrant elements which come from Poland, Ukraine and Russia, on account of their extremely emancipated ideas. They have already divided into three sections, one of which, commonly known by its abbreviated name “Mopsy,” being already inscribed in the Third International at Moscow as Communist Section.

I wish to say, however, that no anti-Semitism, which would be new in this hall, must be read into my words.

I recognise the fact that the sacrifices made by the Italian Jews during the war were considerable and generous, but now it is a question of examining certain political positions and of indicating what line the Government might eventually adopt.

An alliance between the Arabs and the Christians has now been established in Palestine, and a party formed at the Conference of Jaffa, which opposes by civil war all Jewish immigration. On the 1st and 14th of May, serious disturbances occurred which resulted in some hundreds of wounded and several deaths, including a writer of note.

Now, according to the Bulletin du Comité des Délégations Juives, page 19, it appears that the text of the English Mandate for Palestine must be submitted to the Council of the Society of the League of Nations in the next meeting at Geneva. I should wish the Government, in this delicate situation, to accept the point of view of the Vatican.

This is in the interest of the Jews, who, having fled from the pogroms of Ukraine and Poland, must not meet Arab pogroms in Palestine; moreover, it is advisable that the Western nations should refrain from creating a painful legal position for the Jews, since to-morrow those same Jews, becoming citizen-subjects of those States, might immediately form foreign colonies within them.