The Jews

by Hilaire Belloc

Granted that whoever was to be the Protector he must be a friendly Protector, no worse solution could have been devised. A little nation is always morally guaranteed in its independence, if only by the balance of the greater nations. The violation of the neutrality of Belgium offers nothing of a rule; on the contrary, it was an odious exception. And an exception it would have been just as much if the neutrality had not been officially guaranteed under Prussia's own hand. The smaller nations, of which the modern world is full, will have, we may be very certain, a long lease of life. The larger nations envy but applaud their security and happiness. They will not be allowed to disappear. The same, I think, would be true of the Jewish national seat, could it be established, inhabited wholly or mainly by men of the Jewish race, religion and culture; presenting to the world the same aspect as does, for instance, Denmark to-day. But to depend for its establishment upon the superior power, upon the military and financial sacrifice, of another and totally different people, is a challenge and a provocation. It is the building of the pyramid upwards from its apex. It is an experiment in the most unstable of unstable equilibriums.

The matter is, of course, being discussed everywhere from the point of view of Great Britain, and nowhere more eagerly than among those who have to do the policing and the armed protection. But we are not here concerned with the ill effects such a situation must have on Great Britain—effects so ill that the experiment as a merely British Protectorate is bound to break down—we are rather concerned with the effect it may have upon the Jews themselves. No great nation will sacrifice its foreign policy, will admit a point of acute weakness, simply to please the Jews. Sooner or later such a nation is bound to say: "We cannot sacrifice our interests to yours. Look after yourselves." And that is where the peril to the Jews of this system, a protectorate, comes in.

If there were any reason to suppose a natural alliance between the British Army and the Jews; if we could imagine British officers and men taking a natural pleasure in ousting the Arab and making way for the Jew, it would be another matter. If there were something in the nature of things which made that alliance permanent and stable, if the Jews were a fully accepted part of the British Commonwealth as are, for instance, the Scots or the Welsh, some permanent arrangement might be possible. But they are nothing of the sort. The position is wholly unnatural. It cannot last. And if it cannot last with the British connection, how should it last with any other? How shall the transition be made from a British Protectorate to another protectorate? Or how, seeing what violent hatreds have already been roused by the mere beginnings of the experiment, shall the conflict which makes the protectorate necessary be avoided?

So far the dislike of the position, which is very far-reaching, and already very deep in England, is a passive dislike. No English soldier has yet been killed; there has been but little necessity, as yet, to repress the Arab and create hostility, though even what little necessity there has been was odious to the troops concerned. But things cannot remain in that state. The conflict is inevitable. When the conflict comes the feeling which has hitherto been passive will become active. People will not tolerate the loss of sons and brothers in a quarrel which is none of theirs, which cannot possibly strengthen the British State; which, if anything, must weaken it; which is felt to be precarious and ephemeral, and which will be undertaken against those with whom British sympathy naturally lies, and in favour of those with whom the average soldier and citizen—unlike the professional politician—has no ties and no sympathy.

The matter can be very plainly put thus:

If a Zionist experiment is necessary, or advisable, then let it be made in such a fashion that it can be dependent upon Jewish police and a Jewish army alone. Let it not rely upon a foreign protectorate, which will not last long, which is a weakness to the directing power, and which creates a false position.

If it be answered that the Jews are not capable of producing such an army or such a police, that they would inevitably be defeated and oppressed by the hostile and more warlike majority among whom they would find themselves, then let them make the experiment elsewhere. But it is certain that the present form of the new Protectorate is the most perilous form which could have been chosen for it, so far as the Jews themselves are concerned. I appeal confidently to the near future to confirm this judgment.

From one most poignant aspect of the matter which we all have in mind I deliberately abstain—I mean the effect of the experiment upon Christian and Mohammedan feelings throughout the world of an attempt to establish Jewish control over the Holy Places. I abstain because of the emotions aroused by it, which are violent and universal, and are of the sort I have deliberately determined, as my Preface has informed the reader, to keep out of this essay. Things indeed are not yet at the point of open quarrel in this most perilous of all the results of Zionism. We must trust for a solution before it is too late, but that solution will not be reached if we select for discussion matters upon which there can be no agreement, and on which there is now aroused the most passionate feeling.

Still, though I abstain from discussing that point, I would beg the Jewish readers of this my book to bear it in mind. If they believe the religious emotions to be dead in the modern world, or even to be lessening, they may find themselves terribly disillusioned.

I also refrain from making comment here—I have made it strongly enough elsewhere—upon the strange selection made by the Jews for their first ruler of the Arabs and Christians in Palestine. I will do no more than to say that a desire to shield the less worthy specimens of one's race is natural and even praiseworthy. One may even take a certain glory in that one is able to protect them from outsiders. But to give them too great a prominence is a mistake, and it is indeed deplorable that of the whole world of Jews—from crowds of Jews eminent in administration, and political science, known for their upright dealing and blameless careers—Mr. Balfour's Jewish advisers (whoever they were) should have pitched on the author of the Marconi contract and the spokesman of the famous declaration in the House of Commons that no politician had touched Marconi shares.