The work of the Commission was made possible by the work of the British Army and its scope was greatly increased by General Allenby’s complete conquest of the country. In September, 1918, General Allenby secured a victory which resounded throughout the world by its completeness as well as by its brilliance. By most skilful procedure the Turkish line was broken in several places and Nablus and Beisan were captured. The bridge of the Daughters of Jacob over the Jordan was seized and British troops wheeling round by quick marches along the coastal plain, passed through the defile of Megiddo and cut off the greater portion of the Turkish army. The strong Turkish positions in the hills about Nablus were surrounded and positions which if directly attacked would have cost thousands of lives were taken with comparatively few losses.
Eighty thousand prisoners were captured and a vast amount of guns, munitions, and stores. The cavalry swept northward and captured Damascus within a few days, and even moved on to Beirout and Sidon on the coast, while the Arabs under the King of the Hedjaz defeated the Turks in the south-east of Palestine and Jewish troops were sent forward to the capture of Amman and Es-Salt. In a period of a fortnight, three armies were defeated and ceased to exist. Turkey’s military power was destroyed instantaneously. The only defences left to the Turkish Empire were bad communications, immense distances, and the submarines in the Eastern Mediterranean. The victories in Palestine stirred the world and gave new vigour to Zionist efforts. To the outside world, these victories marked the first decisive step in the final defeat of the German federation. To the Zionists, they brought great joy because they definitely ended the corrupt rule of Turkey. Supported by the most powerful nations in the world, the Jews are asked to create in Palestine a typically Hebrew society. A great responsibility and a great opportunity are thus offered to us. We have to consider many new and difficult problems. But for the solution of these practical problems, we confidently expect to receive much help from Jews all over the world. The Declaration of the Allies has been like a trumpet-call. Our wonderful successes in the world of diplomacy fascinate all to whom the fate of Israel is of importance. The history of the past few years, which has transformed, at the cost of terrible injuries to humanity, what seemed dreams into plain facts, and made what were facts into dream-like memories, will surely bring us active help from all who sympathize with our ideal, the ideal for which Jews have unceasingly prayed and hoped for twenty centuries.
This mighty war has now come to an end and the world breathes freely once more. The cruelties and horrors of more than four years seem now like a nightmare. That nightmare has vanished—let us hope for ever. Day has dawned again, a day of victory, whose power for good outweighs the evil powers let loose by the world-war. The great armies of the Western Allies and of the United States of America have been victorious. In consequence of this victory an old world order has been destroyed and a new and a better one brought into being. State organizations which had forced diverse nations into their artificial and incongruous structures only by power are collapsing like houses of cards. Those who ruled by the sword perished by the sword. Despotism, supported by militarism, is shattered. The victory of the Allies ought to be more than a victory of one group of states over another; this ought to be the victory of what is good in man over what is evil. This victory must benefit the conquered not less than the conquerors. One great idea has been victorious in this war, namely, the national principle: liberty, equality, and self-determination of all peoples, great and small, old and young. Every nation has the right to live, given the will to do so. Every nation has a right to the land in which it grew to be a nation. It is all one, whether this was accomplished a hundred years ago as in Belgium, or many hundreds of years ago as in Armenia, or as in Greece some thousands of years ago. The right of a people to its historical home cannot be limited by time.
On the basis of this principle a new Europe is shaping itself. Every nation must have its own land, its share in human civilization, with its own speech and customs, its right to do as it wills. Alsace-Lorraine wants to be French, and therefore it shall be French again. The Czechs and the Southern Slavs wish to form independent states; Poland, Belgium, Serbia, and others, too, are reasserting their independence. Wherever historical rights exist, these must now be realized. Every nation regains now its Zion for which it has longed and suffered. Although this is a great progress in itself, it would be a poor safeguard unless the other great principle were also adopted, the principle of freedom. With the regeneration of national freedom it follows also that the progress of human liberty, equality, and social justice both in the existing states and in the old ones now to be re-established will be assured. No despotism, no subjection of minorities, but liberty, equality, and fraternity for all citizens, equal duties and equal rights.
For this ideal seven millions of men, the vigorous youth of mankind, have sacrificed their lives, and many millions more have been crippled. For this ideal of justice several countries have been laid waste and civilization itself has been threatened with complete destruction. This great ideal of justice, however, will be worthy of the terrible sacrifices which have been made; it must now be attained.
A new Europe and—a new Asia. Light is shining again from the East. The glorious British Army has reconquered ancient East for civilization. The Arabs, our Semitic kindred, the descendants of a chivalrous and one-time famous race, side by side with inspired Jewish volunteer forces who had flocked together to fight with love and enthusiasm for the Land of Promise, have, with the assistance of French and Italian reinforcements, done their duty in assisting the British Army. Mesopotamia, Arabia, Syria, and Palestine are now freed for their nations. An Arabian Kingdom, a free, well-ordered Syria, the remnants of the unfortunate, hard-tried Armenian nation established as an Armenian State, and a new Erez Israel, all these will have to be created on a basis of historical rights and of the realization of the national principle, each under the protection of, and receiving assistance from, some suitable Great Power, in accordance with their own desire, in their gradual and peaceful progress towards their ultimate goal.
What, we ask, will now be the position of the Jews at this juncture? What will the great victory bring to this people who have been so hard hit by this war? Hundreds of thousands of Jews have lost their lives, most of them in countries where they had no share in human rights, and nothing to fight for. Dying on the Carpathian mountains or in the plains of Moldavia, the last glance of their closing eyes was turned to the East, to the hills of Zion. Innumerable masses have been maimed, millions nerve-shattered and starved out, tens of thousands of Jewish homes, thousands of old Jewish communities wiped out, never to be reconstructed. Will all this not be taken into account in the general reckoning of the great victory? Jews live in larger or smaller numbers in different countries, where they are faithful and devoted citizens. The majority of the Jewish people have suffered too long and too bitterly in many countries, and it must be the task of the nations and their governments, once and for all, to put an end to these unspeakable sufferings in the old states and in those soon to be founded, by solemn declarations and binding obligations. The Jews desire to be emancipated, that is, released from servile tutelage; in a free state they do not wish to be the only pariahs and slaves. They demand to be free; that means in the first place that they want to breathe freely, to breathe wherever they wish without fear that a policeman or a neighbour should point out to them that a Jew may not breathe everywhere. They demand to be free; that means in the second place, that they should have the right to use their powers of mind and body unhindered in any honest calling, in any useful art, in any branch of science; so that they can be active and industrious, follow skilled employments, or discharge the functions of office in order to maintain themselves and their families and not be a burden upon others. This they desire without having to fear that the Gentile competitor should be able to say to them: only Gentile hands, only Gentile craftsmen may be employed in skilled trades, only Gentile applicants are admitted to official positions, only Gentile abilities can assert themselves. And as there are too many of you, we must make laws to limit your activities—otherwise we shall boycott you! They demand to be free; that means in the third place that they must be free also as regards their conscience: if their sons possess sufficient talent and knowledge to serve the country as scholars or as public officials, they should be able to do so as honest Jews, and not be compelled to parade as dishonest Christians, that is to profane the ceremony of baptism and to use the certificate of baptism as a passport to office; they do not wish to act as hypocrites, they do not wish to enter Christian communities by lying and knavery, or to smuggle themselves in that way into civic life. They wish to live as Jews, that means to maintain and to develop undisturbed in their true spirit their customs, their traditions, their system of education, their communities, etc. In short, they wish to be human beings, since he that may not be a citizen with a citizen’s full rights in the place where he lives and works and bears his share in all social burdens, has been denied the right to be a human being; or if rights are granted to a man under the condition that he should become assimilated and cease to be what he has been, thanks to his race and the traditions sacred to him, against that man’s manhood the crime of murder has been committed. They wish to be free human beings.
This question indeed concerns humanity. It was raised at the end of the eighteenth century by the great French Revolution, and in some states with small Jewish populations it has been solved in a spirit of liberty. France, England, Italy were the pioneers of equal rights for all. The United States of America were an example in establishing the freedom of citizenship. Nevertheless the majority of the Jews presented during the course of the nineteenth century a pitiful spectacle of unceasing martyrdom—with many shades from semi-emancipation linked with anti-semitism, to boycott and massacres.
The world is changing all its values, and should there be in any country a continuation of tyranny, oppression, and barbarous persecution with regard to the Jews, under any pretext—of which there has never and nowhere seemed to be a lack—then the great ideal of this world-war will remain an idle dream. For justice can never exist together with injustice. This problem of humanity must now be and will be solved.