“... The existence of a Jewish State would certainly react and react healthily upon the position of Jews who might elect to remain in the Dispersion. The Zionists would fain make of the Jewish name a clear title of honour.”
The Weekly Dispatch of April 1st, 1917, in a leading article on “The New Crusade,” said:—
“If any more romantic prospect than the spectacle of the British Standard flying above the temples and mosques of Jerusalem can be visualized, it is the restoration by Britain, which has always befriended the Jew, of the Jewish polity which fell to pieces in the reign of Hadrian.
“But sentiment must be based on practical considerations. To develop Palestine needs a skilled agricultural race. The dreamers of the Ghetto, yearning for the return of Zion, point to the Jewish farmers of Canada, America, and the Argentine in proof that the instinct of a pastoral people of Biblical time still survives in its sons.”
According to The Sunday Chronicle, in an article, April 15th, 1917, on “British Policy in Palestine—A British Hebrew Necessity”:—
“There is no other race in the whole world who can do these services for us in Palestine but the Jews themselves. In the Zionist Movement, which has caught up within itself some of the best brains and the warmest hearts among the younger generation of Jews, we have the motive force which will make the extension of the British Empire into Palestine, otherwise a disagreeable necessity, a source of pride and a pillar of strength. A source of pride; for after all, if we are fighting for oppressed and homeless nationalities in this war, there is none which has been so horribly oppressed in the past or for so many hundred years without a home of its own as the Jews.
“A pillar of strength; for the fact that the Jews are not only of one nation but of all, will give to the power which is sovereign of its capital Jerusalem a tremendous pull in the councils of the world.”
The Times Literary Supplement of August 16th, 1917, had an article, “After Many Years,” which sketched the history of the Jews in Palestine, and went on to say that:—
“The Palestinian Jew during the past decade has shown a certain capacity for self-government, and has successfully assumed many of the functions of administration which the neglect of Ottoman Mutessarifs had left unperformed. Under the influence of a renovated system of education, imparted in Hebrew, he was rapidly forgetting his German leanings or his Russian or Rumanian traditions, and was becoming a farmer of his own soil. If this process can be resumed and its scope widened after the war, Palestine may slowly grow from a State with the status say of the Anglo-Egyptian Sudan—and develop into an autonomous protected State, with its own native sovereign and administration and forming part of the Empire in just the same way as do many States which are in full control of their internal liberties.”
Common Sense, March 10th, 1917, dealt with the Jewish claim to Palestine, and declared that:—