Zionist Aspirations in Palestine - 20.07
Atlantic Unbound: The Atlantic Monthly Magazine Online
www.theatlantic.com
But the Syrian province of Palestine, about one hundred and fifty miles long and fifty miles broad, largely mountainous and sterile, contains at present a population of more than 650,000, divided as follows: Mohammedan Arabs, 515,000; Jews, 63,000; Christian Arabs, 62,000; nomadic Bedouins, 50,000; unclassified, 5000.
Of these the Mohammedans and Christians are to a man bitterly opposed to any Zionist claims, whether made by would-be rulers or by settlers. It may not be generally known, but a goodly number of the Jewish dwellers in the land are not anxious to see a large immigration into the country. This is partly due to the fear that the result of such immigration would be an overcrowding of the industrial and agricultural market; but a number of the more respectable older settlers have been disgusted by the recent arrivals in Palestine of their coreligionists, unhappy individuals from Russia and Roumania brought in under the auspices of the Zionist Commission from the cities of Southeastern Europe, and neither able nor willing to work at agriculture or fruit-farming.
The old colonists believe that what is required to help the country is the immigration of a moderate number of persons, who should be in possession of some capital to invest in agriculture, or have technical knowledge of farming; not, as proposed by the Zionist Commission, an unlimited immigration of poor and ignorant people from the cities of Europe, who, if they are unable to make a living in Western cities, would most certainly starve in an Eastern agricultural country.
The presence in Palestine of such agricultural experts as the late Mr. Aaronsohn, and Mr. Moses Levine of the Jewish Farm at Ben Shamer, near Ludd, both American Jews of great talent, is of the greatest advantage to the country, and is generally acknowledged so to be by all classes of the population. The arrival of more such colonists would be welcome to all but the whole population will resist the Zionist Commission's plan of wholesale immigration of Jews into Palestine at the rate of one hundred thousand a year, until a total of three millions has been reached, which number they claim the country can support if cultivated to its utmost.
