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With the Judæans in the Palestine Campaign

<h2>CHAPTER XXXI.</h2> <div class="center">Protests.</div> In case any readers may think that my account is exaggerated I give some letters of protest which I received from some of the officers in my battalion. From this it will be seen what a difficult position I was placed in, owing to the policy of G.H.Q. towards Jewish aspirations. A few interested parties, for their own ends, sedulously spread the rumour that there was no anti-Semitism shown in Palestine. I will leave the reader to judge whether these people were knaves or fools: <blockquote> <div class="right"> Ludd, 4-7-19, A7/48. </div> Sir, I beg to report that the men are discontented, not only in our battalion, but also in the other Jewish units, which cannot fail to influence our men still more. The causes of their discontent are much deeper than delay of Demobilization. Over 3/7ths of the[231] Judæans in this country are men who volunteered to serve in Palestine in the name of their Zionist ideals, and in reply to the pledge embodied in the declaration which Mr. Balfour, on behalf of H.M. Government, issued on the 2nd November, 1917. It is now a general impression among our soldiers, an impression shared by the public opinion of Palestine, that this pledge has been broken, so far as local authorities are concerned. Palestine has become the theatre of an undisguised anti-Semitic policy. Elementary equality of rights is denied the Jewish inhabitants; the Holy City, where the Jews are by far the largest community, has been handed over to a militantly anti-Semitic municipality; violence against Jews is tolerated, and whole districts are closed to them by threats of such violence under the very eyes of the authorities; high officials, guilty of acts which any Court would qualify as instigation to anti-Jewish pogroms, not only go unpunished, but retain their official positions. The Hebrew language is officially disregarded and humiliated; anti-Semitism and anti-Zionism is the fashionable attitude among officials who take their cue from superior authority; and honest attempts to come to an agreement with Arabs are being frustrated by such means as penalising those Arab notables who betray pro-Jewish feeling. The Jewish soldier is treated as an outcast. The hard and honest work of our battalions is recompensed[232] by scorn and slander, which, starting from centres of high authority, have now reached the rank and file, and envenomed the relations between Jewish and English soldiers. When there is a danger of anti-Jewish excesses, Jewish soldiers are removed from the threatened areas and employed on fatigues, and not even granted the right to defend their own flesh and blood. Passover was selected to insult their deepest religious feelings, by barring them access to the Wailing Wall during that week. No Jewish detachment is allowed to be stationed in Jerusalem or any of the other Holy Cities of Jewry. When a Jewish sentry is attacked and beaten by a dozen drunken soldiers, and a drunken officer disarms with ignominy a Jewish guard, nobody is punished. Leave to certain towns has become a torture because the Military Police have been specially instructed to hunt the Jew, and the weaker ones among our men escape this humiliation by concealing their regimental badge, and substituting the badge of some other unit. In addition, army pledges given to them are also disregarded; men who were recruited for service in Palestine are sent against their will to Messina or Egypt or Cyprus; men who enlisted under the understanding that their pay would be equal to that of any British soldier suddenly discover that no allowances will be paid to their wives and children. [233] Under these conditions, even some of the best among them give way to despair; they see no purpose in carrying on, conscious that the great pledge has been broken, that instead of a National Home for the Jewish people, Palestine has become the field of operations of official anti-Semitism; they abhor the idea of covering with their tacit connivance what they—and not they alone—consider a fraud. They cannot formulate these grievances in full, nor gather the documents necessary to prove them, but under their desire to "get out of the show" there is bitter disappointment, one of the most cruel even in Jewish history. You, Sir, have always been in favour of speeding up their demobilization; I, as you know, was of the opinion that it is the duty of every volunteer to stick to the Jewish Regiment as long as circumstances might demand, and I still hope that many will stick to it in spite of all. But even I myself am compelled to admit that things have reached a stage when no further moral sacrifice can fairly be demanded of men whose faith has been shattered. I only hope that those who give up the struggle will not follow the example of a few misguided irresponsibles who chose the wrong way to support a right claim. I hope that they will await their release in a calm and dignified manner, discharging their duties to the last moment, and thus giving[234] those who misrule this country a lesson in fair play—a lesson badly needed. <div class="right"> I remain, Sir, Your obedient Servant, XX. </div> To Lieutenant-Colonel J. H. Patterson, D.S.O., Commanding 38th Battalion Royal Fusiliers. </blockquote> <blockquote> <div class="right"> Bir Salem, 17-7-1919. </div> To Officer Commanding 38th Royal Fusiliers. Sir, I have the honour to request that this application praying that I may be permitted to resign my Commission in His Majesty's Forces be forwarded through the usual channels, together with the undermentioned reasons for my taking this step after having originally volunteered for the Army of Occupation. My resignation, Sir, is my only method of protest against the grossly unfair and all too prevalent discrimination against the battalion to which I have the honour to belong. I desire to point out to you, Sir, the fact that this unfair and un-British attitude affects not only my honour as a Jew, but my prestige as a British officer, and this latter point must inevitably handicap me in the efficient discharge of my military duties. [235] The disgraceful exhibition of yesterday morning is but a fitting climax to the endless series of insults and annoyances to which this battalion—because it is a Jewish Battalion—has been subjected, almost since our first arrival in the E.E.F. Insults to a battalion as a whole, Sir, are insults directed to every individual member of that battalion, and as long as I remain a member of His Majesty's Forces, I regret to say I find myself unable to fittingly resent in a manner compatible with my own honour, and the honour of my race, the insulting attitude towards my race, and through my race, towards me, of my military superiors. In passing, may I point out that my being a Jew did not prevent me doing my duty in France, in Flanders, and in Palestine, and in the name of the countless dead of my race who fell doing their duty in every theatre of war, I resent, and resent very strongly indeed, the abusive attitude at present prevalent towards Jewish troops. I have innumerable instances of petty spite, and not a few cases of a very serious character indeed, all of which I can readily produce should the occasion ever arise. <div class="right"> I have the honour to be, Sir, Your obedient Servant, Y.Y. </div> </blockquote> It was not only my Jewish officers who found life unbearable under these conditions, but the other officers also felt the strain. [236] I received the following letter from one of my senior Christian Officers after an outburst on the part of the Staff: <blockquote> To the O.C. 38th Battalion Royal Fusiliers. Sir, I have the honour to request that I be immediately relieved of my duties and permitted to proceed to England for demobilization. I am 40 years of age, and have had nothing except my desire to do my duty to keep me in the Service. The impossible conditions forced on the battalion by higher authority are too much for me, and I very much regret that I should have to trouble you with this application at the present time. <div class="right"> I have the honour to be, Sir, Your obedient Servant, SS. </div> Bir Salem, 24th August, 1919. </blockquote> Letters such as these give some slight conception of the extremely difficult position in which I was placed. On the one hand I had to ward off the blows aimed at the battalion by the local military authorities, while on the other hand I had to do my utmost to allay the angry feelings of my officers, N.C.O.s, and men, goaded almost to desperation by the attitude adopted towards the battalion. This anti-Jewish policy was directed not only against the Jewish Battalions, but also, in a flagrant manner,[237] against the Jewish civil population, upon whom every indignity was poured; in fact, the British Military Administration made of the famous Balfour Declaration—the declared policy of the British Government—a byword and a laughing stock. Early in 1919 the Chief Administrator then in office in Palestine, the man who represented the British Government, offered a public insult to the Jews at a Jewish Concert, by deliberately sitting down and ordering his staff to do the same when the Hatikvah, the Jewish national hymn, was being sung, while, of course, all others were standing. This was as deliberate an insult as could be offered to the feelings of any people. England must be in a bad way when a man such as this is appointed to represent her as Governor. Judge Brandies, of the United States Supreme Court, visited Palestine about the time when these anti-Jewish manifestations were at their height, and was shocked and horrified at the un-English attitude he saw adopted towards the Jews and all things Jewish. I myself told him of the mockery of the Balfour Declaration as exemplified by the British Military Administration in Palestine, and said I thought it was a pity that Mr. Balfour had not added three more words to his famous utterance. The Judge asked me what words I meant, and I said they were that Palestine was to be a national home for "the baiting of" the Jewish people! I know that Judge Brandies went home hurriedly, very much perturbed at what he heard and saw, which was so contrary in everything to the spirit of the declared policy of England. He represented the state of affairs[238] in Palestine to Downing Street, with the result that the local military authorities were told that the policy as laid down in the Balfour Declaration must be carried out. This was a sad blow to those purblind ones who had looked forward to a long rule in the Middle East; for them the writing was already on the wall. I want it to be clearly understood that this attitude was merely the policy of the local military officials who, by their attitude, were practically defying and deriding the policy of England, as expressed by the Home Government. <hr class="chap" /> [239] <div style="break-after:column;"></div>

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