Word: palestinian
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: during 1940-1949
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
Haganah, which means "defense," is the peoples' army of Palestinian Jewry. Its history goes back to Czarist Russia, where small groups organized to protect themselves against pogroms. The idea was brought to Palestine before World War I, and an organization called Hashomer, "The Watchman," was formed. At first they were merely armed guards for the new agricultural settlements, but with the end of the war, the idea of an all-inclusive defense organization took root. With returned veterans of the Jewish Legion of Allenby's Middle Eastern British Army, a nucleus of Haganah was formed...
...startling note of moderation crept into Palestinian affairs last week. The "Morrison Plan" for a federal Palestine was fading like a desert mirage. The Jews refused to discuss it. Arab representatives at the London conference rejected the plan in toto. The British Government was about ready to drop...
Nearby stands the Holy Sepulcher, erected as most Christians believe on the site of Golgotha (the Place of the Skull). There Christ suffered on the Cross and uttered, in extremis, the words of the Psalmist which echo over the centuries the cry of many a Palestinian Jew today: "Eli, Eli, lama sabachthani?-My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken...
Thorn of the Cactus. Between World Wars I & II, Palestine's population grew apace-the Jews largely by immigration, the Arabs by propagation. Arabs now number over one million, twice the 1922 figure; the Palestinian Jews number over half a million. The springs of Jewish colonizing vigor, amply fed by the money of world Jewry, flowed out on to the desert. U.S. Jews have contributed almost $100 million to Palestine, invested $50 million more. The "hopeless, dreary, heartbroken land," which Mark Twain saw in 1867, was dotted with green fields and citrus groves...
Never before had so many Palestinian Jews sympathized with the guerrillas. Even the sober Palestine Post affirmed that Jews had gone over "from defensive to offensive action." But Britain was bitter. Secretary Hall bluntly warned Palestine's Jews that they could expect no help from London if violence was to be their policy. Hall also announced that Palestine's mild-mannered High Commissioner, Field Marshal Viscount Gort, had resigned because of "ill health." Gort actually was ill, but his resignation increased the tension...