“Any lasting accord between the Arabs and the Jews must be prefaced by a stoppage of jewish immigration and land sales by Arabs to Jews,” declared Moghannam Elian Arab at torney of this city, in an interview with the Jewish Telegraphic Agency here on recent political development. “I myself think that an agreement between both peoples is bound to come sooner or later, but the longer the two fundamental problems remain unsolved, the greater the delay in achieving such a pact.”
“And when id does come,” he added smilingly, “Arabs and Jews will embrace each other in the streets and dance the hora (cricular dance) shoulder to shoulder, for no people is more anxious to be on good terms with their nighbors than the Arabs, whose hospitality is traditional.”
Mr. Moghannan, who is secretary of the Palestine Arab Executive, is an independent Arab politcean, not being affiliated with any of the existing parties. He was resident for eleven years in America, and graduated with the degree of Bachelor of Laws from the Brooklyn Law School. By a conicidence, an alumni directory of that institution for 1933 was put on his desk as ##sat in his office, and he showed me on page 41 his name as one of the Class of 20.
NERVER RELIGIOUS PERSECUTION
“There was never any religious persecution or racial intolerance show by the Arab people of Palestine to the Jews befor the War,” he pointed out. “The difficulties of today are the result of politcal injustices towards the Arabs. The Balfour Declaration, the Palestine Mandate, and all political acts since the British occupation have had one purpose in view-the setting up of a Jewish National Home; but Arab right have been ignored.
“That is why we are demonstrating. and will continue to demonstrating. and will continue to demonstarate, in spite of what may befall individual members of our people, unitl we secure recognition of our preropatives.
“There was always peace between the Arans and the Jews, and there is every reason why now, when the country can be built up by both peoles on sound bases that the same peaceful relations should prevail. It is my own opinion that harmony is bound to come when the Jews thmeselves will realize that Palestine is becoming over-poulated, and that as a consequence keen competion will arise among the Jewish progressions and trades.”
That competion, the fear that they would be segregated into small units, is behind the Aran nationalist movement now, he said, and any fair-minded person would have to admit that the fear was justifed, to judge from the hight rate of Jewish mimigration. “The time will soon come, when the Jews of Palestine themseles will begin to combat further immigration,” he suggested.
CONNOT OVERSHADOW. ISSUES
When I pointed out that Jews and Arabs were getting together on economic grounds, Mr. Moghannam said “economic co-operation could never be developed to such a deree as to overshadow politcal issued. Even assuming that some economic rapprochement was reached, the slightest political disturbance wourld upset its equilibrim. There are one or two Arab shareholders in Jewish enterprises today, but their example carries no wight whatsoever.”
Speaking of the proposal for can dismissed the panacea as an absurdity. Neither the Arabs nor the Jews, he remarked, would accept a position whereby they would be isolated in closed areas. It was an imparacticable suggestion, and not likely to become a useful contribution towards a solution of the Arab problem. The best way out would be a political agreement and a lasting friendship based upon the two fundamentals he had stressed, and not through a system of cantrons, which he belived was a journalistic “stunt”, through which both peoples would be denied legal aecess to parts of the country in which they might think themselves entriled to live.
“If it would solve the question, I would heartily agree to a permanent pact with the Jewish people in its present numerical and trritorial scope, if they would agree to ceaseimmigration, cease buying land from Arabs, and agree to set up a represenatative government of the people in Palestine,” he declared. “And that would be about the best news that ever came out of Palestine for hundreds of years.”
An Arab-Jewish agreement, he urged, was the only way to restore tranquility to the country and to provide a basis for its joint upbuilding to a state of general prosperity.
Mr. Moghannam is probably going to London late this month or February to appear before the judicial committee of the Privy Council on an appeal from a civil case in Palestine. While there, he hopes to have an opportunity of meeting people in terested in the Palestinian question.
The Archive of the Jewish Telegraphic Agency includes articles published from 1923 to 2008. Archive stories reflect the journalistic standards and practices of the time they were published.
