Chapter XXXI: Protests

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:

LUDD,
4-7-19,
A7/48.

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 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 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.

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 those who misrule
this country a lesson in fair play--a lesson badly needed.

I remain, Sir,
Your obedient Servant,
XX.

To LIEUTENANT-COLONEL J. H. PATTERSON, D.S.O.,
Commanding 38TH BATTALION ROYAL FUSILIERS.

Bir Salem,
17-7-1919.

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.

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.

I have the honour to be, Sir,
Your obedient Servant,
Y.Y.

It was not only my Jewish officers who found life unbearable under these conditions, but the other officers also felt the strain.

I received the following letter from one of my senior Christian Officers after an outburst on the part of the Staff:

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.

I have the honour to be, Sir,
Your obedient Servant,
SS.

Bir Salem,
24TH AUGUST, 1919.

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, 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 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.