The Second World War and After 209

having deliberately and consistently abetted the nationalists against
them in order to oust France from her position in the Levant. In
December 1945 the two Powers agreed to consult on the re-
grouping and evacuation of French and British troops. Since,
however, it was envisaged that they should remain in Lebanon
until U.N.O. had decided on the organization of collective security
in this region, and since the agreement entailed British recognition
k of French 'interests and responsibilities' in the Levant, the Syrian
'and Lebanese governments appealed in February 1946 to the
Security Council for the immediate withdrawal of the foreign
troops from both countries. Britain and France accepted an
American compromise-resolution expressing confidence that the
troops would be withdrawn as soon as practicable and that
negotiations to that end should be undertaken without delay. The
evacuation of Syria was completed in April, and that of Lebanon
by the end of the year. Because, however, the Syrian government
has recruited a number of British among its foreign advisers, while
refusing to employ Frenchmen or even admit them to the country
unofficially, the French are still inclined to accuse Britain of break-
ing the spirit of the agreement between them.

Throughout the war the Jewish Agency had kept up an intense
and effective propaganda-drive among the British and Allied
forces in Palestine, sparing neither effort nor expense in providing
them with organized hospitality of every kind, encouraging them
to spend their leave in the collective settlements, and demon-
strating the high idealism and devotion and the material progress
and efficiency of the National Home, to say nothing of its ability
to get on with the ordinary Arabs *if they were not incited against
us by the effendis and British officials'. When visitors were in a
settlement, its few 'tame* Arabs were paraded for inspection, of
course with a Jew to interpret.1 While this propaganda was
variously directed to all interests, imperial, commercial, liberal, and
socialist, the demonstration of the collective settlements and of the *
large part played in the life of the community by the HistadruthJ
trades-union organization appealed particularly to Socialists,
1 The stage-mana^ĢiD4eiit~aL^ broken down, with
revealing results; cf. R. H, S. Grossman, Palestine Mission, 157 f.