The Second World War and After 225
children, at Deir Yasin on 9 April, hastened the stampede. The
towns of Haifa, Jaffa, Akka, Tiberias, and Safad were quickly lost,
and the leadership of the Mufti and his Higher Executive dis-
credited; but the intervention of the Arab states5 armies brought
about a revival of the mercurial Arabs* confidence.
True, there have been Arabs who would admit in private the
material and cultural advantage to themselves of Jewish settlement
in Palestine; but they have always added that it must be restricted
to a limit that would not become an obstacle to their own political
independence. There are Jews, such as the small Ihud group led
by the wise and tolerant Dr. J. L. Magnes of the Hebrew Univer-
sity, who have seen the desirability of reaching an understanding
with the Arab population and who were willing to this end to
give up the idea of Jewish statehood; but even they spoke of
'• numerical equality, which would inevitably mean Jewish economic
and technical superiority.The forces in either community that have
actively sought an understanding with the other do not amount to
more than 10 per cent.; there is a larger proportion that would
like a quiet life; but these submit, from fear of the consequences,
to the uncompromising nationalism of the Jewish Agency and the
Arab Higher Executive respectively. There is in particular the
'(political influence exerted by the Jewish trades-union organization
:;Histadruth, which is closely linked to the Jewish Agency and
"embraces at least 40 per cent, of the entire Jewish community.1
At the third comer of this infernal triangle stood the British
government, which all-too-lightly entered into conflicting under-
/ takings thirty years ago in the quest for imperial security. The
Balfour Declaration and the Mandate were 'never conceived to
cover the contingency of a mass exodus from Europe by millions
of despairing refugees, and contemplated only the creation of a
Jewish Home where Jewish culture and institutions could live
^secure in a land whose people had been for hundreds of years
lArab by speech, race, and tradition/2 Such a Home of over
<5oo,ooo Jews now exists in Palestine; in no other country between
the two wars did an alien community increase by immigration
so rapidly in proportion to the indigenous population; the Yishuv
enjoyed a large measure of self-government, which would have
been increased if agreement had been reached between the two
1 Palestine Post, 27 August 1946.
2 Times leading article, 11 December, 1946.