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465 XON-VIOLEXCE IN PEACE AND WAR

present. The fact that a mandatory Government is res-
ponsible to the Permanent Mandates Commission, in
which the majority of the members represent governments
possessing neither mandates nor colonial possessions, is in
itself an advance in the direction of internationalism and
the humanization of the world.

It is regrettable that Gandhi approached our pro-
blem without that fundamental earnestness and passionate
search for truth which are so characteristic of his usual
treatment of problems. He therefore missed the deeper
implications of the Mandates system. He therefore also
failed to grasp the unequalled tragedy of Jewish existence.
This is the reason w⁷hy he can justify the phenomenon of
five Arab States demanding in London the establishment
of a sixth one on the eve of the founding of t\\p other sove-
reign Arab governments in Syria and Lebanon, while at
the same time sanctioning the denial of refuge to Jews in
their old home.

This also explains his stand that Arabs must nowhere
be reduced to the status of a minority while tens of mil-
lions of Russians, Poles, Czechs, Germans, Irish and Italians
live in dozens of countries as ethnic minorities and while
Jews live as a persecuted minority on the entire globe.

With all my respect for the Mahatma (I doubt if there
is another living man who evokes within me such a moral
awareness of his loftiness) I cannot help feeling that in the
present instance he has betrayed his inner nature. I cannot
avoid the suspicion that, so far as the Palestine problem
is concerned, Gandhi allowed himself to be influenced by
the anti-Zionist propaganda being conducted among
fanatic pan-Islamists. His understandable and .praise-
worthy desire for a united front with the Mohammedans
apparently misguided and blinded him to significant rea-
lities and deprived him of that analytical clarity which is
a part of his moral being. Years ago he was, for the same
reason, misguided into supporting the agitation for the
re-establishment of the Khalifate₃ an institution that is at
such variance with his general views. Gandhi was wrong