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The Canadian Jewish News, Thursday, September 15,1983 - Page 9
World-Nadonal
By
DAVIDBIRKAN
One Sept. 16,1922, British colonial secretaiy Winston Cliarciiill informed the League of Nations tliat Transjordan was being c^ed in **a temporary arrangement" to a dynasty from Arabia, the Hashemites. In place of the mi^or part of the territory allotted earlier for tfie future Jewish national home, the foundations of a new hostile state were laid.
After World War I, former Turkish colonies were transferred to the Allied powers to govern and prepare for independence. The mandate for Palestine was given to Britain, at the San Remo Conference in 1920; its preamble incorporated the Balfour Declaration of 1917, implying the area's destiny as the "national home for the Jewish people" It was the whole of historic Palestine, some 46,000 square miles from the Mediteranean in the west to the desert bordering Iraq and Saudi Arabia in the east. The Jordan River was roughly its middle axis.
Promises of Jewish settlement in Transjordan, by Arthur Balfour, Lord Curzon, T.E. Lawrence and other British statesmen, seemed to be well oh their way to fulfilment.
Complications originating in the war, however, soon emerged. Helping Britain l>ehind Turkish lines had been the irregulars of Hussein and his son Faisal, scions of an Arabian dynasty from Hejaz. In return, Britain secretly promised that Faisal would be given the kingdom of a Damascus-based state comprising Syria and Pdestine, and that his brother Abdullah would be made king of Iraq.
The Hashemites were being forced out of Arabia by a rival prince, Ibn Saud. In 1919, after nearly two decades of conflict, the Hashemite forces were decisively beaten. In 1920, Faisal, displaced westwards, arrived in Damascus to begin his reign.
To the Arabs' surprise, control of Syria went to France. In a third wartime f^;reement, the Sykes-Picot treaty, Britain had also secretly promised much of the same area to France. The French quickly: lopped off the coast of Syria as a separate state, Lebanon; established a number of competing local governments; and expelled Faisal from Syria by force.
Arab indignation at British-French connivance turned into violence, first against French troops on the Lebanese-Palestine borders, and then at more vulnerable targets, the Jews. The isolated northern settlement of Tel Hai was overrun and its defenders, including two women, were murdered. A riot instigated in the Old City of Jerusalem resulted in the killing of five Jews and the wounding of200 others. In May, 1921, Arabs killed 13 newly arrived Jews in Jaffa and looted Jewish shops; the mobs spread to Tel Aviv and nearby settlements, orchards and farms.
British high commissioner Herbert Samuel, a Jew, sought to appease the Arabs. He imposed sharp limits, the first such strictures, on future Jewish immigration.
Meanwhile, Abdullah led some 1,200 troops from Hejaz to the Transjordan and announced he was going to avenge his brother Faisal by going to Damascus and driving the French out of Syria.
New colonial head Churchill reacted to the simultaneous eruptions by arranging a hasty election that awarded Faisjal the throne of Iraq under the British mandate. Abdullah was somewhat mollified. But, he objected, he, the older brother was still without a kingdom while Faisal would siton what was supposed to hiave been his throne. Abdullah, still camped in Amman, where the Arab populace was hailing him as their ruler, renewed his threat to Attack Syria.
The British and French declined to make a show of strength against Abdullah; Instead, Churchill, Samuel and I.E. Lawrence met with Abdullah in Jerusalem. In half an hour, it was agreed to sever Transjordan from Palestine for an autonomous kingdom under British protection and Abdullah's rule. The new situation,—as later made public, was defined as **a temporary arrangement" to last six months. '
Transjordan represented three-quarters of the original 46,000 square miles of Mandat Palestine.
Chaim Weizmann declared the fait accompli * a serious whittling down of the Balfour
Declaration. *v
The artificially created Arab state was sure to become jealous of the orchards, rivers, seaports and growing cities of its neighbor to the west. Tension would rise, not drop, between Arab and Jew.
Leaves Toronto Nov. 9
You can join mission to
la
MONTREAL —
Organizers of Canada's first delegation to Ethiopia are looking for interested persons to accompany them in their journey.
The 3-week trip, under the auspices of Canadian Jewish Congress, is scheduled to leave Toronto's International Airport on Nov. 9, and will enable Canadians to make contact with Ethiopian Jews in their home towns and villages.
The trip is in part a response to a recent call by Rabbi Yossef Hadani, the Ethiopian Jews spiritual leader in Israel, for more Diaspora contact with the Falashas.
While in Montreal for the Congress Plenary last May, Hadani made a plea for groups or individuals to visit the Falashas to offer them
hope for the future.
"In order to keep contact with the Ethiopian Jews, to raise their morale, and to elevate their low spiritual and emotional state, so that they should remain strong and-loyal to the one God of Israel and with world Jewry, there
is an urgent need to increase and encourage tourism," he said.
The Canadian mission, which will cost each participant approximately $3,800, is expected to include at least 15 people, among them a number of community leaders,   according to
Stan Cytrynbaum, national director of the Congress Ethiopian Jewry committee.
The group will spend 11 days in Ethiopia, three days in Egypt, and one week in Israel.
''It's important that we make contact, to get a first-hand view and to
give the Falashas the feeling they are not forgotten," he said.
For more information on the trip, contact Wendy Schelew in Toronto at 977-3934, or Mark Zarecki hi Montreal at 845-9171.
oyers given
acts
TORONTO -
More than 500 Canadian companies last week received letters from B'nai B'ritii Canada's League for Human Rights, explaining the significance of Rosh Ha-shanah and Yom Kippur to employers.
Inaugurated in 1981, the program is designed to prevent possible misunderstandings when Jewish  employees re-
quest time to attend religious services on the High Holy Days.
"An employer may be reluctant to grant the requisite time to a Jewish employee for the fulfilment .of religious observance, due to an unfamiliarity with the significance of the High Holy Days,' stated David Matas, national chairman of the League.
"It is often the case
that human rights are denied out of ignorance rather than malice. Through this letter, we hope to educate employers, and thus avoid a denial of Jewish rights with regard to religious observance."
The letter, written in both English and French, provided a detailed explanation of the background and the traditional forms of observ-
ance of Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur.
It informed the companies of the holidays' religious significance and the dates when Jews attend synagogue services.
Since the League began its letter-writing program, there has been : a decline in the number of complaints by Jewish employees, Matas reports.
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