March 10, 1919

Knowing as I do only too well the close watch that the delegates keep on the visitors to other delegations and the extreme vigilance with which what might be called our “frequentations” are observed, I was not, and certainly had no reason to be, surprised when my good friend Nouri al Said, Emir Faisal’s closest adviser, came in this morning to introduce to me a learned Fuki or talib, one of the doctors of the famous university mosque of Al Azhar in Cairo, undoubtedly the most influential institution of learning in the Moslem world. Curiously enough this center of religious and racial propaganda operates under the eyes and apparently with the tacit approval of the British Protectorate.

After presenting him, Nouri said as he withdrew, “This learned man wishes to enlighten the American delegation as to the dangers and the great difficulties which the ill-considered words of Mr. Balfour have created in Palestine, indeed throughout the Middle East.” Fortunately, the learned man spoke English not only well but with much distinction, and so for once at least my desk was not a diminutive Tower of Babel.

“Our land is not empty,” he began after compliments, “and it is not waste land. Despite anything that Mr. Balfour may say to the contrary, we have developed it to the very fullest extent of its capacity and we have developed it as our national home for thirteen hundred years. From it we Arabs have drawn our sustenance and prospered as it has been God’s will that we should. Our people do not receive pensions or draw remittances from rich co-religionists in other lands as do the wandering Jews who the international bankers wish to remove from their flourishing cities. Even our less fortunate brethren receive blessings from on high, and the One God gives his approval to their laborious days. We shift for ourselves and not a piastre comes to our communities from Mecca. Indeed, we the faithful in all lands tighten our belts and yearly send our contributions to the keepers of the shrines and to the guardians of the Thrice Blessed Tomb.

“And Jerusalem that these wanderers falsely claim is ours. She is one of the four cities of Paradise. Supreme she stands with her sister shrines, with Mecca, with Medina, and with Damascus. These are the earthly reward that Allah bestowed upon the faithful. In these consecrated places we are nearest to Heaven, indeed, there we are neighbors of God. And yet, incredible as it would seem, there are those who in defiance of the will of God would take them away from us.

“These Jewish intruders are being brought to our land by men who for the most part do not know the evil thing they are doing, although of course it is clear that the motive of some of them is to get rid of these drones who sap the vitality of their communities. And there are a few who have the effrontery to say that our dear land is destined to be by the will of God their national home from which, they lament, they were driven centuries ago when might was right, but that today when right prevails over might it must be returned to them» They are careful not to say that by ruthless violence the Jews established themselves in our land but could only maintain themselves there for a short period, that they were the first to draw the sword the sharp edge of which they were to feel later, and indeed may again if the nations permit them to continue their absurd pretensions.

“The Jews are strangers in the land they seek to annex and from which they would expel us; they belong in Chaldea, and their place of origin is on the banks of the Euphrates. If men would only listen, the falsity of their claims would be convincing. Even Abraham to whom they often appeal in support of their faulty title deeds recognized formally and officially that he and his people were intruders in the land of Canaan.”

“When was that?” I ventured to inquire, and so revealed my lack of knowledge of the Scriptures.

“Do you not recall that he did not want his son, his beloved Isaac, to marry a stranger woman and that he sent an envoy into the Chaldean lands to secure a suitable woman of his own tribe to perpetuate his line?”

I here interpolated the statement, as so often before, that the American delegation had decided in our attempts to right ancient wrongs to go no farther back than the Treaty of Westphalia, but the learned Fuki now with something like fire in his eyes brushed this statute of limitations aside.

“In your Bible, which you revere and which we respect, is the story of the cruelties practiced by these covetous people in their conquest of Canaan. Fortunately, their ruthless arrogance carried with it its cure; the little tribal kinglets got to fighting among themselves, and so it was not difficult for us to expel them from the lands they had stolen. They held it but for a very few unhappy years, but we reconquered it and have held it, until now unchallenged, for centuries. Our right of conquest was as valid as theirs, and we have maintained it until now unchallenged for thirteen hundred years.

“These wanderers with forged documents and lying chronicles are seeking to expel us from the shrine which to us has always been the most august sanctuary. It was from the Dome of the Rock that our Prophet ascended into Heaven on his famous God-given steed. After the turmoil of the Herodian and the Roman wars it was on the unshakeable foundation of the Rock that the Emir Omar, the Sherifian Conqueror began to build the great Mosque which these homeless faithless men seek to pollute. The Emir Omar had spent his energies in holy works, and so it happened that long life was not vouchsafed him, and so it was that the magnificent shrine was completed by his noble successor, the Emir Abdul Malek. To build this splendid offering to the One God, he collected monies throughout the Moslem world, and you can read in the Arab chronicles that ‘seven times the revenues of Egypt were expended in furnishing our shrine.’

“Until now our right to the holy places has never been contested. Even when the misguided Crusaders came in their might from all over Christendom and seized the Holy City and held it for a few years after 1229, they recognized our rights and by the treaty between warriors, which was always religiously observed, the Haram and all the sacred area remained in our hands, and so it has been by uncontested right until the present day.

“But do not mistake me. We Arabs are not an imperialistic people; unlike these vagrants and troublemakers we have no wish to start another world war which we fear, and not without reason, would destroy what of civilization now remains. Look, we do not claim the return of Andalusia, although there we developed a brilliant civilization and founded seats of learning to which all Christendom came seeking instruction and light. On the other hand, we admit frankly that what we hold today, even if it was won by the sword, by the grace of the sword we shall continue to hold it. We are a virile people and the Jews are not. What Jews have bled to reconquer the land they claim? Where are their martyrs? Nowhere! But we, during the great war to save civilization, we have fought shoulder to shoulder and boot to boot with our British and our French allies, and they have most solemnly promised that for us the prize of victory would be a great Arab state, that all the tribes, even those who have been long submerged, would be freed. And now, at least so the Jews maintain, they have pledged themselves to dispossess us and give our lands to aliens. We do not believe such infamy is possible; but if it comes, we will again place our trust in our swords and in the justice of the One God. We shall remain the masters of our ancient home even if it becomes a graveyard. Of course, we should prefer to live in peace with all the world; but if there is no other defense, we shall declare a Holy War against the Unbelievers.”

It too was a good fighting speech. I found it impressive. These words are being heard by millions throughout the Moslem lands. I am sorry for all the world and its children who yearn for peace. Wise old Bacon said the most baleful vicissitude of mankind is that of sect. What a pity that after years of pitiless warfare, with undoubtedly the best and the noblest motives in the world, Mr. Balfour should have opened wide this Pandora box of racial and religious hatreds!