means of working out the consummation of their national aspirations is through the closest possible collaboration." The agreement pledged the support of the Zionist organization to a great Arab state, and Arab support to a state of Palestine, based on the Balfour Declaration. The agreement said that "all necessary measures shall be taken to encourage and stimulate immigration of Jews into Palestine on a large scale and as quickly as possible to settle Jewish immigrants upon the land." Significantly, any matter of dispute was to be referred to the British government for arbitration. The agreement never came into force, however. Faisal, who signed it without the authorization of his family, made the signature conditional on the acceptance of his claims for Syria by the Peace Conference. This, of course, never happened. The French attacked Damascus and drove Faisal, together with the Syrian and Palestinian nationalists, out of Syria.
The Zionists were not greatly distressed by this. Their claims were accepted in the Peace Settlement held at San Remo in April, 1920, and incorporated in the documents which established a British mandate over Palestine, ratified by the League of Nations in 1922. One feels that the Zionists were rather relieved at avoiding the necessity of dealing with the unfamiliar phenomenon of Arab nationalism and content to go back to their dealings with the British.
The whole intermezzo is interesting only as an indication of what could have been.
* * *
For nearly twenty years the British-Zionist relationship continued with many misgivings. British colonial officials could find no common language with Russian-Jewish leaders, but found some attachment for romantic Arab sheiks. The Arabs, accusing the British of turning their land over to the Jews, revolted every few years with ever-increasing violence. The Jews accused the British colonial adminis¬