bility of going to Palestine, they would have gladly seized it, because they wished to live as a nation, but that was not possible at that time. Israel must have its own home. Palestine must become the spiritual and cultural centre of the Jews. Properly developed, it can hold millions of homeless Jews who will at last have their own homeland and their own full nationality. If it is a misfortune for a people to be robbed of its country, where it could live in peace and prosperity as a nation and enjoy in common with the rest of the family of nations the fruits of its labour, then this misfortune is not smaller but rather has become greater for having existed two thousand years. If it is an injustice to withhold from a people a land to which they have a right, then this injustice is not the smaller, but rather the greater, when a people has suffered it for two thousand years. Never has a nation governed its own home for a longer period; no nation's history, religion, literature, and traditions are more closely bound up with its land; and no nation has ever suffered a more terrible martyrdom after having been disinherited. Can anyone doubt the right of the Jewish people to the land of Israel? The validity of the Jewish title to Palestine rests on the same basis as the title of any nation to any particular area of the world where it has ruled and existed for centuries. The Jews' historical right on the Land of Israel, with due consideration for the rights and interests of the non-Jewish population which will be safeguarded and respected, must become the decisive factor in the question of Palestine.

At last the time has come. The spirit of freedom is on the wing, the Great Creative Spirit is once more moving among the nations. The new territorial settlement is going to lay the foundations of the world's peace on a basis of justice and national union. The liberation of oppressed nationalities, the restoration of territories violently annexed in the past, the recognition of the desire of racial units and groups for autonomy are the great objects in view. The wrongs of the centuries are going to be righted, and the Jewish race to be placed on an equal footing with other races. The Jewish people is standing at a momentous turning point in its history of four thousand years, to which the determined labour of Zionism has paved the way. very roots of Jewish nationality are set in that soil which after being for ages in shadow is again turning to light.

With the victory of the national idea Zionism also has won a victory. Now that Palestine is freed, much is possible which formerly was only an aspiration. The field is immense and ready. The evil demon of the Pharaohs and of Antiochus Epiphanes has been cast out; the glorious genius of Cyrus the Great hovers with wings of love over the wonderful destiny of the Jewish people. Powerful nations and governments-the guardians of freedom and the champions of justice-have solemnly pledged themselves to further with all the forces at their disposal the revival of the Jewish nation in the land of Israel. Under this guiding symbol the problem of Palestine will be discussed and settled by the Peace Conference among all the important questions before it. The work is stupendous in its implications and its responsibilities. No one imagines that this result can be speedily attained. Its accomplishment will take time, and quite possibly a long time. To restore a scattered people to a land long neglected is not an easy task. The Jewish colonization of Palestine must be carefully built, stone upon stone, by the steady hands of Zionists with that spirit of self-sacrificing endurance which saved our nationality, with wisdom and self-restraint. Zionists are aware of what the Holy Places of Palestine, places of traditional associations and religious faith, consecrated by a thousand cherished memories, are to the great religions. These places will receive equal respect; they will be, not less, but more than hitherto reverently exalted as places of the rarest and sweetest memories in the world. Zionists have the most scrupulous regard for all spiritual things and needs of all religions, and are confident that all Holy Places will be safeguarded by arrangements to be introduced. Zionists are also alive to the legitimate interests and needs of the non-Jewish population, whose liberty and welfare, in peace and harmony and mutual respect, are most essential for the success of the Jewish national rebirth. The new Jewish centre must be made worthy of its glorious past. The noblest ambitions of Jews all over the world are concentrated on this point.

Zionists have now an opportunity never dreamt of— an opportunity that may never return. The Jewish masses, all those who want to live their own life, the clean, free life of farmers and settlers, will be enabled to cultivate all the possibilities of their nature. Industry, art, and science are to join hands in this great work. The long-desired goal of the Jewish people, the re

habilitation of the old national home in the land of their fathers, is nearing realization. This is a great historical event which must touch and stimulate the imagination of all for whom history, right of nations, and justice for small nationalities have any meaning or any message. Ancient Israel, reawakened to new life, is preparing itself to enter the family of nations as a small but free nation in its old home.

Zionism is not a mere abstract idea. It is connected by every bond with modern democracy and aspirations for liberty. All peoples for whom democracy is not a vain word owe it moral and material support. The Peace Conference must permit it to attain its ends. The League of Nations will not be complete if the oldest and most oppressed Jewish nationality will not have its place there. Of all the consequences of the Great War and the still greater Victory, none could be invested with so splendid a degree of romance as the re-establishment of Israel. Of all the small nations which shall spring full fledged from this world crisis, none will have so ancient a claim, so fascinating a history as the Hebrew people reinstalled among the consecrated hills of Judah and by the sacred waters of Galilee. This will be an everlasting memorial to the principle for which the free peoples of the earth have made the greatest sacrifice in the history of the human race. And the names of all those who have given their support and help towards this work of Peace, Justice, and Liberty will live for ever in the annals of the world and of Israel.

APPENDICES

B. M. British Museum Library.

I. S.: Israel Solomons' Collection.

I

THE PROPHETS AND THE IDEA OF A NATIONAL RESTORATION

THE first prophet who has left any definite revelation concerning the Dispersion of the Jews and their ultimate restoration in Palestine was Moses, our Law-giver.

"And I will bring the land into desolation; and your enemies that dwell therein shall be astonished at it." (Leviticus xxvi. 32.) "And you will I scatter among the nations, and I will draw out the sword after you; and your land shall be a desolation, and your cities shall be a waste." (Ibid. 33.)

"And yet for all that, when they are in the land of their enemies, I will not reject them, neither will I abhor them, to destroy them utterly, and to break My covenant with them; for I am the Lord their God." (Ibid. 44.)

"But I will for their sakes remember the covenant of their ancestors, whom I brought forth out of the land of Egypt in the sight of the nations, that I might be their God: I am the Lord." (Ibid. 45.)

Here we have a promise not to abhor or utterly destroy the Jewish people, but to remember the covenant which God made with their ancestors. We find the purport of this covenant in an early chapter of the Pentateuch :

"And the Lord said unto Abram, 'Lift up now thine eyes, and look from the place where thou art, northward and southward and eastward and westward; " (Genesis xiii. 14.) "for all the land which thou seest, to thee will I give it, and to thy seed for ever: " (Ibid. 15.)

It is impossible to understand how it can be said that this covenant will be remembered, if the Jewish people is to continue dispersed, and is to be for ever excluded from the land here spoken of. As to the return from Babylonian captivity, that will not answer the intention of the covenant at all. For to restore a small part of the Jewish people to its own land for a few generations, and afterwards disperse it among all nations for many times as long, without any hope of return, cannot be the meaning of giving that land to the seed of Abram for ever.

Again we read :

"And the Lord shall scatter you among the peoples, . .

(Deuteronomy iv. 27.) "But from thence ye will seek the Lord thy God; and thou shalt find Him, if thou search after Him with all thy heart and with all thy soul." (Ibid. 29.)

"In thy distress, when all these things are come upon thee, in the end of days, thou wilt return to the Lord thy God, and hearken unto His voice;" (Ibid. 30.)

"for the Lord thy God is a merciful God; He will not fail thee, neither destroy thee, nor forget the covenant of thy fathers which He swore unto them." (Ibid. 31.)

This prophecy refers to the thirteenth chapter of Genesis, as is shown by this thirty-first verse; and confirms again the return to the Holy Land, and its possession for ever :—

"

And it shall come to pass, when all these things are come upon thee, the blessing and the curse, which I have set before thee, and thou shalt bethink thyself among all the nations, whither the Lord thy God hath driven thee," (Deuteronomy xxx. 1.)

" and shalt return unto the Lord thy God, and hearken to His voice according to all that I command thee this day, thou and thy children, with all thy heart, and with all thy soul; " (Ibid. 2.)

"that then the Lord thy God will turn thy captivity, and have compassion upon thee, and will return and gather thee from all the peoples, whither the Lord thy God hath scattered thee." (Ibid. 3.)

"If any of thine that are dispersed be in the uttermost parts of heaven, from thence will the Lord thy God gather thee, and from thence will He fetch thee." (Ibid. 4.)

"And the Lord thy God will bring thee into the land which thy fathers possessed, and thou shalt possess it; and He will do thee good, and multiply thee above thy fathers." (Ibid. 5.)

Amongst the "things which should come upon them," which are described at large in the twenty-eighth and twenty-ninth chapters of Deuteronomy, it is particularly said :—

"

"And the Lord shall scatter thee among all peoples, from the one end of the earth even unto the other end of the earth; . . .' (Ibid. xxviii. 64.)

But observe that subsequently we are told :—

"And the Lord thy God will bring thee into the land which thy fathers possessed, and thou shalt possess it; and He will do thee good, and multiply thee above thy fathers." (Ibid. xxx. 5.) which promises do not appear to have been fulfilled during the time of the Babylonian captivity, or after the return from Babylon.

Here we have in plain words, simple and clear, the fundamental idea of Moses: the Jewish national future and the possession of the land for ever. This cannot be explained away by sophistry. In vain some Jews declare: We are not nationalist