THE TRUTH ABOUT PALESTINE.
MOSLEM AND CHRISTIAN WAKF.
Equally baseless is the suggestion that the Government of Palestine is improperly interfering in the management of Moslem and Christian Wakf (Pious Foundations). So far is this from being the case that on the express recommendation of a representative Moslem Conference, which was actually in session when the Delegation's official statement was published, elaborate provision has been made for the administration of Moslem Wakf by purely Moslem Wakf Committees, acting in conjunction with a Supreme Moslem Religious Council. The full text of the material Ordinance can be read in No. 58 of the "Official Gazette" (pp. 2 ff.). As for the sale of the Wakf properties of the Greek Orthodox Church, the malicious calumnies circulated on this subject have been authoritatively exposed as the inventions they are in an official communiqué setting forth the actual facts. The sale was necessitated by the hopeless insolvency of the Orthodox Church, which possessed no other assets than its landed property; it was carried out under the direction of a Commission presided over by the Chief Justice of Ceylon, and consisting exclusively of Christians; it related solely to "building sites acquired in recent years as an investment," and possessing no ecclesiastical character; and had those sites been offered in smaller lots, "there is no probability that other small purchasers would have been forthcoming for many years to pay an amount equal to that which had been agreed." The sale was, in other words, effected under the authority of a purely Christian body in the exclusive interest of the Church itself. The whole of these facts, with which the Arab Delegation cannot but have been familiar, are clearly set forth in a statement communicated to the Press by the Colonial Office and published by "The Times" and other London newspapers on December 22nd, 1921.
If these misrepresentations have been dealt with in detail, it is only because they are typical of this part of
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