Page:The Truth about Palestine.djvu/22

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THE TRUTH ABOUT PALESTINE.

resolved and that the Hebrew genius, restored to Hebrew soil, should have an assured opportunity of once more making its characteristic contribution to the common stock.


JEWISH WORK IN PALESTINE.

On the faith of the pledges which Great Britain is so lightly being asked to dishonour, Jews throughout the world are already consecrating themselves to Palestine with an ardour and devotion which sufficiently bespeak the firmness of their resolve. Since the British Occupation, upwards of two million pounds have been poured into Palestine by Jewish public bodies, to say nothing of the large sums made available for Jewish colonisation by the munificence of Baron Edmond de Rothschild, and the still larger amounts of capital brought into the country by Jewish private enterprise. Neglected soil has been cleared, marshes have been drained, and the stony hilltops afforested. The establishment of model farms and agricultural experiment stations, the introduction of improved breeds of cattle, experiments in poultry-farming, tobacco-planting and the culture of the silk-worm—these are some of the forms assumed by "Zionist aggression." The Jews lead the way in education and alone possess a complete educational system from the kindergarten to the technical high-school—a system soon to be crowned by a University, of which the foundation-stone has already been laid. Of their total educational expenditure of £E.89,000 a year, all but £E.3,350 is provided from Jewish sources. With the exception of this trifling grant-in-aid, the Jews, while contributing to the revenue in the same proportion as the other inhabitants, leave free for the non-Jewish communities the whole of the £E.103,000 appropriated to education by the Government. Since the autumn of 1918, the American Zionist Medical Unit, maintained at a cost of some £E.100,000 a year from Jewish funds, has ministered to the sick without distinction of race.

The quickening of economic and social life to which

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