I’ve been reading “Zionism and Palestine”, a book written in 1937 (and updated in 1940) by Sir Ronald Storrs. His perspective on Zionism is somewhat unique. In 1918 Storrs became Military Governor of Jerusalem. In 1921 he became Civil Governor of Jerusalem and Judea. From 1926-1932 he was Governor and Commander-in-Chief of Cyprus.

This morning I read this passage about the suggested return of Jews to Palestine which I suspect puts the Palestinian view into some perspective:

The injunction, under Article 6 of the Mandate, that the Administration “shall encourage in co-operation with the Jewish Agency close settlement by Jews on the land, including State lands and waste lands not required for public purposes” in Palestine, sounded with a curious difference in different ears. To the world at large it seemed a reasonable satisfaction by the bestowal of surplus, unused and unwanted areas. To the Zionist, who had hoped that with the prosperity of British rule his rapidly augmented population would need every possible acre of land in the country, it was the obvious initial minimum of concession unwarrantably delayed by the Government. The thinking Arabs regarded Article 6 as Englishmen would regard instructions from a German conqueror for the settlement and development of the Duchy of Cornwall, of our Downs, commons and golf-courses, not by Germans, but by Italians “returning” as Roman legionaries. For such loss of national and political future repeated assurances of strict and scrupulous maintenance of religious rights and sites (assumed under British rule everywhere) were about as satisfactory compensations for the inviolable conservation of the Court of Arches and of Westminster Abbey. Article 6 has not yet been “implemented”, owing to the lack of available State property, but it still stands in the Mandate, and is still being vigorously pressed by Zionists.