Fall

The old walled City of Jerusalem, ruled during 30 centuries by Jebusites, Hebrews, Greeks, Romans, Christians, Persians, Arabs, Turks and British, fell again last week. It was the latest of a long list of occupations of Jerusalem since the time that King David's powerful Hebrew forces, gaining an entrance through the city's waterworks, took the Jebusite stronghold in the Eleventh Century B. C.

For weeks armed Arab rebels, under German-trained General Abdul Rahim Haj Mohammed, former Turkish-Arab commander, have filtered into Jerusalem, some entering secretly through underground passages, others in disguise through the Old City's gates. By increasingly violent terrorism they had made life so dangerous for individual officers of the law that the British withdrew from most of the Old City to the largely Christian and Jewish city beyond the walls, there to await reinforcements.

Meanwhile the blazing Arab revolt showed an unprecedented contempt for British might. Rebels gained the upper hand throughout most of the tiny country. British courts of law ceased to function in all but the larger cities. Effective British government was confined to the boundaries of new Jerusalem, Tel Aviv, Haifa. Daily trains to Egypt operated only thrice weekly, and then under armed guard. Arson, murder, wanton destruction made the Holy Land a land of terror, reducing Britain's prestige in the Near East to its lowest point in history.

In London Lord Halifax, British Foreign Secretary, meanwhile had conferred on the Palestine mess with Foreign Minister Seyyid Tawfik al Suwaidi of Iraq, an Arab country which has done more than its part in fanning the Palestine fire. In a Cabinet session Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain discussed the peril of the Near Eastern civil war to the Empire's lifeline to India. Strong were the indications that Britain would shortly give in to Arab demands that Jewish immigration be stopped and that the population be stabilized at 400,000 Jews, 900,000 Arabs.

Before giving in, however, Britain first had to save face--an important matter in the East--by restoring order to show that she was master of the situation. More British troops having landed, Britain finally began her reconquest of Palestine. With 3,000 soldiers standing by at nearby Gethsemane, Bethlehem and around Jerusalem, Black Watch Coldstream Guards and Royal Northumberland Fusiliers scaled the old Roman walls, marched in through the Biblical Dung and Zion Gates, began to clean up the Old City's underground labyrinths.

Rebels who had sniped at their enemies from the minarets of mosques showed surprisingly little resistance, gradually withdrew to the Mosque of Omar area, knowing that British troops were under orders not to desecrate those sacred precincts. In two days' operations nine Arabs were killed, no British. Arresting all men whose shoulders showed the bruises of rifle butts, Tommies put 300 suspects in a concentration camp on the site of King Herod's ancient citadel. Although a 24-hour curfew prevailed, the British command showed its regard for Moslem religious feelings by agreeing to a request of the Moslem Supreme Council to permit 40 Arabs to attend the Friday noon prayers at the Mosque of Omar so that those services, held every Friday for centuries, would not be interrupted. When, on the third day of the siege, a minaret sniper killed a British soldier that permission was withdrawn.

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