Until quite lately it was the French who bore the worst odium of this in
the eyes of the Mohammedans. Under the French the Jews in North Africa
were often given a special, a superior position, which was an insult to
every Mohammedan and which is still an insult to him. It is the weakest
point of the French regime. In Algeria the Ghetto Jew may vote. The Arab
may not. Even in Morocco, where things have been done more wisely than
in Algiers, the difficulty is felt. How are you to treat a Jew
differently in Morocco from the way in which he is treated in France? He
is common to the two countries. If you treat him as if he were French,
and therefore a member of the governing power, what of the pride of
those lords of the Atlas and of Fez?
In the vastly larger field of Mohammedan control exercised by Britain,
which, directly and indirectly, is ten times that of France, there was
until lately less of this friction; but the tables have been turned, and
to-day it is Britain which stands to the Mohammedan as the thruster-in
of the Jew. It began with the support of Jewish finance in Egypt; it
went on with the extended control over Indian commerce by Jews; it
continued in the control of Indian currency by Jews. It has ended in the
grotesque appointment to the Indian Viceroyalty and the extraordinary
experiment of Palestine.
To-day, at the moment in which I write, there is no doubt on the matter
whatsoever: From Rabat on the Atlantic to the Bay of Bengal, the Western
Powers are regarded as the agents of a Jewish intrusion which is
intolerable to Islam. And whereas the chief blame lay, until quite a few
years ago, upon the French, to-day it lies upon the British Government.
* * * * *
The rôle of the Catholic Church in the debate between the Jews and
Christendom is the most discussed, the worst understood, of any point
connected with the general problem. But it is capable of simple
definition. Wherever the Catholic Church is powerful, and in proportion
as it is powerful, the traditional principles of the civilization of
which it is the soul and guardian will always be upheld. One of these
principles is the sharp distinction between the Jew and ourselves. The
Rationalist would say that this distinction was racial, and that it only
found religious expression on account of its racial reality. His
opponent would say that the origin of the quarrel was mainly religious;
that it was a difference in religious tradition which formed the
contrast between the Jew and Christendom. The former can cite as
evidence the violent original contrast between the Roman Empire and the
Jew, the latter the truth that religion, philosophy, is the formative
force in every human society.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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