The War and DemocracySeton-Watson, R. W. (Robert William)
History
The War and Democracy
Seton-Watson, R. W. (Robert William)
Europe -- Politics and government -- 1871-1918; Nationalism -- Europe; World War, 1914-1918
Even this does not exhaust the possibilities of the immediate future. Is
Palestine to become a Jewish land? In recent years there has been a
steady emigration of Moslem and Christian and an equally marked Jewish
immigration, and among other factors in the movement the potentialities of
Jewish nationalism in the United States deserve especial notice. America
is full of nationalities which, while accepting with enthusiasm their new
American citizenship, none the less look to some centre in the Old World as
the source and inspiration of their national culture and traditions. The
most typical instance is the feeling of the American Jew for Palestine,
which may well become a focus for his _déclassé_ kinsmen in other parts of
the world. The Jews quite realise that they can have no exclusive claim to
the possession of such a religious centre as Jerusalem, and it is clear
that whatever happens to the Holy Land as a whole, the city itself must
be subject to an impartial administration, which would be neither Jewish,
Catholic, Orthodox, Protestant nor Moslem in any exclusive sense, but would
secure free play to the religious and educational aspirations of them all.
Herzl himself, the founder of modern Zionism, dreamt of Jerusalem as the
shrine of all religions and never looked forward to the day when it would
be a purely Jewish city.
Lastly, what is to be the fate of Asia Minor? There can be no question that
the Russians must be allowed to occupy and retain the whole of Turkish
Armenia. They will thus be conferring a benefit upon humanity and ending
one of the most grinding and barbarous tyrannies that the modern world has
ever seen; the progress made by the Armenians under Russian rule during the
past twenty years is a happy augury for the future of this race when once
united in common allegiance to the Tsar, under a wise system of local
autonomy. But will the Ottoman Empire be able to survive when shorn of its
European possessions, of its Armenian and Arab populations? Will not Italy
demand her share of the spoils, and side by side with the French in Syria,
assume in friendly rivalry the protectorate of Cilicia from a point east of
Adalia as far as the gulf of Alexandretta? Will it be possible to arrest
the process of disintegration even at this stage? Will not Greece attempt
to annex Smyrna and at least a portion of its hinterland, or has she not
at least as good a title as any other competitor? Here, again, it would
be absurd to attempt any answer for the present, but we must at least
be prepared for the possibility of a transformation as rapid and as
overwhelming in Asiatic Turkey as that which freed the Balkans from the
Turkish nightmare two short years ago. In Asia, as in Europe, the war is
the prelude to a new era, and Britain is faced with the alternative
of weakly abandoning her Imperial mission or assuming still greater
responsibilities. "The Turkish Empire has committed suicide, and dug with
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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