Page 234 - Life of Gertrude Bell

214 GERTRUDE BELL

If both parties would exercise forbearance, it is conceivable
that Zionists might obtain a good deal of what they want with­
out forcing the Moslems to relinquish much of what they h avc
got, but I could see no tendency towards moderation among the
latter, and no intention among the former to go forward with
caution. Dr Weizmann’s representative in Jerusalem, Dr Eder,
rejects the idea that Zionism can be allowed to proceed slowly ...
The increase of material well-being he regards as the most per­
suasive of arguments, and no doubt up to a point he is right...
She reviewed the activities of the returning agitators and the new
power among the Turks, Mustafa Kamal; the view of Yasin
Pasha, ‘now one of the extreme exponents of Arab independence
as against a French mandate or any other form of foreign control
... [and] the moving spirit of the Ahd al Iraq, The Mesopotamian
League’. There were references to long conversations with Yasin
and with other members of the League, with Jafar Pasha al Askari
and Yusuf Beg Suwaidi, Governor and deputy Governor of
Aleppo; and to the views of British officials. Finally:
The oysters have been eaten and put down in the bill; it is use­
less to speculate by whom and in what proportions the bill will
be met. A more profitable line of thought lies in the direction
of considering how the twelve-month existence—even if it fail
to exist longer — of an independent Arab State has affected and
will affect Mesopotamia. It is true that the Arab administration
has left much to be desired, and equally true that it has been
artificially financed by our subsidy to the Sharif; but it has
presented, nevertheless, the outward appearance of a national
I
Government; public business has been kept going, tramways
have run, streets have been lighted, people have bought and
sold, and a normal world has been maintained... and if it
crumbles ... its failure will be attributed, not to inherent defects,
but to British indifference and French ambition ... We have
stated that it is our intention to assist and establish in Syria
and in Mesopotamia indigenous governments and administra­
tions ... I believe that events of the last year have left us no
choice in Mesopotamia. Local conditions, the vast potential
wealth of the country, the tribal character of its rural popula­
tion, the lack of material from which to draw official personnel
will make the problem harder to solve than elsewhere. I venture
to think that the answer to such objections is that any alterna-