Palestine Question, San Francisco Chronicle, Nov. 6, 1947.

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“We’ll have to fight the Crusades all over again if we turn Palestine over to the Arabs,” according to the Reverend Dr. Theodore Jackman, executive director of the Palestine Research Institute.

Jackman, guest speaker last Sunday at the Zionist-Hadassah Bal-four day meeting, held a press conference at the St. Francis Hotel. He currently is touring the U. S. under the auspices of the American Christian Palestine Committee.

He said there is no such thing as Arab democracy in Palestine. The Arab community is under the thumb of the Grand Mufti and his followers. They remain in power by brute force.

‘SLAVE TRADERS’

“And we can’t expect too much from the United Nations, because it is being deliberately packed by countries that have no right to belong,” he said. “Yemen, which was just admitted to the U. N., is a slave-trading nation. Saudi-Arabia, valuable to us because of her oil deposits, has a ruler who keeps slaves.”

Jackman declared there was a good possibility of an Arab army being lead by the British and supplied by the United States.

American war surplus jeeps, blankets, tents and other military equipment are now being distributed to the Arabs in Egypt, he said.

Trans-Jordan, an Arab State bordering Palestine, has an army generated by British officers and supplied by a U. S.-financed Britain.

“I do not think there will be full-scale warfare, however, because the Arabs are not psychologically prepared to wage a modern war. “The Jews,” he added, “are absolutely able to defend themselves, many of them were trained as guerrillas by the British when Nazi General Rommel threatened to invade Egypt and the Near East.”

Jackman, a wiry, youthful-looking minister of the First Christian Church, has been in Palestine for six of the past seven years. He left his home in Glendale to specialize in on-the-spot archeological research on events mentioned in the Bible.

He later was made a fellow of the Royal Geographical Society in London.

As a Christian, he said, he could show prejudice to neither Jew nor Arab. He is particularly anxious for an all-Jewish, homeland in the entire Palestine region because, “it will mean a strong democratic bulwark in the Near East and prevent any chance of the spread of Communism.’

According to Jackman, Arabs and Jews not only can get along together but actually are working in harmony right now.

NO STRIFE

“In Haifa, for instance, a half-Arab, half-Jewish city, the City Council is composed equally of both groups. The last Mayor was an Arab. The present one is a Jew. The city is strongly industrialized and very progressive. And there is no strife.”

In contrast, Jackman referred to strife-ridden Jerusalem.

“There the British govern by divide and rule. The City Council is composed of seven appointees. Five are British, one is Arab and one is a Jew. The result is chaos,” he said.

“Many of the Arabs, particularly Christian Arabs, are afraid of an Arab-ruled state. They have no fear of living under the Jews.

“If the U. N. takes over and the British evacuate, there is great need of caution. We must retreat slowly enough to permit both Arab and Jewish communities to enjoy self-determination,” the minister concluded.