tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6844367946876032905.post5293853820415192740..comments2023-10-03T23:58:17.279+11:00Comments on Middle East Reality Check: The Jeffries-Dugdale Exchange 1MERChttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14500573372528287733noreply@blogger.comBlogger2125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6844367946876032905.post-52301696804036483922013-01-07T04:31:21.221+11:002013-01-07T04:31:21.221+11:00You're welcome, Mannie. There's no further...You're welcome, Mannie. There's no further mention of NB in the J-D correspondence, but you might find the following anecdote on NB from CR Ashbee of interest. <br /><br />Ashbee has a chapter in his 'A Palestine Notebook 1918-1923' called 'What is Zionism?'. The relevant passage for our purpose is as follows, and NB emerges in it a 'true believer' with all the blinkered certainty that that entails: <br /><br />"'Jewish tradition,' sings Leon Simon, the resounding bass, 'has always satisfied that which is fully and inalienably Jewish, and so Hebrew has been for centuries the holy language, just as Jerusalem has been the holy city and the Bible the holy writings.'<br /><br />"Yes, but there is another holy language - Arabic; and there have been other holy writings - Greek drama and philosophy - in which God revealed himself. God has more catholicism than the Zionist. And if it was all so true, why did not the Jew make good in history?<br /><br />"'It is the opinion of competent judges that the modern fellaheen or Arabic-speaking peasants of Palestine are descendants of the pagan tribes which dwelt there, before the Israelite invasion, and have clung to the soil ever since, being submerged but never destroyed by each successive wave of conquest which has swept over the land.' (Frazer: Folk Lore in the Old Testament, Vol.1 p.17.)<br /><br />"When I put that statement of Frazer's up to Norman Bentwich one day as we were out riding together, he met it with a complete unbelief. The fact, if indeed it were a fact, did not touch him, he was dreaming of other things. His smile of childlike confidence in effect said: 'I don't believe it.' Facts have no value in the light of utter faith; they do not exist. Yet that fact is another answer to Zionism, perhaps the strongest of all. The Jews did not make good." (pp. 110-111)MERCnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6844367946876032905.post-48704279786988841782013-01-07T00:30:11.287+11:002013-01-07T00:30:11.287+11:00I will certainly stay tuned for the next series of...I will certainly stay tuned for the next series of installments because it gets more and more fascinating with the introduction of items by one Mr Bentwitch wherein lies my fascination.<br />You may or may not be aware that John Monash had a "mistress" whose name was Lizette Bentwitch, and the Bentwitch in the UK which is mentioned in the correspondence was her brother.<br />My fascination goes further because these Bentwitch people were first cousins to my grandmother, so it is a personal intereset as well as the politics of zionism.<br />I look forward to what follows! and thanks for all the historical information.<br />Mannie De SaxeMannie De Saxehttps://www.blogger.com/profile/12860936567655277147noreply@blogger.com