867N.01/1234: Telegram
The Chargé in Egypt (Merriam) to the Secretary of State
[Received 4:27 p.m.]
87. Within the past 10 days several delegations supporting the Arab cause in Palestine have called at the Legation to present appeals for transmission to the President. Such communications have been and will be forwarded by air mail to the Department.
Some of the groups represent important manifestations such as the recent inter-Parliamentary Arab Congress and the Congress of Oriental Women. Callers have been uniformly courteous but thoroughly earnest and the tone of the communications has been increasingly serious.
Certain thoughts recur in the resolutions and pleas:
- (1)
- full realization of the weight and effectiveness of Jewish influence in the United States;
- (2)
- regret amounting to sorrow that this pressure should have given rise to statements by American public men sympathetic to the Zionist aims coupled with disbelief that these reflect the sentiments of the American people as a whole;
- (3)
- a national home in the form contemplated by the Jews is a direct violation of the principle of the self-determination of peoples advanced and heretofore strongly supported by the United States Government;
- (4)
- this violation is a particularly obnoxious form of imperialism because it contemplates submerging an existing Arab majority through forced and largely artificial immigration imposed by a third party;
- (5)
- in sympathizing with the Zionists the Government of the United States runs the risk of losing the friendship and incurring the dislike of Arabs and Moslems generally.
Recent conversations with prominent Egyptians indicate a profound and growing sympathy here with the Arab rebels who are regarded as patriots of the first water. At the same time it is not believed that Great Britain can afford to antagonize Arabs and Moslems much longer by what the latter regard as an unreasonable implementation of the Balfour Declaration. For this reason and for major considerations of international politics anti-British demonstrations have been quelled with a firm hand.