867N.01/1261: Telegram
The Consul General at Beirut (Palmer) to the Secretary of State
[Received 5:05 p.m.]
Since the release on October 14 of the Department’s statement regarding Palestine and the Jewish National Home the Consulate General has received various letters and telegrams with reference to press advices from the United States reporting this and other official statements [Page 982] concerning Palestine situation. A translation of the first of these telegrams, from Damascus, signed by Chairman of the Committee in Syria for the Defense of Palestine, was forwarded with my despatch No. 137 of October 295 reporting visits of delegations of Moslem and Christian Arabs and transmitting a copy of a letter which the second delegation representing the Arab Women’s Federation had forwarded to President Roosevelt by mail. Translations of the remaining letters and telegrams are being sent by air mail. Originating in Beirut, Damascus, Sidon, Tripoli, Hama and Aleppo they are obviously a part of an organized effort to counteract Zionist propaganda. Their general tone is one of protest against British policy and methods in implementing the Balfour Declaration and of surprise and disappointment that the United States should appear to ignore the principles of the Arab cause in Palestine and the sympathy and support which would cause increasingly enmities in neighboring Arab countries and in more distant Moslem countries. Several emphasize the unique prestige hitherto enjoyed in the Near East and especially in Syria and the Lebanon by the United States as the actual home of many natives of these countries and as the generous sponsor of disinterested and inspiring educational activities in these countries. A few suggest the possibility of anti-American reprisals, and a considerable number of tracts have been distributed from Damascus urging a boycott of American goods.
The suggestion of such a boycott has not been taken seriously by local firms handling American goods, but among the faculty of the American University of Beirut, in daily association with Arab students from leading families in Syria, Palestine, Lebanon, Iraq, Bahrain, Kuweit, the Sudan, Egypt, Trans-Jordan, there is a feeling that American economic and commercial interests and the standing and usefulness of American institutions in these Near Eastern countries may suffer appreciably if, as is feared, an early announcement of British policy in Palestine indicating unpreparedness to make concessions to the Arabs should be associated with a feeling that the attitude of the United States may have influenced the British decision.
- Not printed.↩