Exodus - Leon Uris [142]
The British were reeling! The Ottomans sat on the edge of the Suez Canal and the Germans had torn the Russian first-line army to shreds. British efforts to stir up an Arab revolt against the Ottomans had fallen flat.
Then came the final blow! The Arabs suspected that a secret British-French agreement was in the wind to carve up and subjugate the Arab world.
Dr. Weizmann and the Zionists felt the time was ripe to score a point for the Jewish homeland. England desperately needed sympathy and help. In Germany, Jews were fighting for their fatherland as they were in Austria. In order for the Zionists to gain the support of the Jews of the rest of the world, especially those in America, a dramatic decision was needed.
As the negotiations between the Zionists and the British were brought to a close, Lord Balfour, the British Foreign Minister, wrote a letter to Lord Rothschild with the revelation:
His Majesty’s Government view with favour the establishment in Palestine of a national home for the Jewish people, and will use their best endeavours to facilitate the achievement of this object.
Thus was born the Balfour Declaration, the Magna Charta of the Jewish people!
Chapter Eleven
JEMAL PASHA’S POLICE found Sarah Ben Canaan at the Shoshanna kibbutz just two weeks before her baby was due. Till then, Ruth and the members of the kibbutz had guarded her carefully and seen to it that she had rest and comfort to protect the baby.
The Turkish police were not so considerate. Sarah was dragged from her cottage in the middle of the night, locked in a covered van, and driven over a bumpy, muddy road to the black basalt rock police station in Tiberias.
She was grilled without respite for twenty-four solid hours.
Where is your husband? ... how did he make his escape? ... how are you communicating with him? ... you are smuggling out information and we know it ... you are spying for the British. Come now, your husband wrote these papers in behalf of the British, you cannot deny it ... what Jews in Palestine do you contact? ...
Sarah answered the questions directly and without being ruffled. She admitted that Barak had fled because of his British sympathies, for it was no secret. She insisted she had remained only to deliver her child. She made no further admissions to their charges. At the end of twenty-four hours Sarah Ben Canaan was the calmest person in the inspector’s office.
They began to make threats, and still Sarah remained calm and direct. At last she was grabbed and pulled into a forbidding-looking room with thick basalt walls and no windows. One small light burned over a wooden table. She was stretched out on her back, pinned down by five policemen, and her shoes were removed. The bottoms of her feet were lashed with thick branches. As they beat the soles of her feet they repeated the questions. Her answers were the same.
Spy! How do you get information out to Barak Ben Canaan? Speak! You are in touch with other British agents ... who are they?
The pain was excruciating. Sarah stopped speaking altogether. She clenched her teeth and the sweat poured from her. Her courage fed the Turks’ anger. The whip ripped open the soles of her feet and blood spurted out.
“Speak!” they screamed. “Speak!”
She quivered and writhed in agony....
“Jew! Spy!”
At last she fell unconscious.
A bucket of water was thrown at her face. The beating and the questioning continued. She passed out again and they revived her again. Now