To the Editors of the Crimson:

As an ex-newspaperman and current member of the Harvard Zionist Group's Executive Board, I wish to take exception to all except the first sentence of Robert L. Wald's letter in Friday's Crimson. The phrase "typical Arab viewpoint" is informative, not editorial in nature and is used to better describe to readers who may not be thoroughly familiar with the sides in the controversy just what group is being represented by the speaker. This is a perfectly legitimate journalistic device. "At least in Hashem's opinion" is included for the obvious purpose of preventing a statement, printed as an indirect quotation, from being accepted unconditionally as fact, when, to the best knowledge of the reporter or news editor concerned, the "fact" is highly controversial, to say the least. In my personal opinion, the Crimson is guilty of no editorializing in this article.

Wald himself is far more biased and inaccurate. He says, "Historicaly, the Zionists' claim to Palestine rests on extremely weak evidence; legally, it is equally tenuous. Rationally their argument suffers before the cold-blooded logic of the Arabs." He has, of course, a right to his opinion, but the above statement is so phrased that it sounds suspiciously as if he wants it to be accepted as fact, which it is not. Granting that opinions differ widely, no one who has taken the trouble to read the terms of Britain's mandate over Palestine and the various White Papers and promises which have been made, or who examines the history of the Holy Land, can call the Jewish claim legally tenuous or based on weak evidence. What Wald might have said, with less fear of contradiction, is that the Arabs also have a somewhat legitimate claim. The existence of valid conflicting claims is the main cause of the present dispute, nor are the people who espouse either side completely without intelligence.

The objection to compromise, which Wald so gliby suggests as the only possible solution, from the Zionists' point of view, is that Palestine has already been partitioned. Trans-Jordania has been separated from it, making a small country into a minute one. It is this minute land that many people today propose to further divide. Moreover, all the surrounding countries are almost completely Arab states. Large numbers of these Arabs have migrated into Palestine in order to take advantage of the facilities for business, sanitation, medical care, education, and agriculture of previously desert land which the Zionists have made possible. The large number of Arabs who risk the penalty of breaking the band on trade with the Jews is further indication that they do not object to their presence.

Lastly, "the humanitarian goal of (the Zionist) organization" has not, as Wald claims, "been trampled underfoot in the headlong pursuit of a political state." Palestine has become the only hope for the more existence of millions of Jews, not to mention things like the dignity of man.

Granting, as one must, that there are two valid sides to this very complex argument, it serves no useful purpose to far the Crimson with a taint it does not deserve, nor to assume the utter indefensibility of a position merely because one does not happen to endorse it. Barry Golomb '46.