Declaring he would leave the Zionist Organization if Israel Zangwill’s alleged views on the expropriation of the Arabs from Palestine were to prevail, Dr. Arthur Rupin, the Zionist colonization expert, made the startling assertion that the Arabs of Palestine were descendants of old Palestine Jews who had been converted to Mohammedism.
Dr. Rupin was addressing the convention of Austrian Zionists here. He emphasized that the Arab question can be solved only economically, through cooperation between Jew and Arab in Palestine, and not through politics.
Rejecting Mr. Zangwill’s suggestion that there was a time when the Arabs could have been made to trek to some other territory, Dr. Rupin said, “Remember the Palestine Arabs are descendants of the Jews of Old Palestine, converted to Islam”.
“Whence this new theory”? some one in the audience asked.
“Release me of Zionist work for one year and I will prove this assertion to be historically correct”, Dr. Rupin, who is a member of the Zionist Executive Committee, replied.
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