Reporting two days later about General Edmund Allenby's conquest of Jerusalem on December 9, 1917, the New York Herald announced in a headline: "Jerusalem Rescued by British after 673 Years of Moslem Rule." Subtitles then elaborate: "Great Rejoicing in the Christian World" and "Jews Everywhere in Particular See the Restoration of Palestine as Part of Allies' Programme."
 First page - click for enlargement. |
The newspaper's second page boasts stories under headlines that read "Distinguished Jews Here [i.e., New York] Express Joy Over Capture of Jerusalem by British," "Rescue of Jerusalem Causes Joy," and "Holy City Ravaged in Many Wars by Pagan and Turk: Has Been Under the Yoke of Mohammedan Rule for 670 Years."
 Second page - click for enlargement. |
Comments:
(1) The lead headline captures a mentality once dominant but now rare in the West, when there was a self-conscious "Christian world" and it rejoiced in a religious/military victory over Muslims.
(2) Conversely, the "Muslim world" would still today rejoice in precisely this manner, recalling medieval rivalries, raising religious sentiments, and taking satisfaction at the humiliation of an age-old enemy.
(3) If the West can travel so far in less than a century, why not Muslims as well?
(4) It's no wonder that Jews and Zionists "expressed joy" over the British conquest, for it had been barely over a month since London had proclaimed the Balfour Declaration in which His Majesty's Government stated that it viewed "with favour the establishment in Palestine of a national home for the Jewish people." Dec. 9, 1917 was also the first day of Hanukkah. (March 30, 2009)
 Allenby entering Jerusalem. |
The Jewish News of Northern California published an example of that joy on p. 2 of its December 21, 1917 issue, under the title "Will the Zionistic Dream be Realized?":
The capture of Jerusalem by the British has been widely and almost generally recognized as giving opportunity to the Zionists to carry out their dream of a separate state in the Holy Land and thus fulfill the hopes of many pious Israelites for so many centuries of a restoration of the Jewish people to its own soil. So strongly has this view been presented to the public and so hospitably has it been received, that doubters and dissenters appear to be completely relegated to the background. So far as the British government is concerned, the statement of Foreign Minister Balfour distinctly indicates that it would welcome a Jewish settlement under British protection, where Jewish people could work out their own destiny. ... How an independent state, if permitted to be formed, would solve the socialistic questions which are likely to be pressed upon it and are brought forward already by various radicals, remains to be seen. ... Whatever happens, it seems likely, if matters remain as they are, that there will be quite an influx of Israelites into the Holy Land, and perhaps a boom in building lots in Jerusalem.
 "Will the Zionistic Dream be Realized?" The Jewish News of Northern California, December 21, 1917, p. 2. |
Mar. 24, 2014 update: A 14-minute film, General Allenby's Entry into Jerusalem, is available to view, courtesy of the UK Imperial War Museum.
