Turks in Palestine
While Belgium is bleeding and hoping, while Poland suffers and dreams of
liberation, while Serbia is waiting for redemption, there is a little country the
soul of which is torn to pieces—a little country that is so remote, so remote that
her ardent sighs cannot be heard.
It is the country of perpetual sacrifice, the country that saw Abraham build the
altar upon which he was ready to immolate his only son, the country that Moses
saw from a distance, stretching in beauty and loveliness,—a land of promise
never to be attained,—the country that gave the world its symbols of soul and
spirit. Palestine!
No war correspondents, no Red Cross or relief committees have gone to
Palestine, because no actual fighting has taken place there, and yet hundreds of
thousands are suffering there that worst of agonies, the agony of the spirit.
Those who have devoted their lives to show the world that Palestine can be made
again a country flowing with milk and honey, those who have dreamed of
reviving the spirit of the prophets and the great teachers, are hanged and
persecuted and exiled, their dreams shattered, their holy places profaned, their
work ruined. Cut off from the world, with no bread to sustain the starving body,
the heavy boot of a barbarian soldiery trampling their very soul, the dreamers of
Palestine refuse to surrender, and amidst the clash of guns and swords they are
battling for the spirit with the weapons of the spirit.
The time has not yet come to write the record of these battles, nor even to
attempt to render justice to the sublime heroes of Palestine. This book is merely
the story of some of the personal experiences of one who has done less and
suffered less than thousands of his comrades.
