THE Ql'KSTION OK PALESTINE I), one can note the increasing prevalence o f the idea that Israel was to be built on the ruins o f this A rab Palestine. At first the idea was slated with a good deal o f circumspection, and it was done to fit in with the conceptions o f a reconstruct­ ing colonialism so crucial to high European imperiaiism. [n 1895, Theodor Herzl noted in his Diaries that something would have to be done about the Palestinian natives: We shall have to spirit the penniless population across the border by procuring employment for it in the transit countries, while denying it any employment in our own country. Both the process of expropriation and the removal of the poor must be carried out discreetly and circumspectly.'' Lord Rothschild corresponded on behalf of the Zionists with the British government in the phase that led up to the issuing of the Balfour Declaration, His memorandum o f July 18. 1917 speaks o f ‘‘the principle that Palestine should be re-constitutcd as the National Home for the Jewish P eop le." Chaim W eizmann was soon to speak o f the fact that the British understood how “ the Jews alone were capable o f rebuilding Palestine and o f giving it a place in the modern family o f nations." T he Chief Rabbi o f England, Dr, J, H. H erz, spoke eloquently o f British “ powerful support to the re-establishment in Palestine o f a national home for the Jewish p e o p le ." 10 None o f these statements is clear enough about what is at present to be found in Palestine. The country's “ re-constitution" and "rebuilding" unmistakably implies, however, that its present constitution— including hundreds o f thousands o f A rabs— w as to be dissolved (how or where this is to be done isn't very clear) in order that in its place was to appear a new Jewish state. The style of these declarations o f intent is to leave out any unambiguous refer­ ence to the doubtless inconvenient fact that the country was already constituted (if only as a colony) and that its inhabitants were most unlikely to be happy about their "reconstitution" by a new colonial force. But the statements themselves are perfectly accurate; Palestine was rebuilt, it was reconstructed, it was reestablished. Just how brutal these acts were is