M THE y i KSI LON tip PALESTINE opposite, something like a combination o f savage anil superhu­ man, at any rate a being with whom it is impossible (and useless) to come to terms. The Arab is a very subtle debalor and controversialist— much more so than the average educated European— and until one has acquired the technique one is at a great disadvantage. In particular, the Arab has an immense talent for expressing views diametrically opposed to yours with such exquisite and roundabout politeness that you believe him to be in complete agreement with you, and ready to join hands with you at once. Conversation and negotiations with Arabs are not unlike chasing a mirage in the desert: full of'promise and good to look at, but likely to lead to death by thirst. A direct question is dangerous: it provokes in the Arab a skillful withdrawal and a complete change of subject. The problem must be approached by winding lanes, and it takes an interminable time to reach the kernel of the subject.,J On another occasion, he recounts an experience which in effect was the germ of Tel A v iv, whose importance as a Jewish center derives in great measure from its having neutralized the adjacent (and much older) A rab town o f Jaffa. In what Weizmann tells the reader, however, there is only the slightest allusion to the fact o f A rab life already existing there, on what was to be the adjacent future site of Tel A viv, W hat matters is the production o f a Jewish presence, w hose value appears to be more or less self-evident. 1 was staying in Jaffa when Ruppin called on me, and look me out for a walk over the dunes to the north of the town. When we had got well out into the sands— I remember that it came over our ankles— he stopped, and said, very solemnly: "Here we shall create a Jewish city!” 1 looked at him with some dismay. Why should people come to live out in this wilderness where nothing would grow? ] began to ply him with technical questions, and he answered me carefully and exactly. Techni­ cally, he said, everything is possible. Though in Ihe first years communications with the new- settlement would be difficult, the inhabitants would soon become self-supporting and self­