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As long as the local pacifier still did not know how to contend with its resistance, as long as the prevailing belief between the two outbreaks was that it was still possible to calm things down for five or six years — we were still succeeding, two or three years after each outbreak, to again raise the immigration numbers. However, all the signs show that the reliance of the Palestinian Arabs has changed greatly in this respect, and that now, in addition to the unusual strength of the resistance, we will have to face from their side their weapon in its proper form: to apply concentrated and unceasing pressure on the Mandate government, on its unwillingness "to fight," and on our role as protégé Jews.

The demand for the re-establishment of the Hebrew Battalion as part of the permanent British garrison in the Land of Israel has been presented several times. The usual argument against this demand from the mouths of the British officialdom is roughly this: that in a land inhabited by two peoples, it is not just to "arm" one of them, and to leave the other "unarmed." No one would object to this principle were it not for the fact that the Jews have never attacked the Arabs, and there is no one who would suspect them of such intentions, whereas the Arabs have already attacked the Jews four times. Generally, it must be said that arming oneself is not a proper "right" of every citizen, such that because it was given to Reuven, it is therefore unjust to deny it to Shimon. Under the existing conditions, neither Reuven nor Shimon need to walk around armed. Only when we see Shimon attacking him [Reuven], only then is it permissible to arm Reuven, and him, and only him, and not Shimon, whom no one accuses of intending to attack Reuven himself, and this for the fifth time.

Incidentally, for the English there is nothing new here. In a whole series of their colonies, where there is some danger, even if only nominally, for the European settler, they organize European military battalions, and they even imposed (as in Kenya, for example) upon the European youth the duty of military education and training.