On the occasion of the invitation Lebanon has extended to the sister states for a conference of the kings and heads of the Arab states, to take matters in hand in the face of the Jewish provocations, the delegate of "The Woman's Voice" put to Mr. Mohammad Jamil Beyhum a number of questions calculated to clarify the situation and make it plain in the minds of the readers... Our great Ustad is

the man best acquainted with the Palestine question, and the one who has studied and treated it most thoroughly...

Q — I have learned, Ustad, that Lebanon has hastened to invite the sister states to a conference of the kings and heads of the Arab states, to take matters in hand in the face of the recent Israeli provocations against the neighboring Arab countries, and especially at Jerusalem. What is your view of this latest, continu-ing aggression, and of our people's stand toward it?

— The purpose of these persis-tent, brazen provocations against all the Arab states neighboring her, in full view and hearing

of the United Nations, is to induce the states of the Tripartite Declaration issued in 1950 to press the Arab states into recognizing Israel by way of a peace with her.

They are the result of a severe strait into which Israel has fallen and from which she has no deliver-ance save by one of two things: either the conclusion of a peace between her and the Arab states, which would afterward secure to her the making of the Arab lands a market for her industrial products; or expansion in these lands by force, which would, on the whole, lead to stirring the enthusiasm of the world's Jews, one of its results being a renewed flow of funds into Israel — a flow that would rescue her from her financial straits — besides the gain of a new expanse of territory that would increase her agriculture and open the field to her industry.

For Israel, who is preparing Palestine to be a homeland for millions of the world's Jews, has been compelled to increase her budget successively until it

has reached the equivalent of 317 million dollars — that is, a little less than the budget of Egypt, and six times greater than the budget of Syria.

She has likewise been compelled to allot the sum of 130 million dollars in this budget to construction works — a sum nearly equal to all that the Arab states spend in a single year on works of this kind.

And Israel is obliged, not merely to maintain this

inflation, but to accept further increases, every year, in step with the steady increase in the number of immigrants.

Now since Israel, in filling this gap in expenditure, does not rely on her natural resources, but places her whole reliance on the outside subsidies that come to her from the world's Jews and from the United States;

and since these resources have been touched by weakness, and go on diminishing year after year, owing to the slackening of world Jewish enthusiasm now that the Zionist dream has been realized, and owing to the lowering of the level of American assistance;

and since the attempt of certain Israeli parties to reduce the expenditures in the state budget has ended in failure — because reducing it would bring the standard of living down to a degree the country could not endure, besides its being inconsistent with Israel's aims —

for all these reasons, Israel finds no outlet except peace with the Arabs or expansion in their lands. And she carries out these provocations in order to induce the states anxious for peace to press the Arabs into accepting the peace against their will.

Q — The Arab states have agreed with one voice to refuse recognition of Israel and peace with her. What, then, do you consider their duty in the face of the impending danger? And are they capable, should war break out, of repelling the aggression?

— The Arab League, and behind it the states that