A document of great importance with regard to the situation in Palestine which had an influence upon the decision of the Council of the League of Nations to ignore the complaints of the Palestine Arab Executive was distributed among the Council members. It represented the reply of the Palestine Government to the petition of the Palestine Arab Executive submitted to the Permanent Mandates Commission. The petition, which served as the basis for the opinions expressed by the Permanent Mandates Commission is proven in the reply of the Palestine Government to be a conglomeration of mis-statements. The document reads as follows:
The High Commissioner feels bound to draw attention to the fact that the statement submitted by you and forwarded to the Mandates Commission, apart from matters of opinion and of political controversy, contains a number of mis-statements on matters of fact, which, in his judgment, must detract from the impression made by the document. Those mis-statements are the following:
1.-“The Government of Palestine, after strong representations, handed over the administration of Moslem Religious Courts and Waqfs (Moslem religious endowments) to a body of five elected members known as the Supreme Moslem Council”, your memorandum states on page three.
This step was taken, not as a result of strong representations but on the initiative of the Government, which desired to provide a substitute for the control previously exercised from Constantinople by the Ministry of Waqfs, and the Sheikh ul Islam.
2.-“The Government had to adopt some measures in order to render ownership of land on un-(Continued on Page 2)
The Archive of the Jewish Telegraphic Agency includes articles published from 1923 to 2008. Archive stories reflect the journalistic standards and practices of the time they were published.
