Charges that all of his efforts to persuade Lord Passfield to call a round table discussion between the Jews and the Arabs on the Palestine question were ignored, and that the Daily Herald, a government organ, had refused to print two letters he addressed to it on the subject of the round table discussion, were made today by Chaim Weizmann. The Jewish Telegraphic Agency has learned of Dr. Weizmann’s efforts to avert the formulation of Lord Passfield’s policy, and of the contents of the two letters addressed to the Daily Herald.
The controversy began with a letter in the Times from Stanley Baldwin, in which the Conservative leader reproached the government for having ignored Dr. Weizmann’s proposal of a round table conference.
“The Daily Herald stated on the following day,” says Dr. Weizmann in a letter to the Manchester Guardian, that my accusation that Lord Passfield had ignored my proposals was definitely untrue, and that an attempt had been made to call such a conference, but the attempt had been unsuccessful.
“I thereupon declared in a letter to the Daily Herald that no reply or response had ever been made by Lord Passfield to the suggestion contained in my letter to him of the 19th of September.
“The Herald declined to publish my letter, hinting that an attempt had been made to call an Arab-Jewish roundtable conference at some time previous to September 19.
“To this answer from the Herald I replied on Oct. 20, with another letter to the Herald in which I said, ‘Since we were never summoned to such a conference your statement can only refer to some advances made toward the Arabs, to which the Arabs presumably did not respond.
” ‘Be that as it may, we were told in early September at the Colonial office that a moderate opinion was prevalent among the Arabs and that the British government were framing their policy accordingly.’
” ‘In view of the new situation, and feeling strongly the need for an agreed settlement, we renewed our proposal for a round table conference. That proposal Lord Passfield ignored. The reproach made by the Conservative leaders to Lord Passfield is therefore justified and relevant.’ This letter,” Weizmann said, “the Herald again refused to print.”
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.
