The growth of the opposition within the Zionist movement, as seen from the results of the just concluded Zionist Congress, ought to be a salutary warning to the British government, the Manchester Guardian declares today in a lengthy review of the results of the Congress and the appointment of General Arthur Grenfell Wauchope as High Commissioner of Palestine.
This appointment the Guardian interprets as “an almost complete change in the higher personnel of the Palestine government” with Wauchope replacing Sir John Chancellor and former chief secretary Harry Luke transferred to Malta. The Liberal organ points out that while the results of this change remain to be seen “it is to be hoped that Wauchope will make clear to the Palestine administration its duties towards the Jewish National Home instead of the present tendency of many Palestine officials who favor keeping things as they are, having little in common with the unique Zionist experiment and believing that the general trend of British policy is gradually to drop the idea of the Jewish National Home”.
The Guardian emphasizes that the essential meaning of the Jewish National Home is increased Jewish immìgration as opposed to the tendency of the Palestine administration to regard every additional Jewish immigrant as a fresh complication to an already difficult problem. “The members of the Zionist Congress were drawn from almost every part of the civilized world and most of the delegates therefore have no direct relation with the British government and do not feel any traditional loyalty towards Great Britain”, the paper points out.
“We do not exercise authority over them and we cannot demand their obedience but we have try to retain their confidence”. The Guardian consequently concludes that it would have been better if the Palestine experiment had been entrusted to the Foreign Office since “the position is very complicated and unlike anything the Colonial Office, or the Colonial officials forming the backbone of the Palestine administration, had any experience in dealing with.
Even within the present framework, the Guardian finds, there are number of immediate reforms which ought to be carried out.
Near East and India, which is close to the Colonial Office, praises Dr. Weizmann’s attitude and his understanding of Palestinian problems, but expresses the belief that the fact that the extremists held the stage at the Congress can only harm the Zionist movement in the long run.
The paper characterizes the extremists’ talk of a Jewish majority as dangerous and voices the belief that that sort of talk only delays an Arab-Jewish rapprochement.
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.
