Britain’s Palestine Partition Commission today heard Professor Benjamin Akzin, acting president of the New Zionist Organization, warn that the partition plan would result in an Arab-Jewish war in which the Jews might be shelled and bombed from the air.
At the commission’s first open hearing, Professor Akzin denounced partition as “a scheme to close Jewish immigration, because in those, areas where it is permitted, it is impossible, and where it is impossible, it is permitted.” He asserted that in the Royal Commission’s plan all mineral resources are excluded from the Jewish State.
Declaring that the partition scheme would result in the forcible eviction of Arabs from the Jewish State and Jews from the Arab area, Dr. Akzin asserted that this would lead to “the worst horrors of anti-Semitism and expulsion of Jews.”
“Such an attempt will meet from the Jews the same resistance that will be justifiably offered by the Arabs,” He declared. “Thus unrest will increase. Hostility between Jews and Arabs will increase, resulting in warfare. From the outset, a Jewish defeat is inevitable since half the Jewish area is within range of the enemy’s artillery. The dense population is vulnerable to air bombs. The sole effect of partition would be the abolition of the mandate, the Jews losing advantages and not gaining genuine statehood.”
Declaring that partition would fail in its primary object of ensuring security, Dr. Akzin urged the Partition Commission to report the scheme as impracticable. The N.Z.O.’s alternative ten-year-plan for mass Jewish immigration will be submitted to the British Colonial Secretary, he said.
Questioned by Sir John Woodhead, chairman of the commission, Dr. Akzin ventured the qualified guess that the Negeb in southern Palestine could be populated by 35 persons per square kilometer. Asked about the absorptive capacity of rainless regions of Palestine and the deserts of Transjordan, he said the possibilities were unknown.
Meanwhile, disorders continued, with troops meeting Arab bands in two engagements. An Arab taxicab was fired upon on the outskirts of Nablus. The driver was killed and two passengers were wounded. Another engagement occurred near Anebta, and stray bullets killed a passing Arab truckman and his assistant. A third band kidnaped the mukhtar (village chieftain) of Avarta.
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.
