The British authorities are apparently preparing for grave developments in Palestine in connection with the forthcoming announcement of policy on the country’s political future. Curfew, it was learned today, will be imposed by the authorities throughout Palestine for a period of 24 hours or longer at the first sign of disorder. Government officials, however, denied to Mayor Israel Rokach of Tel Aviv that curfew will be imposed in advance as a possible precaution against violence.
Meanwhile, the police arsenal at Tel Aviv, an all-Jewish city, has been transferred to neighboring Arab Jaffa, leaving Jewish constables with only 25 cartridges each. The Hadassah Hospital at Tel Aviv has prepared extra beds, but the city authorities informed the Jewish Telegraphic Agency they had no knowledge of such preparatory measures. Normal relations are continuing between the authorities and Jewish special policemen.
American Jewish colonies, organizations and business firms in Palestine today protested to Secretary of State Cordell Hull that Britain’s plan to halt development of the Jewish homeland would endanger an $80,000,000 American Jewish investment in the Holy Land.
A message cabled to Washington said that American Jews in Palestine were gravely apprehensive over the British Government’s patent intention of repudiating the Balfour Declaration and the Palestine mandate and establishing and Arab Government controlled by “the authors of a three-year deliberate campaign of murder and destruction.”
The new plan, the message said, endangers American Jews’ livelihoods, large investments, substantial holdings and important corporate interests and cancels the guarantees contained in the Anglo-American Convention of 1924, relying on which 10,000 American Jews had settled in the Holy Land and $80,000,000 had been invested here.
The cable was signed by Julius Simon, president of the Palestine Economic Corporation; the Hadassah Medical Center, operated by the American women’s Zionist organization; the American Porcelain Tooth Company, the American-Zion Commonwealth, the American Economic Committee for Palestine, the American Settlers’ Association and a number of American-financed Jewish colonies, including Nathania, Affuleh, Balfouria, Ein Hashofet (named for ex-Supreme Court Justice Louis D. Brandeis), Herzliah, Raanana and Gan Yavneh.
The Hebrew laborite daily Davar said editorially today that the British proposals meant “war against Zionism” and also “Zionist war against the proposals.” Since the mandate, the newspaper said, the Jews had regarded England as a natural ally and even during disputes had not envisaged disobedience and non-cooperation. “Now, however,” the editorial added, “the previous approach is inconceivable.”
Other Hebrew newspapers voiced similar sentiments. Haaretz declared Palestine Jewry’s reply to the proposals would be “complete non-cooperation” with the new Government, and with immigration and colonization restrictions. Haboker and Hazofe both published headlines stating “No! No! No! to the British plan.”
The Jerusalem branch of the “Group B” General Zionists adopted a resolution calling on the Jewish Agency Executive to resign and summon a world Jewish congress with the participation of the Jewish Agency, the Zionist Organization, the New Zionist Organization and the Agudath Israel to elect an emergency national executive committee to direct the struggle against liquidation of the Jewish national home. The resolution also called upon the Palestine Jewish National Council to announce new elections for the Jewish National Assembly based on universal suffrage and without discrimination.
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.
