Zionists Take Issue with N.Y. Times Anti-zionist Editorial; Call Protest Meeting

The American Emergency Committee for Zionist Affairs today announced its decision to call a meeting in Carnegie Hall to protest against the views expressed in the editorial in yesterday’s New York Times in which opposition was voiced against the formation of a Zionist Army in Palestine and the post-war establishment of a Zionist State there.

Declaring that it “is launching a nation-wide campaign to mobilize public opinion in support of a Jewish Army in Palestine, details of which will follow shortly,” the Emergency Committee issued the following statement to the press:

“The New York Times’ unfortunate regression to appeasement and distortion is calculated to serve the democratic cause no good. The Jewish people claim the right granted to all other peoples who have been the victims of Fascism to make their maximum contribution to the democratic victory and to defend with every resource at their command the soil which they have reclaimed with their blood and sweat and toil and tears. To impute ulterior motives to that demand is to slur not only the Jewish people but every other oppressed nation which has taken up arms against aggression and tyranny. The search for arguments against the establishment of separate Jewish units in the British army is nothing but an attempt to disguise the real purpose of that opposition – appeasement of the Arab populations in the Near East. Until the democratic powers recognize that the results of appeasement in the Near East are bound to be no less disastrous than they were in every other part of the world, and until they grant to the Jews as they have granted to all other peoples the opportunity to make their maximum contribution to victory, the ultimate triumph of justice and freedom is being delayed and endangered.”

WISE CALLS TIMES EDITORIAL “BLOW BELOW BELT”

Dr. Stephen S. Wise, former President of the Zionist Organization of America, Chairman of the American Emergency Committee for Zionist Affairs and President of the American Jewish Congress, made public the following statement: “Zionists and non-Zionists are in the midst of what were imagined by us to be friendly negotiations with respect to the Zionist position vis-a-vis the Peace Conference. I have no hesitation in saying that this is a blow below the belt.

“I am loath to believe, though all but constrained to do so, that this editorial is designed to serve as a warning to men like Secretary Knox and Secretary Morgenthau, whose brave and generous words to the Cleveland Conference are hardly understandable to the Editor of the New York Times. The Times may have another and more sinister purpose to sabotage all efforts to bring about understanding between Zionists and non-Zionists. One is tempted to say to the New York Times that it has never dared, despite its Jewish ownership, to stand up and out on any Jewish problem. Will not the New York Times, therefore, be good enough to leave the Jews alone in their problems, policies and difficulties?”