Wise Urges Democrats to Adopt Plank Supporting Jewish Commonwealth in Palestine

The resolutions committee of the Democratic National Convention was urged last night by Rabbi Stephen S. Wise, co-chairman of the American Zionist Emergency Council, to incorporate within its platform a plank calling for unrestricted Jewish immigration into Palestine and the establishment there of a Jewish Commonwealth.

Citing the long history of Democratic Party support of Jewish aspirations in Palestine, dating from the administration of Woodrow Wilson up to the present time, Dr. Wise stressed that Palestine today is the only hope of refuge for hundreds of thousands of Jews in occupied Europe. He submitted to the resolutions committee the text of a draft resolution which was prepared by the Zionist Emergency Council, and and urged that it be adopted as the official Democratic policy on Palestine. It reads.

“From the days of Woodrow Wilson and throughout the administration of Franklin Delano Roosevelt, it has been the policy of the Democratic Party to support the full implementation of the Balfour Declaration and the Mandate over Palestine. In the light of that historic policy and the uprooting and homelessness of millions of Jews in European lands, we call for the opening of Palestine to unrestricted Jewish immigration and colonization; and , in accordance with the full intent and purpose of the said covenant made with the Jewish people, the establishments of Palestine as a free and democratic Jewish Commonwealth, in which all the inhabitants shall have equal civic, religious, and cultural rights, and in which the Holy places of all faiths shall be fully safeguarded.”

Rep. Emanuel Cellar, (Dem.-N.Y.) today told the committee that present restrictions on Jewish immigration to Palestine violate U. S. treaty provisions, and urged that the Democrats issue a strong denunciation of the British White Paper on Palestine. Rep. Cellar stressed the necessity for the Democrats to adopt a Palestine plank as strong or stronger than that adopted by the Republican convention.

Zionist spokesmen who addressed the committee included Rabbi Israel Goldstein, president of the Zionist Organization of America, who said that “regardless of its brevity, the Democratic platform cannot afford to omit a reference to Palestine.”