Stating that the Zionists are rendering “a poor service to thousands of Jews who could anyhow never get into Palestine, by allegedly deriding and discouraging every alternative” for rescue, Sir Ronald Storrs, former governor of Jerusalem, came out last night with a sensational article in the Evening Standard in which he insists that the development of Jewish interests in Palestine must be gradual and must be decided in the light of local conditions and possibilities.
The Jews in Palestine must look to develop by negotiating and reaching an agreement perhaps with a federation of neighboring Arab states, and not by bayonets and bombs, Sir Ronald writes. The British policy in Palestine at the moment is a policy that commands something that is near to a unanimous Arab support, he points out.
Sharp criticism is also voiced by Sir Ronald against the planks on Palestine adopted by the Republican and the Democratic parties in the United States at their conventions in Chicago. “It is an ironic paradox,” asserts Sir Ronald, “that Allied citizens, co-signatories of the Atlantic Charter, controllers of some of the greatest open spaces in the world, should seek to prove their sympathy with persecuted European Jewry not by opening their own doors, but by forcing yet more myriads into a densely populated and protesting country the size of Wales, of which they themselves are neither the owners nor the mandatory controllers, nor even members of the League which controls the mandatory.”
“It is for America and the British Empire, so solicitous for these unfortunates, to be generous and hospitable – Russia has led the way – at their own expense; and for Zionists to remember that they render poor service, to the thousands who could anyhow never get into Palestine, by deriding or discouraging every alternative,” he concluded.
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.
