Dr. Sneh Says Release of Agency Members is No Political Gain; Flying to Palestine

Dr. Moshe Sneh, a member of the Jewish Agency for Palestine, today declared that the withdrawal of the warrant for his arrest by the Palestine authorities, although made unconditional, would not in any way affect his determination and that of his colleagues to continue the fight for the establishment of a Jewish State as the only basis for negotiations with the British Government.

He asserted that the release of the Jewish Agency leaders from the Latrun detention camp should not be regarded as a political gain for the movement. It merely constitutes a recognition by the British Government of the failure of its effort to create a “Vichy Regime” in Palestine.

Addressing a capacity audience at a public rally in Manhattan Center, sponsored by the Zionist Organization of America, Dr. Sneh, who flew here from Paris last week, after successfully eluding the searches of the British police in Palestine, asserted that hundreds of thousands of displaced Jews in Europe are ready to break the blockade thrown up by the British military around Palestine. He revealed that recent elections in Palestine of delegates to the forthcoming World Zionist Congress indicated that 82 percent of the Jewish community of Palestine actively support the Haganah, Jewish defense corps of Palestine, while 90 percent are opposed to the methods employed by the extremist groups.

The meeting, which was presided over by Dr. Emanuel Neumann, vice-president of the ZOA, was turned into a public celebration of Dr. Sneh’s official release by the British. It was announced at the meeting that Dr. Sneh will shortly fly back to Palestine to greet the other eight Jewish Agency leaders who have been released from the Latrun detention camp where they had been imprisoned since June 29, and to discuss with them the problems of the forthcoming Congress.

Dr. Neumann admonished Zionists to be on their guard against “over-rating” the release of the Jewish Agency leaders from the detention camp in Latrun, the lifting of the curfews, and other minor concessions. Warning against giving these steps exaggerated importance, Dr. Newmann charged that “there has been as yet no indication of a change of basic policy. Palestine is still a police state. Incoming refugees are still being deported. The 100,000 displaced Jews, for whose admission President Truman has appealed in vain, are still there in Germany, Austria and Italy, languishing between fading hope and growing despair.” Other speakers at the meeting included Louis Lipsky and Dr. Israel Goldstein.