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Weizmann Will Warn at Congress That Britain Must Return to Mandate or Abandon It

December 3, 1946
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Dr. Chaim Weizmann, in his keynote address to the World Zionist Congress next Monday, will tell the British Government that it has the choice of either returning to the terms of the mandate or retiring from Palestine after establishing a Jewish state in an adequate area.

According to close advisers of the head of the Zionist movement, Dr. Weizmann, who is now resting in Lugano, Switzerland, and working on the final draft of his address, will warn the British that these two alternatives are the only possible solutions of the Palestine problem.

The Zionist Review, organ of the Zionist movement in Britain, declares in its current issue that it would be regrettable if the Congress were to “fritter away” its time discussing the Jewish Agency’s proposal for partition, since the British Government has not accepted it as a basis for discussion.

The editorial suggests that the Congress confirm its resolution of 1937 empowering its executive to negotiate with the British to ascertain the terms for the possible establishment of a Jewish state and to bring any proposed scheme before a subsequent Congress.

SAYS LONDON PARLEY POSTPONED IN HOPE CONGRESS WILL DECIDE TO COMPROMISE

The London Economist commenting on new reports that the re-opening of the London conference on Palestine has been definitely postponed until January, asserts that the postponement is due to Anglo-American hopes that “by a miracle a spark of willingness to compromise may be kindled” at the Zionist Congress. It charges that the postponement amounts to a “death warrant” for a number of British civil and military personnel because the initiative in the struggle for a Jewish state has passed into the hands of “gunmen” while the government has lost its gamble on the ability of the Small Zionist Actions Committee to live up to its anti-terrorist resolution.

In a written statement in the House of Commons today, War Secretary Frederick Bellinger stated that 31 British officers and men were killed in Palestine from July through October of this year, while 20 were wounded. Colonial Secretary Arthur Creech-Jones, in another statement, said that steps were being taken to apprehend the persons responsible for terrorism. He added that all decent people in Palestine condemned it as “senseless barbarism.”

S. Mikunis, head of the Jewish Communist Party in Palestine and editor of its newspaper Kol Ham, writing today in the Daily Worker, states that partition is an “imperialist maneuver” which will intensify, not lessen, Arab-Jewish antagonism. He asserts that both the Arab and Jewish people opposed partition, and calls for an independent Arab-Jewish state.

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