Establishment of a Jewish state in Palestine will not result in requisition of land belonging to its Arab citizens, Dr. Abraham Granovsky, managing director of the Jewish National Fund, declared here today at a ceremony commemorating the sixth anniversary of the death of Menachem Mendal Ussishkin, noted Zionist leader.
The first move of the Jewish authorities would be to improve the lot of the agricultural workers by improving the yield of the land through such projects as water resources development. Improving the yield of the land would make it unnecessary for a landowner to possess as much land as now in order to support his family and would eventually lead him to sell his excess land, upon which newly-arrived Jewish immigrants would be settled, Granovsky asserted.
He reported that 29 settlements were established on J.N.F. land during the past year and that some 16,000 acres were purchased by the organization. Approximately $18,000,000 were contributed from America, Britain, Latin America and elsewhere during the year, but at the same time the J.N.F. invested $24,000,000. Goldie Meirson, Jewish Agency political chief, and Tel Aviv Mayor Israel Rokach, who was recently released from detention, also spoke.
The Arab press today reported that on the eve of the British Cabinet’s meeting on Palestine last week, the Arab Higher Committee sent a letter to Prime Minister Clement Attlee threatening an Arab “uprising” in the event that the U.N. accepts the recommendations of its Special Committee on Palestine. The letter also enumerated the Arab contributions to the Allied cause in the recent war and their “battle against fascism and Hitlerism.”
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.
