U.S. Delegates Propose Compromise to End Deadlock at Zionist Actions Committee

In an attempt to break the several-days-long deadlock in the Zionist Actions Committee over the question of whether members of the Israeli Cabinet shall also serve on the world Zionist executive, the American General Zionists today proposed that the decision on the principle involved in this matter be left to the next World Zionist Congress which meets next June. Meanwhile, the General Zionists asked that the Actions Committee should appeal to all parties not to nominate members of the Cabinet for seats on the executive allotted to each party.

Berl Locker, answering for the Laborites, said that his party considers the proposal unfair and illegal since the Actions Committee has not the right to discharge individual members of the executive from their positions. Locker warned that the Labor Party would disregard such an appeal even if voted by the majority of the Committee. He asserted that it is not prepared to “surrender to moral pressure of this kind.”

The American General Zionists’ proposal, which was offered “by Rabbi Irving Miller, was supported by Zorach Wahrhaftig of the Mazrachi Laborites, who asked only that the section calling on the World Zionist Congress to settle the principle be deleted from the resolution. The Revisionists withheld a decision on their resolution pending their meeting in caucus. Israeli Minister of Interior Itzhak Gruenbaum, a General Zionist, defied his party and refused to resign from the executive.

Meanwhile, party caucuses and inter-party discussions continued through last night with some results apparently achieved on the problem of the party composition of the new executive. It was thus decided to give the Revisionists and United Workers Party representation proportional to their strength on the Actions Committee.

This, however, raised a new problem. According to the Zionist constitution only 19 seats may exist on the executive and if the Revisionists and leftists are to receive representation some other parties must give up part of their representation. The Mizrachi immediately refused to surrender one of the seats assigned to them.