“The rehabilitation of the Jewish people and the restoration of the Jewish homeland in Palestine must be made one of the peace aims of the United Nations,” Lt. Governor Charles E. Poletti declared tonight, speaking to an audience of more than 2,000 veterans of the Palestine Jewish Legion who assembled in Town Hall on the occasion of the 25th anniversary of its formation.
“If the Jewish people were by-passed in the plans for the post-war world, it would represent a disastrous admission of bankruptcy on the part of the free world,” Mr. Poletti said. The meeting was held under the combined auspices of the American Emergency Committee for Zionist Affairs and the Palestine Jewish Legion.
David Ben-Gurion, chairman of the Executive of the Jewish Agency for Palestine, who had served with the Legion, said that the Legion was the first manifestation in modern times that Jews are willing and prepared to fight and, if necessary, to die for Palestine. Turning to the situation in the Near East today, Mr. Ben-Gurion said, “the Jewish Legion is now becoming the Jewish army in Palestine. The Jewish Agency was always anxious to assist the British war effort in any way it could. Over twelve thousand Jewish soldiers from Palestine fought in Libya, Egypt, Eritrea, Ethiopia, Greece and Crete. There are still many thousands of Jews in Palestine anxious to fight as Jews against the persecutors of their people. They claim the right and are entitled to fight in a Jewish army and under a Jewish flag.”
Elias Ginsburg, National Commander of the Jewish Legion, pointed out the five thousand young Jews, more than half of whom came from America and the balance from England and Palestine, saw active service on the Palestinian front and in the Egyptian desert during the last war. The Legion, he said, numbered about eleven thousand men. Other speakers who addressed the meeting included Frank E. Gannett, publisher, Judge Louis E. Levinthal, Capt. Abraham Tulin and Major C.R. Redgrave.
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