Disputing Sir John Simpson’s claim that only 5,000,000 dunams of land are still available for agricultural colonization in Palestine and protesting strongly against the White Paper the resolutions adopted by the emergency meeting of the Zionist Actions Committee, which have just been made public, point out that Sir John ignored the large tracts of fertile soil on the Eastern borders of Palestine and in Transjordania and claim that his estimate contradicts that made by former government experts.
The resolutions also emphasize that the Jews have up to the present not received a single dunam of crown lands from the British government despite the fact that the government is obligated under the Mandate to give such lands to them.
Charging that the Passfield White Paper constitutes a violation of England’s promises to the Jews and contravenes the Mandate, the Actions
Committee’s resolutions express the opinion that the White Paper makes impossible any further cooperation of the Jewish Agency and the British government, renders more difficult any improvement in the relations between Jews and Arabs and threatens the very foundation of the Jewish National Home.
The Actions Committee hints that political motives rather than any consideration of the welfare of Palestine played a large role in the determination of the British government to issue the White Paper in its present form. The resolutions point to the fact that the White Paper only declared that one of the reasons for limiting Jewish immigration to Palestine was to allay any suspicions that the Arabs might have harbored, though the White Paper does not say that they had any real grounds for their suspicions.
The resolutions endorse the decision of the Jewish National Council not to participate in the proposed legislative council and protest against the White Paper for mentioning only the duties of the government toward the “inhabitants of Palestine,” pointing out that the Balfour Declaration was an obligation assumed by the British government toward the entire Jewish people.
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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.
