Agency Holds Only Balfour Declaration, Mandate, Can Be Basis of Parleys

The Jewish Agency for Palestine announced tonight that the Woodhead Commission’s report could not serve as a basis for the negotiations recommended by the British Government in its statement of policy accompanying the report. Only the Balfour Declaration and the League of Nations mandate could serve as the basis for such negotiations, it was stated.

The Agency attacked the Woodhead report for disregarding the Mandatory Power’s obligation to the Jewish people to facilitate re-establishment of a national home. It denounced the plan suggested by the commission to replace the 1937 Royal Commission’s partition proposal as a “travesty” of the obligations the Mandatory Power undertook on behalf of the League of Nations.

In a statement issued shortly after publication of the Woodhead report and the Government’s declaration of policy, the Agency asserted there was no question of the report serving as a basis of any negotiations, either between the Arabs and the Jews, or the agency and the Government.

Commenting on the policy declaration, the Agency pointed out that the Government had last year refused its request to summon an Arab-Jewish roundtable conference. It expressed grave apprehension at the Government’s proposal to bring representatives of neighboring Arab states into the conferences, declaring the states had no special status with respect to Palestine and no rights greater than members of the League or the United States.

“The Jewish Agency,” the statement added, “can be a party to further discussions only on the basis of the Balfour Declaration and the Mandate.”

The Agency further observed that the Government’s policy declaration constituted a “reversal of policy.” It asserted that the Woodhead Commission’s rejection of the prior conclusions found by the royal Commission was the “result not of new facts discovered by them but of their interpretation of the terms of reference given them by his Majesty’s Government.”