The American Zionist Emergency Council today criticized the statement of Sir James Grigg, new British Minister of State Resident in the Middle East, to the effect that the Jews of Palestine must eliminate the terrorist group in Palestine or suffer the loss of world-wide Christian support for their hopes of an independent nation, as a “travesty of justice.”
“Sir James Grigg, in his first public statement as British Minister of State Resident in the Middle East, has sought to link continued support by the Christian world of Jewish aspirations in Palestine with the problem of the elimination of the small terrorist group there,” the Council said in a statement to the press. “Sir James Grigg earned the gratitude of the Jewish people by refusing, together with Winston Churchill and others, to vote in 1939 with the members of his party in the House of Commons in favor of the Chamberlain White Paper which sought to put an end to the Jewish National Home in Palestine. He thereby gave proof of his unwillingness to support a policy which was fundamentally unjust.
“It accords ill with that attitude to suggest that civilized humanity will be deflected by the acts of a few individuals from its purpose to restore the Jews to their rightful place among the nations of the world, and there by to fulfill an undertaking founded on profound moral and humanitarian considerations. These isolated acts of terror violate the spirit of justice proclaimed and practised by Jewish tradition, and scrupulously observed by the Jews of Palestine in resolute self-discipline through the years. Obviously, the primary duty to eradicate the terrorists rests with the Government, but the Jews of Palestine have through their authorized and representative institutions unequivocally condemned these outrages and pledged themselves to full cooperation with the Government to that end. To permit these acts to affect the basic issue, that of the right of the Jewish people to national restoration in their own land, would be a travesty of justice.
“We believe that the support of the Christian world is based on deeper convictions and on a sense of values which will not lose sight, because of the irresponsible acts of a few individuals, of the great problem of the homelessness of the Jews as a people, the solution of which is so long overdue.”
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