American Zionists Reach Agreement on Dispute Between Two Opposing Parties: Split Avoided by Formatio

An agreement has been reached between the two contending groups in the American Zionist movement, by which the split in the American Zionist ranks which was feared has been avoided.

The agreement was concluded at a meeting of the National Executive of the Zionist Organisation of America, attended among others by Mr. Louis Lipsky, former President of the Zionist Organisation of America, and the leader of the Opposition, Mr. Robert Szold, the present Chairman of the Zionist Organisation of America, and Mr. Emanuel Neuman, the American member of the Zionist World Executive, who has been delaying his departure for London in the endeavour to arrange an agreement between the two factions.

Mr. Szold delivered an address in which he declared that the present Administration of the Zionist Organisation of America fully recognises the sovereignty of the Convention of the Zionist Organisation of America. (The next Convention is due to be held on November 8th. at Atlantic City). The Executive then adopted a resolution, proposed by Mr. Louis Lipsky, recommending the appointment of a Committee, to be approved by the Convention, which will be empowered to recommend the selection of a National Administration, which will disregard partisan differences, and will aim at securing the cooperation of all Zionist forces without regard to majorities or factions. This Committee, which was immediately appointed and consists of Mr. Robert Szold, Mr. Louis Lipsky, Mr. Brodie, Mr. Abraham Tulin, Mr. Morris Rothenberg, and Judge William M. Lewis, will prepare the agenda for the Convention next month.

We are not unfamiliar with the attacks on the present Administration which began indeed the day after it was elected at Cleveland, the “New Palestine”, the official organ of the American Zionist Organisation, writes in an editorial in its latest issue to arrive in London (October 2nd.). Despite the fact that the tempo and bitterness of these assaults have increased since the Congress and have found their way into the general press, it proceeds, we have hitherto been able to refrain from utilising “The New Palestine” from entering upon a defence which could only increase bitterness and intensify that internecine strife which seems to delight some, but distresses and mortifies most Zionists. We have so far chosen the hard path of refraining from response to what in public amounts to a continual changing of issues and in private descends at times to very low levels.

The present Administration, it then says, took office because the movement was in peril. It asked for and gave no pledges. It has bettered some local conditions, and it believes that in the international field it has achieved some real gains. It has been conscious of the serious situation in Palestine, and it is deeply aware that the financial crisis is still the most serious of all problems that Zionists have to face. In the light of facts we have no lust for battle, or for indulging in the luxury of what we believe to be a wholly deplorable and artificial stirring up of factional differences.

The Zionist Convention, it concludes, is still the supreme deciding body in American Zionism. Its meetings and those of the National Executive Committee seem to us the proper place for discussing differences of principle-if they exist. We hope, therefore, that we shall be able to continue in our policy of avoiding “politics”.