American Zionists Reject British Ultimatum to Jewish Agency; Call Emergency Parley

American Zionists today rejected the British ultimatum to the Jewish Agency and served notice that the American Jewish community would not stand idly by while the British prepared repressive measures against Palestine Jewry.

Dr. Abba Hillel Silver, chairman of the American Zionist Emergency Council, announced that a national extraordinary session of all Zionist leaders in America had been called as the first step towards coping with the forthcoming emergency. This special session, which will be attended by representatives from every city in the United States, is scheduled to convene in Washington on Feb. 17th.

In a statement issued by the American Zionist Emergency Council, which represents the entire American Zionist movement, Dr. Silver labelled British demands as an open invitation to Palestine Jewry to become “informists and spies” and attacked the British Government as violating its international mandate and ruling “by brute force alone.”

“The Zionist movement has condemned unreservedly on both moral and political grounds the acts of the dissident extremist groups in Palestine. It is, however, impossible to ignore the fact that the excesses for which they have been responsible are a direct result of the present arbitrary and lawless British regime in Palestine,” Dr. Silver declared.

The leader of American Zionism pointed out that the Jewish Agency had continually indicated its willingness to do everything within its power to restrain dissident extremist groups. “It is not, however, prepared to ask the Jewish population to turn informists and spies for an administration which itself has been guilty of gross illegalities and cruelties against Jews who ask refuge in their own homeland,” Dr. Silver stated.