Arab Aggression from Outside Major Obstacle to Truce, Shertok Tells Zionist Parley

The Security Council in attempting to negotiate a truce between the Jews and Arabs in Palestine has overlooked the most important aspect of the problem–that Palestine has been invaded by foreign Arabs–Moshe Shertok, Jewish Agency leader and Jewish representative at the U.N. truce parley, declared here today. He spoke at an emergency meeting of 1,000 Zionist leaders in New York City convened to mobilize aid for the United Jewish Appeal campaign for $250,000,000.

He revealed that the Jews have put forward no political conditions for a truce, merely military conditions. He stressed, however, that this was not the situation as far as the Arabs were concerned. “We are faced with political conditions put forward by the other side,” ho declared. “We cannot possibly accept the interpretation of a truce as a political freezing of the situation for an indefinite period,” he added.

Henry Morgenthau, general chairman of the U.J.A. and second featured speaker at the closed meeting, said that the “fate of the Jews in Europe and Palestine will be determined not by what the statesmen decide at Flushing Meadows, nor by the uncertain policy in Washington, but rather by what the Jews of Europe, Palestine and America are able to achieve in this crucial year.” Pointing out that the Jews of Europe have demonstrated their “unshakeable determination to find security and a new life,” and that the Jewish community of Palestine is paying the “price in blood” for independence and peace, Morgenthau termed the Jews of America “the third important link in this chain of destiny.

“We dare not fall in raising $250,000,000,” he stated, “lest the last light in Europe be extinguished for those who still languish in the DP camps, lest the Jewish community in Palestine lose its last dependable ally in its struggle for existence,” the former Secretary of the Treasury said.

Dr. Abba Hillel Silver, chairman of the American Zionist Emergency Council, declared in a special message to the conference that the struggle for Palestine is being waged on two fronts–“the front of struggle end blood la Palestine which is now withstanding the test of fire,” and the front here. “Curs he said, “is the economic front, the battle of the all important life-line, of the bridge to our brothers in Palestine.”

In a joint cable from Palestine Dr. Israel Goldstein and Dr. Emanuel Neumann stressed that help is urgently needed at this time. Rabbi Irving Miller, chairman of the Z.O.A. Administrative Committee, declared that the failure of the political activities of the Z.O.A. or of the fund raising efforts of the U.J.A. “may well mean the destruction of our hopes for a Jewish state in generations to come.”