A warning that “American work in Arab countries will be endangered” if the resolution urging free Jewish immigration to Palestine and the ultimate establishment of a Jewish Commonwealth there is passed by Congress, was given here by Prof. Philip K. L. Hitti, a spokesman for American Arabs, who was the first witness to testify today before the House Foreign Affairs Committee when it resumed hearings on the Palestine Resolution.
“will the United States send its navy to protect a Jewish Commonwealth?” he asked during his testimony, which took about two hours. “The establishment of a Jewish Commonwealth has no hope of success, ” he said.
Declaring that he is an American citizen, educated in American schools in Lebanon and at Columbia University and that he is now a professor at Princeton University, prof. Hitti stressed the right of Palestine Arabs to the Palestine soil. He said that the Arabs are not anti-Semitic, but they do not consider Palestine as a solution of the Jewish problem. The phrase “National Home” in the Balfour Declaration was ambiguous, he stated. He quoted the views of Dr. J. L. Magnes on Arab-Jewish relations and asserted that the Ichud group led by Dr. Magnes was ” the most realistic Zionist body” since it does not favor the establishment of a Jewish Commonwealth.
HAS NO OBJECTION TO ADMITTING JEWS TO SYRIA AND LEBANON
Prof. Hitti made it clear in his testimony that in his opinion Palestine has fulfilled its obligations as a refuge for Jews. He added that he would be willing to see more Jews go even to Syria and Lebanon, but not with a view of establishing a Jewish state.
Asked if he would approve of the Palestine Resolution if the phrase “Jewish Commonwealth” were omitted, prof. Hitti replied: “That was passed in 1922. Why pass it again?” He insisted that Arab hostility to Jewish immigration to Palestine is “justified” and said that beside the Balfour Declaration there were also other promises made by the British Government with regard to Palestine. “Palestine became a multi-promised land,” he added.
Questioned by Chairman Sol Bloom, Prof. Hitti agreed that the United States has the right to ask the British Government to live up to the Palestine Mandate.
AMERICAN JEWISH COMMITTEE URGES INTERNATIONAL TRUSTEESHIP FOR PALESTINE
Abrogation of the British White Paper on Palestine and free Jewish immigration under an international trusteeship was urged by the American Jewish Committee in a statement presented to the Committee on Foreign Affairs. The statement, presented by Dr. John Slawson, executive vice-president, advocated that the Palestine Resolution be amended so as to provide for an “international trusteeship responsible to the United Nations.” It asked that “final determination of the controversial quest on of a Jewish Commonwealth be deferred.”
Amendment of the resolution by the Committee on Foreign Affairs as suggested by the American Jewish Committee “would be a long step forward toward reaching an ultimately just, fair and beneficial solution of the Palestinian problem” that will advance the basic purpose of the Resolution which is “to help many thousands of persecuted Jews to find hospitable refuge in Palestine,” the statement said. It emphasized that its proposed amendment to the resolution “does not prejudge the ultimate world order into the framework of which the determination of the political status of Palestine will be obliged to fit.”
Signed by Judge Joseph M. Proskauer, president; Jacob Blaustein, chairman, Executive com.; Alan M. Stroock, chairman Administrative Com.; and Dr. Slawson, the statement reaffirmed the long interest of the Committee “in the development of a Jewish settlement in Palestine, entirely apart from the political status of Palestine.”
WISE, NEUMANN EMPHASIZE ARAB SABOTAGE OF ALLIED WAR EFFORT
Emanuel Neumann, testifying at the hearing, stressed the harm done by Arab states to the Allied war effort. “Palestine has been the only support of the United Nations in the Middle East,” Neumann said. The Arabs, he pointed out, have too much land and not enough population. “Palestine was constituted precisely because it was not intended as an Arab State,” he argued.
Dr. Stephen S. Wise pointed out that the Arabs have done next to nothing for the war effort, while the Jews in Palestine had to keep down enlistments of Jewish volunteers there. “I want my people to have the chance to live side by side with the Arabs in a Jewish Commonwealth,” he stated. He asserted that 90 to 95 percent of the Jews in the United States would support the Palestine Resolution and referred to the fact that the American Jewish Conference, which adopted a resolution in favor of a Jewish Commonwealth, represented three of America’s five million Jews.
Chairman Sol Bloom announced at the hearing that of the thousands of messages which the House Committee for Foreign Affairs received with regard to the Palestine Resolution, only 10 were against the resolution.
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