David Ben Gurion, chairman of the Jewish Agency executive, last night demanded an impartial international investigation by representatives of the “big powers” of the recent British attacks on Jewish settlements in Palestine, and the mass arrests of Jews there. Speaking at a huge mass meeting here which overflowed into the streets, he asked that the investigating party not include either Britons or Jews.
Declaring that Palestine is not a British colony, Ben Gurion warned “Herr Attlee” that he must account for British actions there to the nations of the world. He charged that the British Government had deliberately organized the attack on the Jewish Agency and Palestine workers’ organizations in order to control and destroy them.
He asserted that the British had attempted to form a new Agency controlled by right-wing elements, but that it could not find either right or left Zionists to participate in a quisling Agency.
Accusing Attlee of trying to draw an “iron curtain” between Palestine and the rest of the world, he said that curtain would be destroyed even if it meant imprisonment for all Jews. He demanded that Attlee present proof of the Agency’s tie with “terrorist” forces. He pointed out that no such proof had been published nearly a week after the raids on the Agency headquarters began, and asserted that it never would be released because it did not exist.
England cannot destroy Jewish rights to independence and representation in the United Nations, he said, adding “Attlee is in Palestine provisionally, but we are there permanently and unconditionally, and in the future we will be independent.” He pointed out that although Attlee declared he had not promised a Jewish state in Palestine, the Labor Party had promised such a state before its election to power.
He accused Britain of having cold-bloodedly organized an attack upon the Jewish community of Palestine, and stressed: “We were not afraid of Hitler in Warsaw. The Jews are not alone in the world,” he concluded, “we will be helped by men of good will all over the world.”
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The Archive of the Jewish Telegraphic Agency includes articles published from 1923 to 2008. Archive stories reflect the journalistic standards and practices of the time they were published.
