Harold Laski, former chairman of the British Labor Party executive, declared today that the current developments in Palestine are “a challenge to all Jewry.”
Stating that it was difficult to make any statement before Prime Minister Attlee speaks in Commons this week on Palestine, Laski said: “Yet my feeling is that the policy pursued by the Government is a challenge to all Jewry all over the world.
“Its effect is to lay all emphasis on conflict and not on a peaceful resolution of the vital problem of the transfer, as recommended by the Anglo-American Committee, of 100,000 Jews from Europe to Palestine. The world will want incontrovertible evidence that the charges brought against such men as Weizmann and Shertok have the slightest basis in fact.”
DEPUTIES SAY ARRESTS GO BEYOND ANYTHING THAT COULD BE EXPECTED
Speaking as “British citizens,” the Board of Deputies of British Jews today adopted a resolution which said that the arrest of members of the Jewish Agency executive was “a shock beyond anything that Jewry could have anticipated from a British Government.” The resolution, which was read to a full session of the board this afternoon by Prof. Selig Brodetsky, president, who said that the British action seemed aimed at silencing the Jews in Palestine and throughout the world, continued:
“The Jews believed that with the coming of peace, the British Government would take immediate steps to bring comfort and healing to Jewish survivors of the Nazi massacre. For the opportunity offered to the British Government by the unanimous report of the Anglo-American Committee of Inquiry there is now an attack upon the leaders of Palestine Jewry and the Jewish Agency who represent Jews all over the world in the building up of the Jewish National home.”
“Throughout the war the Jews of Palestine represented the only reliable support in the Middle East for Britain and all those who fought against Nazism, but after the war delay has followed delay and injustice has followed injustice, producing despair which has led to acts condemned by the very men who have now been arrested as responsible for them. British Jews appeal to their fellow citizens and to the whole British people to ensure that the evils of recent government action shall be annulled, and the illegal White Paper policy be discontinued.
“The resistance of a whole people, based upon so deep-seated a sense of injustice, cannot be remedied by repression and will not be eliminated, save by removal of the cause of their despair.”
The shock has been greater than it would otherwise have been, Prof. Brodetsky added, because of the fact that these acts were carried out on the Jewish Sabbath and Jews, distinguished rabbis among them, were forced to do things which are against Jewish law.
AGENCY OFFICE HITS “AGGRESSION AGAINST JEWISH PEOPLE”
The local office of the Jewish Agency, in a statement issued last night, described the raid on the Agency buildings in Jerusalem as “a clear act of aggression against the Jewish people.”
The statement charged British authorities with “trying by force to render the Jewish community of Palestine defenseless,” and, alluding to High Commissioner Gen. Sir Alan Cunningham’s broadcast, added: “To present this action as directed only against a small group in the Jewish community of Palestine is as misleading as the statement that the Jewish Agency is involved in acts of violence is false.
“The Jewish community in Palestine cannot give up its right to self-defense which, according to the Royal Commission for Palestine, has failed to discharge the elementary duty of providing public security. The provocative action is the culmination of a policy of violating obligations undertaken by Britain under the Mandate. It is an effort by the British Government to divert public attention from its policy of barring the doors of Palestine to the remnants of Hitler’s extermination campaign.
“It is designed to destroy both the achievements and the aspirations of the Jewish people in Palestine and could only have been adopted in order to appease the Mufti, who has once more been allowed to escape to freedom, and on the advice of his Arab and British friends in the Middle East.
“The Jewish people and its leaders will not be intimidated and will continue the struggle for the right of Jews to enter their homeland and live as a free and independent nation in the Jewish state.”
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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.
