British Affirm Council Need for Palestine

Great Britain is obligated to establish representative institutions in Palestine by virtue of the Palestine Mandate and has given assurances to this effect to the Mandates Commission of the League of Nations. Near East and India, influential British magazine, declared editorially in opposing resolutions adopted last Sunday by British Zionists, who condemned the proposed legislative council for Palestine.

“If the Arabs and Jews are left to themselves, they will never come to any agreement.” the magazine declared, “but the proposed legislative council will afford an opportunity to achieve an understanding.

“Therefore, the government is well advised to provide the Jews and Arabs with a joint political debating society. The legislative council will also make it impossible for the Arabs to conceal the advantages for Palestine in the creation of a Jewish National Home there.

“A Jewish National Home in Palestine is indispensable according to the accepted Palestine standard of international values, which makes obligatory the continuation of Jewish cooperation in the development of Palestine,” Near East and India declared.

The conference of the British Zionist Federation, which took place last Sunday in London, adopted a number of strong resolutions opposing the legislative council. Other Zionist groups in Palestine and abroad have also gone on record as being unalterably opposed to the legislative council, denouncing the creation of the body as “contrary to the spirit and letter of the Palestine Mandate.”

British officials, however, are going ahead with the task of drafting the ordinance creating the council. Sir Arthur Grenfell Wauchope, according to reports, returned to London on Sunday, after a vacation in Scotland, to help the Colonial Office in preparing the final draft of the ordinance.

The British government and the Palestine administration have made it clear that opposition will not deter them from creating the council.

Jewish opponents of the council point out that the Arab and British delegates on the council will have a majority over the Jews.

Even Near East and India, generally regarded as a mouthpiece of the Colonial Office, admitted that while legally the council will have no real power, a majority opinion of the council would certainly have a great influence on the Palestine administration.