British Jews Protest Palestine Council at Parley

A unanimous protest in the name of the British Jews against the projected establishment of a representative legislative council in Palestine was voiced in a resolution adopted at a conference yesterday of 300 delegates of British Jewish organizations.

The resolution authorized the British section of the Jewish Agency for Palestine to appoint a delegation to make representations to Colonial Secretary J.H. Thomas about the council, which was recently announced by Palestine High Commissioner Sir Arthur Grenfell Wauchope. The demand that “any proposal for the development of self-governing institutions in Palestine must be based on the inherent principle that the future of Palestine is the concern of the whole Jewish people,” was expressed in the resolution, which was introduced by Neville Laski, president of the Board of British Jewish Deputies. Other organizations which participated were the British Zionist Federation, the Jewish Agency and various Zionist parties.

“The Jews cannot accept a minority status in Palestine,” asserted Lord Melchett, Jewish industrialist, who presided.

In introducing the resolution, Mr. Laski proposed as an alternative to the council a policy designed to extend and develop local self-government in Palestine. He urged the fostering of Arab-Jewish cooperation on the basis of the League of Nations mandate. The projected council, he held, opposes the fundamental principles of the mandate and of British policy.

Mr. Laski warned that “any constitutional change jeopardizing the development of the Jewish national home and its consequent growth of absorptive capacity in this present tragic phase of Jewish history will be viewed by the Jews throughout the world as a calamity.” He recalled that efforts by the Arabs at self-government had failed.

Other speakers at the conference were Professor Selig Brodetsky, of the Jewish Agency; Nahum Sokolow, honorary president of the World Zionist Organization; the now Lady Reading and Rev. J. K. Goldblum.