British Treating Jews Brutally, Goldman Tells Zionist Parley

Charges that the British administration was employing “brutal Nazi methods” in treatment of Palestine Jews were voiced here today by Dr. Solomon Goldman, president of the Zionist Organization of America, upon his arrival from a two-week tour of the Holy Land.

Dr. Goldman made the charges at a closed meeting of the American delegation to the Zionist Congress. He absolved the military authorities of guilt, declaring they were acting in a correct manner, but said that the civil and police authorities in Palestine were behaving “just like the Nazis.”

Dr. Goldman, whom the meeting named as head of the Congress delegation, bolstered his charges with incidents from his own experiences during the tour. He also related how police had mercilessly beaten Jewish children in the streets of Jerusalem, how members of the Jewish Agency Executive had not been spared insulting treatment by British official and how 300 aged religious Jews, including a number of rabbis, had been mishandled by police in the Jewish quarter of Jerusalem “in a manner similar to that in Nazi Germany.”

Dr. Goldman asserted that not only telegrams but letters were being opened by the Palestine censors because of the growing hostility to the regime there. He declared there was not a single Jew in Palestine today who was not embittered against England for her betrayal of the Balfour Declaration and that all Palestine Jewry was looking forward to a decision by the Congress on how to prevent Britain from carrying out her new White Paper policy.

In a Jerusalem interview with the Jewish Telegraphic Agency, Dr. Goldman had advocation direct overtures to the Arabs for cooperation in practical matters of mutual importance declaring that such initiative on the part of the Jews might prove to be a timely step to ward peace in the Holy Land. As to a long range solution, he expressed the belief that a scheme for a Federal state, with Jewish and Arab cantons, offered the best possibilities.

“The Jews and Arabs are both in Palestine to stay,” he declared. “The proportion of the population and the prospect of a Jewish majority should not make an essential difference with regard to the relations of the people. Peace and cooperation will be a tremendous boon to both the Arab countries and the Jewish National Home, and will eliminate the possibility of playing one people against the other. This goal is so important that the Jews cannot allow themselves to be deterred by a few Arab extremists or discouraged by the failure of past efforts.”

Dr. Goldman declared his intention of impressing upon Zionist circles the need to formulate a definite program of Arab Jewish cooperation in some specific project where there a good chance of success. Then, after gaining the necessary experience of working together the joint enterprise could be enlarged. Such a course, he said, was more promising than an attempt to settle all differences in one stroke by a general political agreement.

Dr. Goldman expressed the view that the White Paper would increase the responsibility of American Jewry with regard to the Zionist movement and that one of the likely results of the Zionist Congress would be greater American participation in the affairs of the World Zionist Organization. As a corollary, he said, American Jewry needed to be better informed about Palestine and had to have full representation there throughout the whole year. He said he intended to take up with American Jewish leaders the question of sending to Palestine a number of able, independent Jewish experts in various fields to help the Palestine Jewish Community.