Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain’s address of greeting to the Jews, with a few exceptions, was the same as that to the Arabs. He started by welcoming the Jewish delegates, greeting Dr. Chaim Weizmann as “the distinguished president of the Jewish Agency” and “his colleagues of the Jewish Agency and the representatives of the Jewish communities of Palestine, South Africa, the United States and elsewhere” as “a representative gathering of all Jews interested in the Jewish National Home.”
From there on the speech was the same as that to the Arabs, with the insertion of this remark, after deploring the unhappy events in Palestine: “I would here pay tribute to the discipline and restraint shown generally by the Jewish community during a period of extreme difficulty and danger in Palestine.” For the part of the speech to the Arabs which reads, “The Arab people have a proud and ancient history,” he substituted, in his speech to the Jews: “Your people, no less than ours, have cherished traditions of history stretching far back into the past.”
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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.
