News Brief

Commenting on the editorial of the “Manchester Guardian,” Dr. Wise stated to the representative of the Jewish Daily Bulletin.

“However distressing the whole business be, it is satisfying to find that the ‘Manchester Guardian,’ which, by its great editor, C. P. Scott, and his cooperation with Weizmann, did more than any other organ of public opinion in England for the Zionist cause, revealing so clear an understanding of the problems and the perplexities which face the Jewish settlers of Palestine and Zionism throughout the world at this time. I might have cited many illustrations in the course of my address at the Cleveland conference, such as the Syrian Trade Agreement, to which the ‘Manchester Guardian’ understandingly and sympathetically refers. The truth is, with respect to the Syrian trade agreement, as was disclosed by a series of sessions of the political commission of the Zionist Congress at Basle, there are only two alternatives, one that the British government is acting wholly without regard to the economic necessities of Palestine and its infant industries or else that our representatives in and out of Palestine have not presented the Zionist case with intelligence and firmness.

“Nothing expresses the case more clearly than the word of the ‘Guardian’: ‘Palestine is treated as a Crown Colony without colonial advantages.’ Palestine does not wish to be treated as a Crown Colony with colonial advantages. Surely, it must not be treated as a Crown Colony without colonial advantages and that is substantially what is happening today. It may be that the political leadership in England feels it is equal to the necessities of the situation, without the proffered cooperation of Zionists in other lands. I do not believe it is. If I had to summarize the situation in one sentence on this tenth anniversary of the Balfour Declaration it would be: The British government has not done enough to facilitate the establishment in Palestine of a Jewish Homeland: the political leadership of the Zionist movement has not done enough to move the mandatory government to fulfill in spirit the terms of the Balfour Declaration; the Jews of the world have not done enough for our fellow Jews in Palestine, whom, politically morally and materially we have left unsustained by the full resources of the Jewish people in the supreme hour of opportunity and of challenge,” Dr. Wise declared.