Creation of Sovereign Jewish State Advocated by Frenchmen

The creation of a sovereign Jewish national state as the only permanent solution of the Jewish national problem is advocated by a group of Jewish leaders in France, headed by M. G. Welter. The project, as outlined in the Mercure de France, would consist in making some particular city, such as Tel Aviv, a sovereign Jewish state to be placed under the protection of three great powers: France, England, and the United States, who would guarantee its neutrality.

The advantage of such a sovereign Jewish state would lie chiefly in the fact that such a state could have an unlimited number of Jewish citizens under its jurisdiction residing abroad.

From the legal and political viewpoints there would then exist four categories of Jews:

1. Jews residing in the soverign Jewish national state and, as such, possessing full rights of Jewish nationality.

2. Jewish residents of other countries who on their request would be granted Jewish Nationality in the sovereign state and would thus be placed under the jurisdiction of the Jewish state.

3. Jews who are citizens of the country where they reside, but forming there a national minority and as such protected by international laws.

4. Jews who have become completely assimilated in the countries where they reside and have entirely given up any connection with Jewish nationality, severing all connections with their racial origins.

This division, according to the proponents of the plan, would correspond to the different opinions existing among the Jewish people of the world today as to their status. There are three kinds of Jews today, it assumes: those who want a Jewish homeland to live in and a Jewish nationality; those who want a Jewish nationality but no homeland; and those who want neither Jewish homeland, nor nationality, but want to become completely assimilated in the country where they live.