Curb on Grossman Seen by Palestine Editor As Step to Zionist “gestapo”

Suspension of Meir Grossman from the Actions Committee of the World Zionist Organization carries a threat of conversion of the Zionist Executive into “a Political police headquarters like the Gestapo,” Dr. Fritz Bernstein, editor-in-chief of the Hebrew daily Haboker, warned in an editorial in that paper.

Mr. Grossman, a member of the Actions Committee executive, was suspended for two years by a Zionist honor court here on charges arising from his publication last Summer of a purported memorandum of a conversation between Dr. Chaim Weizmann, president of the World Zionist Organization, and Colonial Secretary William G.A. Ormsby-Gore, of Great Britain, on details of partition of Palestine and establishment of a Jewish State in part of the country. The alleged conversation took place before the World Zionist Congress met in Zurich to pass upon the partition question.

Dr. Bernstein, himself a member of the Actions Committee, and former president of the Zionist Organization of Holland, expressed the hope that the Grossman case would not prove to be “a start toward a system of political persecution under a so-called lawful mask.”

He declared the “confusion” of the prosecution and the judges were “conspicuous” evidence of “the political character of this case.”

During a long campaign against Mr. Grossman in which the Zionist executive mobilized “the entire press which stands at its disposal,” it appeared that he was to be charged with obtaining a secret document by unlawful means or with publishing a secret document, Dr. Bernstein said. At the beginning of the trial, he continued, the prosecutor “had to drop this accusation,” and the only one mentioned was causing harm to Zionism. Finally, the court’s verdict, he said, declared Mr. Grossman was punished not for harming Zionism but for a breach of Zionist discipline.

Referring to the stress laid on “discipline,” Dr. Bernstein wrote:

“Should we try to define this term adequately, I doubt whether would could find many Zionists among the leaders of the movement who have not committed a breach of Zionist discipline. We do not think this issue can properly be dealt with in the press. I am afraid that the citing of the innumerable facts we have in mind might cause harm to the Zionist organization. Therefore we refrain from stating the position of Zionist discipline as it really exists.”

“Moreover,” Dr. Bernstein continued, “we do not see even now in what way Mr. Grossman and he alone committed a breach of Zionist discipline. Actually, he proved by the strength of documents that which we all felt and which the Executive denied with all vigor:

“That Dr. Weizmann committed the movement to the British Government in favor of partition even before the Congress.”