Demands Reorganization of Zionist Movement

The Zionist Congress as the instrument for the upbuilding of Palestine has become obsolete. This contention is made in an article by the well known lawyer and Zionist leader, I. D. Morrison, which appears in “The New Palestine” of August 5th.

“It does not require much argument,” Mr. Morrison writes, “to show that an assembly which meets once in two years, wherein membership is so easily obtainable and so steadily changed, cannot undertake and successfully carry out such an intricate and technical project as the building of a new country. A body must be created which will have a sense of responsibility for what it does or delegates others to do.

“The criticisms that have been heaped upon my head for my strictures of the Labor Organization in Palestine have been rather severe. The majority of my critics seem to think that a Jewish labor organization in Palestine is a necessity, that the Histadruth and its auxiliaries have accomplished a great deal of constructive and fruitful work, and that therefore it must be maintained in its full power and strength.

“If it were the aim and object of the Histadruth to improve the working conditions of its members in Palestine and to raise their standard of living. I would have no quarrel with it whatever,” Mr. Morrison continues. “But it is far more ambitious. It aims not only to control the industrial life of the country but also its political destinies. More than that. It seeks to mould the training and thought of the young, and on lines not at all in accord with those held by a majority of the Jews who have assumed the duty of building the Homeland.

“There are ten or fifteen thousand Yemenite Jews in Palestine who came there by special invitation of the Zionist Organization. They are of the material particularly fitted for the upbuilding of a new country: hardworking, frugal, bound by strong family ties and at home among the Arabs whose language they speak. But they have one draw-back-they will not stay ‘organized,’ So the Histadruth regards them as a sort of menace. And these Jews have, at the behest of the Histadruth, been practically boycotted by the Palestine Zionist Executive. They are not allowed to participate in our educational budget and of the $200,000 recently distributed in unemployment doles they received not a cent. More than that. When the Yemenite Jews succeeded in getting a contract, the Histadruth, by methods so well known to organized labor, prevented them from carrying out the work.

“So there is an instance of tyrannical domination by the Histadruth and the actual prevention of the development of a class of Jewish labor that could be immensely useful to the country.

“The Zionist Organization maintains many institutions in Palestine; it also maintains, at a cost of more than fifty per cent, of its collections, the Histadruth. The money for the Histadruth and the money for the Zionist institutions come from the same source. The Histadruth is strongly represented on the Palestine Zionist Executive, in fact, it dominnates it. And yet it isn’t satisfied with the institutions of the Executive but duplicates identical institutions of its own. The Palestine Zionist Executive has an immigration department; so has the Histadruth. The Palestine Zionist Executive has an agricultural department; so has the Histadruth.

“What is the purpose of this duplication and this enormous waste, unless it be that the Histadruth wants to make sure that both the immigrants and the settlers upon the land are of a particular shade of political opinion?

“Its lack of consideration for the Palestine institutions not under its control is best illustrated by the fact that although the Histadruth receives all its funds from the Keren Hayesod, it has attempted time and again to interfere with the Keren Hayesod collections. They have upon numerous occasions sent ‘missions’ to this country to make separate collections which should go for their own uses only. They have a fairly well organized following in America with whom the United Palestine Appeal must reckon when organizing campaigns. These followers come to us when a campaign is about to begin and say, in so many words, how much will you give us out of your collections? If we refuse to give them money they threaten to organize campaigns parallel to ours. And we know what that means. So that in innumerable instances the United Palestine Appeal is compelled to pay ‘tribute’ to the representatives of the Workers’ Organization in Palestine in order to prevent them from interfering with our collections.

“Is it fair, therefore, to ask those people who contribute large sums of money so that an experiment may be made in Palestine with an economic system which has not as yet succeeded anywhere.” Would it not be better if the Zionist Executive made it known that it is interested in protecting the interests of all Jewish labor in Palestine, be in Minrachi Yemenite or radical and that it will not permit the use of money for the purpose of establishing labor institutions devoted to a particular philosophy?

“My point is that Palestine is not the place, at least for the time being, in which to experiment and than at any rate, to conduct the Keren Hayesod as a separate entity without regard to the needs and demands of the other Palestine institutions is the height of folly.” Mr. Morrison concludes.

The ofennial session of the National ###### of the Naifor at Council of Jewish Sections of the Na### at ##### Miss May #### unclear