Dr. Weizmann to Head Fund Raising Zionist Delegation to America Soon, Jewish Agency Negotiations Wit

A Zionist delegation headed by Dr. Weizmann will proceed within the near future to the United States in order to strengthen the Palestine drive which is about to begin there, it was announced to-day at a Press Conference presided over by Mr. Sokolow given by the Zionist Executive here. Some complications are created by the fact, it was added, that Dr. Weizmann will have to leave London while the negotiations with the Government are still in progress. How this difficulty will be overcome has not yet been decided. It is possible that the negotiations with the Government will be interrupted for some time, but it is also possible that the negotiations will be continued in Dr. Weizmann’s absence and that he will return to London before the negotiations are concluded.

Speaking of the postponement of the Congress, Mr. Sokolow said that the Zionist Congress was not an end in itself, but one of the means to the end, which was the upbuilding of the Jewish National Home in Palestine. Pressure was exercised by various factions of the Zionist movement in America who had pointed out that the Congress would interfere with the Palestine drive in America. The information received from non-Zionist leaders in America that they would not be able to attend the Jewish Agency Council meeting which has to take place immediately after the Congress, if it was held at the beginning of March, was a further reason which prompted them to reconsider their previous decision to hold the Congress in February.

The disappointing results of the Allied Jewish Campaign in the United States during November and December, which had only just become known, had made it of imperative importance that the Palestine campaign should be started without delay, and not be held over until the Zionist Congress had been held, Dr. Rosenblueth said.

The resignation of the Mizrachi representatives from the Zionist Executive, he explained, was due to differences in connection with the time of the Congress. The Mizrachi had insisted that the Congress should be held in February and that the Palestine campaign should begin only after the Zionist Congress had been concluded. The Mizrachi have not yet made up their minds whether or not they are remaining in the Zionist Executive, Dr. Rosenblueth added.

A plan for raising £1,000,000 within the next year to be utilised for new colonisation work in Palestine was outlined by Mr. Sprinzak. A membership of 1,000,000 people paying £1 each, he claimed, is a practicable achievement, forming the basis of his plan. It would serve a double purpose, by both raising the necessary funds for large colonisation and by mobilising the Jewish masses in the interests of Palestine upbuilding. This skeleton plan will be more fully discussed at the forthcoming meeting of the Economic Section of the Jewish Agency, Mr. Sprinzak said, adding that the Labour movement in Palestine is enthusiastic about the plan and places considerable hopes in its realisation.