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Early Allied Acceptance of a Jewish Army Seen by Jabotinsky

June 13, 1940
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Vladimir Jabotinsky, president of the New Zionist Organization, said this morning at a press conference at the Hotel Commodore that it was hoped soon to obtain Allied recognition of a “co-belligerent Jewish army, available on all fronts,” which he expected to exceed 100,000 men. Negotiations with the British and French Governments have been in progress since the outbreak of the war, he said.

The proposed army would be composed of refugee and stateless Jews, Palestinian Jews and volunteers from neutral countries, Jabotinsky said. The effect of creation of such an army, he declared, would be to upset the “ridiculous whispering campaign” that Jews wanted others to fight in their interests but themselves remained at home.

Col. J.H. Patterson, commander of the Jewish battalion in Palestine in the World War, voiced high praise of the Jewish soldiers he led.

The American Friends of a Jewish Palestine, at its first annual convention Last night, adopted a resolution urging Britain to accept the offer of the Irgun Zevai Leumi, Zionist-Revisionist youth organization in Palestine, to relieve British forces for service elsewhere.

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