Foreign Secretary Anthony Eden’s implied pledge of British support for establishment of an Arab federation, included in a statement of war aims before an audience of prominent Englishmen, was declared by well-informed political quarters today not to affect Palestine directly.
“Palestine,” these quarters said, “is a mandated territory and must be dealt with separately.” It is believed here, however, that any change in the status of neighboring countries is bound to affect the Holy Land. Political circles emphasized that the negative attitude of some Arab countries towards Britain’s Palestine policy afforded an insufficient basis for collaboration and therefore a more comprehensive economic, cultural and political understanding among the Arab states had to be encouraged.
Eden’s statement about the Arabs, contained in a speech made at Mansion House yesterday, follows:
“Some days ago I said in the House of Commons that His Majesty’s Government had great sympathy with Syrian aspirations for independence. I should like to repeat that now. But I would go further. The Arab world has made great strides since the settlement was reached at the and of the last war and many Arab thinkers desire for the Arab peoples a greater degree of unity than they now enjoy. In reaching out toward this unity they hope for our support.
“No such appeal from our friends should go unanswered. It seems both natural and right that cultural and economic ties between Arab countries, yes and political ties, too, should be strengthened. His Majesty’s Government for their part will give their full support to any scheme that commands general approval.”
JEWISH PAPERS HIT BRITISH POLICY
Meanwhile, on the eve of the annual conference of the British Labor Party, which opens in London on June 2, The Jewish Chronicle and The Zionist Review today denounced Britain’s Palestine policy end urged labor support in obtaining modification of the policy.
The Review declared: “In these days when Jewish life in Europe is being destroyed and Palestine is in the danger zone and the Jews, the first victims of Nazi aggression, are still waiting to be recognized as an ally, the policy of appeasement is still alive in Palestine and now the eyes of persecuted, hunted Jewish people are turned again to the progressive forces of the world, first of all the great British labor movement.”
The Chronicle said: “Hard-headed concern for Palestine regrets the persistence of the pernicious folly of attempting gratuitously to appease the Arabs at the expense of the Jews, despite the shock of the Iraqi rising.
“This policy misses no opportunity to restrict and discourage Jewish Palestine and reduce its residents to the status of second-rate citizens. This crass folly is expressed in the fantastic irony of cruel discrimination which lodges so called illegal refugee immigrants in prison if they are Jews whilst not only allowing Greeks and Poles free entry if they are not Jews, but, in the case of the Poles, granting them special facilities.
“The same error is responsible for the refusal to allow the Jews the elementary right to bear arms to defend their homes against the common enemy. The Jews are heart and soul for Britain, whatever be the fortunes of war, but nobody could be astonished if willingness to sacrifice the Jews to any clique who make themselves a nuisance will not lead primitive people everywhere else to decide that disloyalty is the better-paying policy.”
STATEMENT IN COMMONS ON IMMIGRATION
Colonial Undersecretary George H. Hall said in Commons today it was not possible, for reasons of security, to admit into Palestine all persons from enemy-occupied territories, this applying both to Jews and non-Jews. The statement was made in reply to David Adams, Laborite, who asked whether sanctuary would be given in Palestine to Jews from Greece and other Nazi-occupied territories similar to that accorded to non-Jewish refugees. Hall denied, in response to another question, that nine Jews from Greece who recently arrived in Palestine in an open boat were interned.
Some details of life in the aliens detention camp at Athlit are given by The Jewish Chronicle in a Jerusalem dispatch. Recently a circumcision ceremony was held when the first male child was born in the camp. Two couples who met while interned were married by Rabbi Kaniel of Haifa, whose services were arranged for by the British police officer in charge of the camp. Several representatives of Jewish institutions attended the ceremony.
A total of 1,205 children arrived in Palestine under Youth Aliyah auspices during the first five months of 1941, Youth Aliyah headquarters here announced. The total includes 341 from Hungary, 239 from Yugoslavia, 225 from Rumania, 150 from Lithuania, 90 from Denmark, 64 from Bulgaria, 45 from Sweden, 45 from Turkey, six from Australia and one each from Greece and Cyprus.
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The Archive of the Jewish Telegraphic Agency includes articles published from 1923 to 2008. Archive stories reflect the journalistic standards and practices of the time they were published.
