The Seventeenth Zionist Congress will have more to deal with than the differences between the various Zionist parties, Mr. S. Kaplansky, member of the Zionist Executive and leader of the Poale Zion World Confederation, said in addressing a meeting here.
The future of the movement will be decided by this Congress, he said, The White Paper of October 1930 has been interpreted away by the MacDonald letter, but we must not allow ourselves to be lulled into the belief that the powers which brought about the White Paper have gone. There are two divergent tendencies in British policy. Those who look upon the Zionist activity as an obstacle to their Imperialist aims made an attempt to hitch even the Labour Government to their reactionary Imperialist wagon. The MacDonald letter, however, showed that the Labour Government had realised in time that it was being led into an abyss.
There was no purpose in exercising pressure on Dr. Weizmann to get him to remain leader, Mr. Kaplansky went on. But it would not be an easy matter to succeed Dr. Weizmann. The Revisionists might recall that the political difficulties had not begun only now. In 1921 Trans jordan had been severed from Western Palestine, and the Beisan lands had been given to the Arabs at the same time. In 1992 the Zionist Executive was forced to acept the Churchill White Paper. Mr. Jabotinsky was a member of the Executive at that time. He doubted. Mr. Kaplansky said, whether Mr. Jabotinsky knew even to-day where the road led. The demand for a Jewish State meant a demand for the revision of the Mandate. Such a demand encouraged the other side to insist also on its own demand for a revision of the Mandate. We would do best, Mr. Kaplansky said, to revise our political methods. We have been acting in the past as if there were no Jewish-Arab problem. We must now devote ourselves more than ever to this problem. We have no interest in a revision of the Mandate. At the same time we must move away from a policy which depends only upon the Mandatory Power. That does not mean, he added, that we intend to go with the Brith Shalom, that small group which can claim the credit for directing attention to the Jewish-Arab problem, but which is partly inclined to Achad Ha’amism and partly to confusing the issue. We want to recognise what our aim is honestly
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