Group of American Congressmen and Senators Formulate Project for Advancing Jewish Work in Palestine:

An important group of Congressmen and Senators belonging to all Parties have formulated a project as a result of a Conference held in Washington, in which a number of leading Zionists in New York participated, the details of which have not yet been divulged, but which it is said will be of great significance for the future work on behalf of the Jewish National Home in Palestine. An announcement, it is stated, will be made when Congress reconvenes in the new year.

A National Conference of prominent non-Jews in American will shortly be held, it is added, in order to discuss measures for promoting the Jewish work in Palestine.

PRO-PALESTINE COMMITTEE IN UNITED STATES

Mr. Emanuel Neuman, the American member of the Zionist world Executive, revealed to the last American Zionist Convention held last month in Atlantic City that a Pro-Palestine Committee, consisting of important personages in American political life and in other branches of activity will shortly be formed in the United States.

He explained that he had held conversations with leading figures in American life and that Senator Borah, for one, had expressed his strong approval of such a project, in a letter addressed to Mr. Neumann, which he read to the Convention.

My impression is, Senator Borah’s letter read, that such a Committee could be helpful in the dissemination of accurate and reliable information about Palestine and in giving encouragement to the movement. There can be no doubt that the movement at this particular juncture needs the co-operation and support of all those who are in sympathy with it. I want you to know that I am in sympathy with your work and to the extent of my time and ability, I shall always be glad to help.

We must constantly strive for co-operation with the mandatory Power, though it always takes two to co-operate, Mr. Neuman said in the course of his speech. It would be a grave error, however, he added, to rest our cause solely upon that relationship rather than upon the broadest international basis. America has played vitally important parts at critical moments, he said, in strengthening the hands of the friends of the Jewish National Home in England and elsewhere, and America must continue to play that role.

RESOLUTION BY U.S. CONGRESS AND SENATE IN FAVOUR OF JEWISH NATIONAL HOME IN PALESTINE

In 1922, the United States House of Representatives and Senate, on the motions of respectively Congressman Hamilton, Fish and the late Senator Henry Cabot Lodge, Chairman of the Foreign Relations Committee of the Senate, the position held at present by Senator Borah, adopted a resolution in favour of a Jewish National Home in Palestine, which was signed the following week by President Harding.

“Resolved by the Senate and House of Representatives of the United States of America in Congress assembled”, the resolution read, “that the United States of America favours the establishment in Palestine of a national home for the Jewish people, it being clearly understood that nothing shall be done which may prejudice the civil and religious rights of Christian and all other non-Jewish communities in Palestine, and that the holy places and religious buildings and sites in Palestine shall be adequately protected”.

PRESIDENT HOOVER’S ATTITUDE

President Hoover, who was Secretary for Commerce in the United States Cabinet at the time, issued a statement in which he said:

I would not wish in any measure to seem desirous of cutting up any objection to any individual or nation bent upon the satisfaction of the instinctive hunger for self-expression that is inherent in us all, and which our American individualism aims in all directions to accord. Yet I would entertain a sense of distinct disquietude if I thought that America were to lose the influence and attainment of such preeminent men as Oscar Straus, the Messes. Warburg, Marshall, Schiff, eandeis, Morgenthau, Doctors Flexner and Carrell and hundreds of other Jews who have risen high in the opinion of our countrymen, and who are as much a part of our national life as peoples of any racial extraction. Nor can I believe that men of this character could attain such service and usefulness in any place except the United States, nor that they have any desire to be considered apart from the American people.

As an asylum for the less fortunate masses of Jewish people I would entirely sympathise with the aspirations of the New Palestine. We all agree that America must be the real Homeland for any race that joins us and that any stimulation of religious sentiment and desire to assist the less fortunate is constructive.

A day or two after his election as President, in November 1928, President Hoover sent a message to the United Palestine Appeal Conference held in Boston, in which he declared “I am heartily in accord with the effort to recognise Palestine, and I should like to help the drive for funds”.

In May 1929, President Hoover received at White House Mr. Nahum Sokolov, the President of the Jewish Agency, who is now again on his way to America, and assured him of his great interest in the Zionist movement and his sympathy for the work which it is accomplishing in Palestine. Mr. Sokolov was also received the same day by Mr. Curtis, the Vice-President of the United States, who, it was afterwards revealed, was the prime mover in securing the adoption of the resolution in favour of the Jewish home in Palestine sponsored by Senator Lodge and Congressman Fish. Vice-President Curtis was a member of the Senate at the time, and persuaded Senator Lodge on account of his position as Chairman of the Foreign Relations Committee to act as the official sponsor of the resolution, of which he was the “father”.