Highlights of the General Debate

When the general debate on the floor of the Congress was resumed last night after the Sabbath recess, speakers concentrated their fire on the proposed legislative council for Palestine.

Leading the attack were Rabbi Abba Hillel Silver of Cleveland, Ohio, and Robert Stricker of Austria, a leader of the Jewish State Party.

“Any attempt to congeal the present status of Palestine,” Dr. Silver stated, “by means of a legislative assembly giving the Jews the status of a minority in their own homeland, is to be considered by the Jews not as a legislative council but as legislative sabotage.”

Mr. Stricker declared that the proposed council if established will retard Jewish achievements in Palestine for many generations He accused the Zionist Executive of hiding the truth about the projected assembly from the Zionist organization and from the entire Jewish world. The fight against the council, Stricker insisted, can succeed only if the Zionist leaders adopt the principle of a Jewish State in Palestine.

In voicing his opposition to the council, Dr. Silver suggested that the Zionists devise a modus vivendi with the Arabs. He also urged that Zionists remember the long range objectives of the movement and warned that the present depression may serve to check its progress. To offset this danger, Dr. Silver urged adoption of a program of aggressive education and propaganda in the lands of the Diaspora.

Youth, Dr. Silver stated, will not be won over to Zionism except on a basis of nationalism linked with social idealism. “To that extent,” he said, “I am defending the attitude of organized Jewish labor in Palestine. We want Jewish capital in Palestine and we welcome it but only the kind of capital which will submit to the social mandate of a just national economy.”