The House Foreign Affairs Committee today published a 104-page collection of documents entitled “The Jewish National Home in Palestine” for the benefit of persons who will testify at the first public hearings on the resolution introduced two weeks ago in the House, asking the United States to intervene for free immigration to Palestine and for the eventual establishment of a Jewish Commonwealth there.
The hearings will open tomorrow before the House Foreign Affairs Committee with House Democratic and Republican leaders and representatives of various Jewish organizations giving their views. The collection of documents published today includes the text of the Palestine Mandate, Congressional resolutions endorsing the Balfour Declaration, the British White Paper and other official statements on Palestine, and also the memorandum of the Jewish Agency criticizing the White Paper.
It is expected that discussions may arise during the hearings over the political aspects of the Palestine situation, as it affects the government’s plan for an outlet to the projected oil pipe line from the American concession in Saudi Arabia. The plan calls for an outlet on the Eastern Mediterranean, either in Lebanon or Palestine.
Representative Emmanuel Celler of New York, called on Lord Halifax, the British Ambassador, today to say whether the British Government is paying the costs of a lecture tour by Freya Stark, whom Mr. Celler termed a “British agent for the Arabs.” Celler charged that Miss Stark’s lecture tour in this country was designed to seek public support for the British White Paper. He also said that Miss Stark will “seek to influence the action of Congress” in connection with the resolutions on Palestine now before it.
An Embassy spokesman, identifying Miss Stark as “a world famous authority on the Middle East and a noted explorer,” acknowledged promptly that not only are Miss Stark’s expenses being defrayed by the British Government, but that she is an official of the British Ministry of Information.
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