A lengthy analysis of the future of the Jews in Palestine in the light of the last stages of the war was given here today by Moshe Shertok, head of the political department of the Jewish Agency, addressing the conference of the Jewish Labor Party which has been convoked for the purpose of securing unity within the party’s ranks.
Vigorously condemning those who insinuate that the Jews in Palestine are becoming anti-British, Mr. Shertok stressed the importance of increased Jewish voluntary enlistment in the ranks of the British armed forces and spoke of the role which Jewish soldiers in the British Army can play by being among the first to enter liberated territories where Jews are held in concentration camps. He appealed to the members of the Labor Party “to maintain the party’s united front in order to carry out the tremendous tasks facing the Jews of Palestine and the Jewish nation.”
The internal struggle within the ranks of the Labor Party reached its peak at today’s session of the conference when Isaac Tobenkin, leader of the opposition in the party, demanded that the conference define its attitude to basic problems facing the Zionist movement as well as the Palestine Jewish labor movement. “Just as we resent the insinuation that we are anti-British, we do not want to appear to be anti-Russian,” he said. “We cannot release Britain from its mandatory obligations which she undertook when accepting the mandate over Palestine. The conference may cause us to leave the ranks of the party, but our future path will always be the way of common struggle for Zionism.”
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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.
