Jewish Agency Scores Inquiry Commission’s Report in Memorandum Sent to Mandates Commission for Its P

The Palestine Inquiry Commission disregarded the express injunctions of article 2 of the Palestine Mandate in dismissing the Jewish complaints of a lack of sympathy on the part of the Palestine government on the ground that “there was not a clear direction to assist either party in the fulfilment of their aspirations,” charges the Jewish Agency for Palestine in a critical analysis of the Commission’s report, contained in a memorandum submitted today to Sir Eric Drummond, General-Secretary of the League of Nations, for the information of the Mandates Commission, which at its sessions opening June 3 will discuss the Palestine situation in general and consider the report of the Palestine Inquiry Commission.

The statement of the Jewish Agency contends that the Commission did not show any apppreciation of the importance attached to the Jewish Agency by the framers of the Mandate as a symbol and the embodiment of the connection between Palestine and the Jewish people as a whole. The Agency points out that the enlargement of the Agency was treated by the Commission in a manner implying that it would have been better if the Agency extension had not taken place, the Commission “apparently attaching no importance to the fact that the Mandate not only sanctions the enlargement of the Jewish Agency but expressly contemplates it.”

CHARGES MANDATE IGNORED

Continuing, the memorandum points out that the Commission completely ignores “the express direction of the Mandate to promote close settlement and intensive cultivation, the report betraying no appreciation that if no serious attempt to encourage intensive cultivation has yet been made by the government this implies a definite failure on the Government’s part to implement an important provision of the Mandate.”

LAND QUESTION EXAGGERATED

Turning to the land question the memorandum declares, “there are strong prima facie grounds for doubting whether the land question played the big part in the disturbances attributed to it by the commission or indeed any part at all. The areas in which the main disturbances took place were not such where land has been bought or Jewish colonies settled since the war. Only thirteen Jews were killed in the colonies of which more than half were in the old prewar colonies.

“The fact is also significant that among its many witnesses the Arab Executive has not produced a single ‘aggrieved’ tenant dispossessed as a result of Jewish colonization. Similarly the Jewish Agency is unaware of any case in which an Arab charged with an offense in connection with the disturbances proved to be a dispossessed cultivator. If, therefore, it is seriously suggested that the land question played a part in the August disturbances, there not only is no tangible evidence for its support but there is definite evidence to the contrary. This part of the Arab evidence has the appearance of an afterthought.

“The report also fails to reach a definite conclusion regarding the number of Arabs who in fact have been affected by post-war Jewish land purchases and how many of them are now landless. If the Commission merely raised the question of further land settlement without prejudging it in the light of inquiries which in view of the limited time at their disposal could only be superficial, there would be little ground for complaint because the Jewish Agency does not fear a competent and dispassionate survey of Palestine agriculture and colonization possibilities.

CONTRADICTS GOVERNMENT FIGURES

“The figure of one hundred or one hundred and fifty dunams of land required for the maintenance of an Arab family in accordance with the report, is applicable where ‘the land is used for the purpose of growing cereals,’ but at least a part of the Arab farming population is not engaged in growing cereals. To some extent they grow vegetables or fruit, particularly oranges. While unable to produce exact figures, the Jewish Agency contends that the number of Arab farmers engaged otherwise than in cereal farming is large enough to vitiate the calculation based on one hundred to one hundred and fifty dunams.”

Quoting authoritative facts and figures, the Jewish Agency statement contradicts the Commission’s figures and assumptions of four hundred and sixty thousand as the rural Arab population as being “irreconciliable with the official demographic statistics. But even if this figure is accepted it by no means follows that 92,000 Arab families depend for their livelihood on the possession of agricultural holdings because this would imply that the entire Arab population in the rural areas consists of farmers, while in fact 50% of them are laborers engaged in road works on the railways and as artisans. The truth seems to be that the Commission in dealing with the land question as in dealing with immigration proceeded on the assumption that Palestine’s absorptive capacity is something static without realizing that the country’s absorptive capacity depends largely on the efforts of the Jews themselves and tends to increase pari passu with Jewish enterprise.”

The memorandum cites for example Rahoboth where 38 years ago a dozen Arabs lived but which now supports a population of about 2,500. Esdraelon is also cited, where according to the final report of Sir. Herbert Samuel 4 or 5 small, squalid Arab villages existed “which is nothing approaching the population now contained in Esdraelon. These two cases alone are sufficient warning against judging Palestine by Palestine as it is and against the short and narrow view of what Jewish energy and enterprise are capable of achieving.

CRITICIZES ARAB POLITICIANS

“If the Arab politicians who now so ardently espouse the cause of the Arab cultivator act in good faith the Jews have not to fear. Harry Snell suggested that the Arab cultivator should be secure in the possession of sufficient land providing him with a decent standard of life provided that his right of occupation should carry the obligation of efficient cultivation.

“To this principle the Jewish Agency has always been perfectly ready to subscribe. The Agency would welcome any bonafide legislation designed to safeguard the interests of the Arab cultivator, raise his standard of living and his technical equipment and enable him to extricate himself from the burden of debt which has made him a slave of those or the associates of those who now come forward as his champions. The Jewish Agency neither desires nor contemplates dispossession but protests against this use as a pawn in a political campaign on the part of persons whose object is not to safeguard the interests of the cultivator, which Jewish colonization in no wise threatens, but to hamper and possibly prevent the establishment of the Jewish National Home”.

DOUBTS ECONOMIC CRISIS

The statement then asks “was there a serious economic crisis in 1927—28 bringing wide-spread unemployment and distress affecting both Arabs and Jews. It is certainly true that in 1926-27 Palestine passed through a serious depression; though it is rather strange in view of the rather highly colored language of the Commission’s report to find Sir George Symes on behalf of the Palestine government stating in the 1927 annual report that ‘the crisis was on a very small scale’.

OTHER FACTORS CONTRIBUTORY

“But what is much more serious and misleading than the exaggerated accounts of the magnitude of the ‘crisis’ is the Commission’s suggestion that excessive Jewish immigration was entirely to blame and that there were not other contributory factors worth considering. During the same period Palestine suffered from drought, a cattle plague in 1926, an earthquake in 1927 and locusts in 1928, a succession of calamities for which even the Commission will hardly suggest that the Jews are entirely responsible.

“The picture presented by the Commission’s report is the more remarkable when it is remembered that the adverse factors passed over in silence by the report are those which most directly affect agriculture and therefore most closely concern the agricultural population. If the Arabs did suffer it is more likely that they suffered from drought and the locust and cattle plague than because Jews were out of work in some predominantly Jewish towns.”

CONTESTS UNEMPLOYMENT FIGURES

The Jewish Agency statement further contests the Inquiry Commission’s figures of 1600 Arabs unemployed in 1927 and 2000 in 1929 “which the government admitted to be only a rough and ready estimate not showing whether this represented an increase over previous years. There is not the slightest evidence that in any of the places where the disturbances broke out that Arabs have been thrown out of employment as a result of Jewish immigration.”

The statement also takes issue with the declaration that certificates of immigration were distributed by the General Federation of Jewish Labor. The Jewish Agency complains that the Inquiry Commission’s information in this matter was supplied in camera without cross-examination and then explains the procedure for the distribution of immigration permits. It points out that while the Commission quotes Sir John Campbell on immigration “it refrains from quoting him when he says that ‘the human material of the movement is mainly of the finest type’. If the Jewish Agency is seriously charged with having violated the assurances given in 1922 with reference to the principles laid down as to the control of immigration it is submitted that the Inquiry Commission completely failed to make out its case.”

IGNORED SYNAGOGUE ATTACK

In dealing with the immediate causes of the disturbances the Jewish Agency statement points out “that while the Commission mentioned the attack on the Mosque on August 26th, it completely ignored the destruction of the Georgian Synagogue 36 hours before”. The statement also elaborately revises the government’s attitude on the disturbances, military dispositions, the refusal to arm the Jews, the disarming of the Jewish special constables, the removal of the sealed armories from the colonies, and calls attention to omissions in chapter 2 of the Commission’s report on the descriptive geographical and historical aspects of Palestine “thus presenting an incorrect picture of the Jewish connections with Palestine.”