Jews, Arabs Elaborate Demands; Iraqi Views Projected at Parley

Jews and Arabs elaborated their demands at separate sessions with the British Government this afternoon and morning as the conferences on Palestine entered the intensive stage with the holding of two meetings daily.

Large-scale Jewish immigration in accordance with Palestine’s economic absorptive capacity, an active policy of development and safeguards against any permanent Jewish minority status were demanded by Dr. Chaim Weizmann, head of the Jewish delegation, at this afternoon’s session in St. James Palace. Dr. Stephen S. Wise and Moshe Shertok also spoke.

Other Jewish delegates present were David Ben Gurion, Prof. Selig Brodetsky, Mrs. Rose Jacobs, Prof. L.B. Namier, Leonard Stein, Menachem M. Ussishkin, Rabbi Moshe Blau, the Rev. M.L. Perlzweig, Dr. Nahum Goldmann, Simon Marks, Lord Bearsted, Lord Reading, Rabbi Isaac Herzog, Rabbi Jacob Fishman, Isaac Ben-Zvi, J. Janower and five observers, including Robert Szold.

The Anglo-Arab session this morning was featured by an exposition of the Iraq Government’s views on Palestine’s future by Premier Nuri Pasha es-Said, who also dealt with the MacMahon correspondence of 1915 promising Britain’s assistance to the pan-Arab cause. A short discussion followed. It is understood that when the session resumes at 11:30 a.m. tomorrow, Foreign Undersecretary Richard A. Butler will make a statement of the British Government’s attitude toward the MacMahon correspondence, which was written by Sir Henry MacMahon when British High Commissioner for Egypt.

Among the others who spoke at this morning’s session were Emir Feisal of Saudi Arabia, Emir Seif el Islam el Husseini of Yemen and the Palestine Arab delegates. The moderate Palestine Arab National Defense Party was represented for the first time, through its president, Ragheb Bey Nashashibi, who sat with Premier Fuad Pasha el Khatib of Trans-Farraj were included in the delegation under an agreement with the extremists last Thursday, but Nashashibi had been confined to his hotel by “illness” since then and Farraj has not yet arrived in London from Palestine.

The Jewish delegates were to make a full reply today to a number of points raised by Colonial Secretary Malcolm MacDonald at the Anglo-Jewish session last Friday when he presented to the Jews a summary of the Arab case, asking how the Jews would answer a number of questions frequently asked of Britain. Repeatedly stressing that the views he was presenting were not his own or the Government’s and making clear that the questions were not raised by the Government, Mr. MacDonald had asked how the Jews would reply to the question of whether the use of the Empire’s strength to maintain the Jewish national home against Arab opposition in the present state of world affairs was justified.

A Jewish representative immediately pointed out that this was another form of the argument that the Jewish homeland was supported at the point of British bayonets. A partial reply to the question was given at that time by Dr. Chaim Weizmann and David Ben Gurion, who said that British vacillation was largely responsible for the situation in Palestine and stressing that the Jews, while restricted by the Government in entering Palestine, were now blamed for being only a third of the population.

At Saturday morning’s session with the Arab delegation, Mr. MacDonald was understood to have raised the question of terrorism and to have sought to establish the conditions under which it might be ended.

It was authoritatively learned that Mr. MacDonald has not yet revealed any indication of the Government’s position or intentions either to the Arab or the Jewish side. Both delegations were anxiously awaiting the first intimation of what the Government has to submit as a solution of the Palestine question.

(Havas News Agency quoted informed circles as stating that Britain won promises from the Arab states, during last week’s preliminary discussions, to help in absorbing Jewish emigrants, Iraq assertedly declaring herself ready to accept 300,000 Jews.)