Terming the present policy of the Palestine government as “pressure on the Jews to employ Arabs,” Moshe Shertok, head of the political department of the Jewish Agency for Palestine, who today addressed the meeting of the Actions Committee of the World Zionist Organization, analyzed the struggle with the Palestine officials over the immigration schedules. Shertok told of the arguments advanced by the Palestine government and the counter arguments of the Jewish Agency. He pointed out that the main danger of the situation lay in the discrepancy between the influx of capital and labor.
Shertok declared that the government of Palestine is obsessed with the fear that the rapid upbuilding of Palestine may not leave sufficient margin for Arab development. The Palestine authorities, he said, refuse to change their policy to suit the rapid increase of Jewish development, but are forcing the Jews to use more Arab labor.
This policy, Shertok emphasized, results from the exodus of Jewish agricultural labor from agriculture into industry, the influx of Arabs from countries adjacent to Palestine and the Arabic influx from purely Arab districts in Palestine to the Jewish districts Unfortunately, he said, this policy is supported by “some Jewish elements.” This was taken to be an indirect accusation against the Jewish Farmers’ Federation.
“The General Zionist and the Mizrachi group are accusing the executive of the Jewish Agency of political weakness,” Shertok said, “and are clamoring for stronger political protests. They should realize that it is their duty to help create an iron front in the Palestine Yishub against the government policy on this issue of Jewish labor.
“True political action is imperative, but political action without an organized refusal by Palestinian Jewry to employ Arab workers means that the hammer is descending on the sand, not on the anvil.”
Analyzing the situation Shertok stressed the importance of attempts to influence the minds of the Arabs not only for the sake of peace in Palestine, but also in quiet Arab fears that the influx of Jews will injure them. This, he said, would also remove the government fear about the future of the Arabs. Shertok alluded to his informal contacts with Arab notables and indicated that the possibility exists that political discussions of such a nature may be continued.
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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.
