Laski Hits Attlee on Palestine Immigration, but Backs His Appeal for U.S. Cooperation

Stating that “there is no possible doubt” that the Anglo-American report on Palestine called for the transfer to that country of 100,000 Jews without delay, Harold Laski, chairman of the executive of the Labor Party, today sharply criticized Prime Minister Attlee for placing conditions on British implementation of that recommendation.

Recalling the pro-Zionist stand taken by the Labor Party’s executive when it was in the opposition, Laski writes an article for the Overseas News Agency: “Cabinet ministers of the highest rank are bound to this pledge. The measure of their sincerity will be judged by the way they handle this recommendation. Here I think one must be quite frank. There is no possible doubt about its intentions; it called for their transportation to Palestine without any more delay than organization makes inevitable. It is not, alas, clear that Prime Minister Clement Attlee, if his statement in the House of Commons is his final word, has accepted the recommendation in this spirit.”

Expressing regret that Attlee “has set conditions for fulfillment of this pledge,” Laski says: “It is quite obvious that this must have come as a surprise to President Truman. It is equally obvious that Mr. Attlee is making the future of these hapless and homeless refugees dependent upon the decisions of a body they cannot control. He, in fact, would hold the refugees as hostages for the good conduct, as the British commender in chief judges this conduct, of the Palestinian Jews.

“I do not speak without knowledge when I say that all issues between the Jewish Agency and the British Government could have been freely discussed and, I think, honorably settled if there had been a forthright and magnanimous acceptance of the obligation to do what is unanimously recommended,” Laski continues. He points out that the Jewish Agency has no influence on the Stern Group and also that as a result of the White Paper, “Jewish trust in the goodwill of the British officials in Palestine is at a low ebb.”

The Labor Party chairman, however, wholeheartedly supports the Prime Minister’s appeal for U.S. aid in carrying out the recommendations, since “it will not be easy to implement the report in the face of strong Arab opposition.” American assistance, he says, must take the form of troops as well as financial and administrative aid. “It is for the American Government,” he concludes, “to prove that things like Congressional resolutions are more than empty words.”