League Rejects Petitions on Palestine

Three petitions involving vital Jewish problems in Palestine have been unfavorably ###orted to the Permanent Man#ates Commission of the League of Nations, it has been revealed here.

The petitions include one by the ###tral committee of the Union of ###nist Revisionists in Palestine, ###anding the commission’s inter###tion with the mandatory power ### raise restrictions on Jewish immigration; another asking suffrage for 20,000 Jewish working women, submitted by the General Federation of Labor in Palestine; and a third, by the Brit Kibbutz Galuiot (Union of Returning Exiles), protesting discrimination against Jewish immigrants in favor of immigrants from Transjordan.

M.ORTS’ REPORT

In his report on the Zionist Revisionist petition, M. Orts, the commission’s rapporteur appointed to consider it, recommends to the League body that it “does not fulfil the conditions of admissibility, since it raises claims which are incompatible with the Mandate for Palestine.”

The petition, submitted by A. Weinshall, president of the central committee of the Revisionist body, dated April 30, 1934, is entitled “The Meaning of the Mandate: The Creation of a Jewish State.” It concludes with an appeal to the Permanent Commission to support “radical revision of the principles of administration of Palestine,” detailing the necessity of raising restrictions on Jewish immigration with the object of gradually forming a Jewish majority in Palestine as a preliminary to creation of a Jewish State. This object, according to the petitioners, is the ultimate aim of the Mandate.

WOULD INCLUDE TRANSJORDAN

“This Jewish State, as conceived by the petitioner, would, it appears, include the Transjordan,” the rapporteur comments in his report to the League commission.

“The Mandatory government in its objections,” the rapporteur continues, “points out that this petition is based on a conception of the obligations arising out of the Mandate which differs widely from the conception held by the Mandatory Power itself and approved by the League of Nations. This general observation, the Mandatory Government adds, dispenses it from offering detailed comments on the various proposals and criti###s contained in the petition.”

This contention of the Mandacory Government, M. Orts declares, is unquestionably just.

CONTRADICTS COMMISSION

“Indeed,” he writes,” the petitioner’s view as to the scope of the Palestine Mandate is in contradiction with the interpretation which the commission itself placed upon that document, in particular in its report on the seventeenth session, and which was approved by the Council.”

“For this reason,” M. Orts explains, “your rapporteur thinks that he also need not examine the various points raised in the petition, because it reflects a fairly ###pread anxiety — namely, the ###rks on the danger.”

Turning from consideration of the immigration problem as presented in the petition, M. Orts examines the petitioner’s claim that the Jewish population of Palestine is in a state of constant trepidation because of the little confidence it has in the police force which, the petition emphasizes, is recruited to the extent of sixty per cent from the Arab population.

ONE PART DISMISSED

This part of the petition is dismissed by M. Orts with the remark that the Mandatory Power, at the League body’s twenty-fifth session formally stated that it would be responsible for “the maintenance of order in any eventuality, with the means at its disposal.”

M. Orts was also the rapporteur to the commission on the petition by the Brit Kibbutz Galuiot.

His summary of the petition, the Mandatory Power’s answer and his reasons for recommending to the commission that “the subject of the petition, if no further complaints are heard, is for the present not actual,” follows:

THE SUMMARY

“1.—The obligations contracted by the Mandatory Power in virtue of Article 6 of the Mandate imply that Jewish immigrants should have the benefit of certain facilities before other immigrants. The immigration ordinance of 1933, however, does not grant Jewish immigrants any facilities of this kind.

“2.—On the contrary, Article 4 of the same ordinance gives special facilities to another class of immigrants — namely, persons habitually resident in Transjordan. The latter are authorized to enter Palestine from Transjordan without passports or other similar papers.

“3.—This provision opens, in practice, the gates of Palestine to the Arabs who are subjects of all the adjacent territories — Syria, Iraq and Arabia—regardless of the ‘rights and position of the other sections of the population’ of Palestine, so that this latter clause of the Mandate is only invoked to restrict Jewish immigration.

APPEAL TO COMMISSION

“In conclusion, the petitioners appeal to the Mandates Commission to draw the attention of the government of Palestine to the contradiction between the immigration ordinance of 1933 and the provisions of the Mandate prescribing that Jewish immigration to Palestine should be ‘facilitated.’

“In its observations on the petition, the Mandatory Government points out:

“That the ordinance complained of does not introduce any change in the policy set out in its annual reports to the League of Nations; that the 931 census showed that at the time there were in Palestine only 3,661 persons who declared Transjordan as their birthplace; and that there is no reason to suppose that this situation is changed; that Transjordanians who are found in Palestine as having settled without permission are dealt with in the same way as other illegal settlers; and that the influx of Arab workers from Syria has not assumed the proportions ascribed to it in Jewish circles.

“Lastly, the Mandatory Government observes that it has introduced measures to control more effectively the entry from Syria of illicit Arab and Jewish immigrants through the northern and eastern land frontiers.”

It may perhaps be remarked, says M. Orts, that the last statement is somewhat in contradiction with the previous assertions. One cannot help thinking that, if there had been no abuses, the Mandatory authority would not have thought it necessary to strengthen the supervision of the land frontiers, across which, according to the petitioners, illegal Arab immigration had taken place. He expresses the hope that the illegal immigration of both Arabs and Jews will be made impossible by stricter control, which will remove the ground for complaint on both sides. He considers that the subject of the petition, if no further complaints are heard, is for the present not actual, and that the thesis of the petitioners concerning the incompatibility of the immigration ordinance with Article 6 of the Mandate can be discussed in the presence of a representative of the Mandatory Power during the June session of the commission in 1935. Under the circumstances no specific recommendations are made to the Council on this petition.

WOMEN’S SUFFRAGE

In reporting on the suffrage petition for Jewish women of Palestine, M. Palacious accepts the reply of the Mandatory Government that the polls are not entirely closed to women even outside Tel Aviv. Justification for this stand is given by the Mandatory Government as the same Municipal Corporations Ordinance, cited by the petitioner as the basis for the complaint.

This ordinance, M. Palacious reports the Mandatory Government’s explanation, states that “the High Commissioner may vary any of the qualifications of municipal voters if he is requested to do so by a resolution of a council of any municipal corporation passed by a majority of not less than two-thirds of the total number of councillors.”

MAY SECURE CHANGE

“The door of the polling booth,” M. Palacious continues, “is therefore not entirely closed to women even outside Tel Aviv. If they win over public opinion to their side, they will gradually succeed without any doubt in securing the change for which they are making such splendid efforts. At least, that is how I interpret the communication of the United Kingdom Government in reply to the protest.

“For this reason,” the rapporteur concludes, “and recalling the fate of another similar petition from the International Alliance of Women for Suffrage and Equal Citizenship at a time when the ordinance in question was still in the draft stage, I do not consider that any action should be taken on this protest,”