The decision of the Zionist Actions Committee not to participate in the London conference came as a shock to Jewish groups here.
A meeting was held on Wednesday of leaders of all the groups invited by the Government to participate in the conference. Present were representatives of the Jewish Agency, the Board of Deputies of British Jews, the Anglo-Jewish Association and the Agudas Israel. No decision was reached, but it is understood that the non-Agency groups are seriously considering independent action.
The Anglo-Jewish Association and the Agudas Israel will meet separately on Sunday in an attempt to reach a final decision on whether to attend the parley, even if the Jewish Agency does not participate.
The Zionist Review, official Zionist Federation organ, published an editorial regretting the decision of the Actions Committee, pointing out that the British Government cannot, on the one hand, aggravate the situation in Palestine and, on the other, seek Jewish cooperation. “Whatever the merits of the decision of the Actions Committee may be, the Jewish people will stand solidly behind the Jewish Agency,” it says.
A Jewish Agency spokesman here said an approach to the British Cabinet would probably be made after members of the executive in London, and possibly also in Paris, had heard a personal report from Berl Locker, who flew to Palestine where he conferred with members of the Actions Committee and with Moshe Shertok and other leaders detained in the Latrun camp.
(The New York Times reports today that a nine-man committee of the Palestine conference, including Arab and British representatives, has drawn up a plan calling for the appointment of a provisional government for Palestine, with six Arabs, three Jews and one Christian. The plan, believed to have drafted by the British and amended by the Arabs, provides for British troops to leave the country after a temporary period. Jewish immigration would not be controlled by the Jews, but by the central government.)
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