Overwhelming Majority of Palestine Jews Committed to U.s., Congressional Report Says

“The overwhelming majority of the Palestine Jews and members of the Jewish Agency are spiritually and materially committed to the United States,” a Congressional sub-committee report released yesterday declared. The report, on Communism in the Near East, is based on a trip, last summer to that region by a sub-committee of the House Foreign Affairs Committee, two of whose members–Reps. Frances Bolton of Ohio and Chester Merror of New Hampshire visited Palestine.

“Jewish Palestine is normally not a fertile field for Communism,” the report continued, because it is antithetical to Zionism, “an intensely nationalistic movement Asserting that most of the present Palestinian Communists held that philosophy before they came to Palestine, the document stated that “all others realize that Soviet control or domination would shatter their dream of a national independent state.”

Analyzing Communist strength in the country, the sub-committee wrote that there are five groups “that are in varying degrees under Communist control or exhibit Communist sympathies.” The groups, which the report said “find themselves in opposition to the Jewish Agency,” are: the Jewish Communist Party with an estimated 1,500 members; Communist Union, 500 members; Hashomer Hatzair, 10,000 members; Irgun Zvai Leumi, 5,000 members; end Stern Group, 1,000 members. The Hashomer Hatzair is characterized as not under foreign domination, while the Irgun is “rumored to have officially made a deal with the. Communists last September,” and the Sternists are under “suspicion” of having established a “practical working basis” with the Communist last fall. However, the report also asserted that Communist efforts to “infiltrate” the Histadruth “have met with signal failure.”