The Palestine Administration’s failure to develop local self-government in the country was sharply criticized at the conference on Civil liberties in the Colonial Empire, arranged by the National Council for Civil liberties.
Addressing the conference’s Mandates Commission, J. Rennap declared the development of local self-government in Palestine had been hampered by the Administration’s action in restricting the franchise to those who paid a property tax of at least £10 over a period.
Although Jewish local councils were more developed than Arab councils, said Rennap, their powers were vague. They could not undertake public utilities and they were refused the right to raise development loans for capital improvements.
“It is clear,” Rennap said, “that both the Arab and the Jewish councils are the negation of what local self-government should be. The Administration’s failure to encourage local self-government is contrary to the terms of the mandate and constituted a definite restriction of the rights of Jews and Arabs, who are fit for self-government on the widest scale.”
The speaker also criticized the restrictions on trade unionism in Palestine and alleged that political prisoners in the country were treated worse than criminals. Civil liberties, he added, had been further restricted since the war.
The suggestion that “autocratic rule and continued repression” had prevailed in Palestine during the last twenty years was contained in a resolution adopted by the conference.
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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.
