Palestine Jews Can Be Driven to “deeds of Despair” if Unjustly Treated, Says Shertok

The Jews of Palestine are not “incapable of deeds of despair if driven to extremes of exasperation by a decision to persevere in what is to them a cruelly unjust policy,” it was stated in Cairo yesterday by Moshe Shertok, chief of the political department of the Jewish Agency, according to a dispatch appearing in the New York Times today.

Mr. Shertok is quoted as saying: “Rumors are current about alleged Jewish intentions to fight out the issue by force. Nothing is further from the thoughts of the Jews than to try to force the issue at all so long as the war lasts – provided no adverse commitments are taken in the meantime-or of ever leaving on their own initiative the path of political negotiations in exchange for direct action. At the same time, realism compels the conclusion that it would be wrong to consider the Jews incapable of deeds of despair if driven to extremes of exasperation by a decision to persevere in what is to them a cruelly unjust policy.”

The Jewish Agency political chief pointed out that the Jews in Palestine can make a great contribution to the economic development of the Arab lands of the Near and Middle East, but only if they “feel firmly established in Palestine.” The White Paper policy, he said, “must be relegated to the limbo of the appeasement era. A new solution is called for, conceived in a spirit of comprehensive responsibilities and resting upon the leading United Nations.”

Touching on the problem of the Jews in Europe after the war and their need for refuge in Palestine, Mr. Shertok stressed that “the question of European Jewry is one connected with the origins of the war and tragically aggravated by its course. It is idle to expect the remnants to feel safe in Europe even after liquidation of the Nazi rule.”