A statement in reply to the report of the Palestine Inquiry Commission, submitted by S. Kaplansky on behalf of the Poale Zion, a component part of the Palestine Labor Party, to the British Labor Party, has just been made public here, although it was received before Prime Minister MacDonald’s statement in the House of Commons. Mr. Kaplansky is a member of the Zionist Executive.
The statement points out that “the evidence brought before the Inquiry Commission on major questions of economic policy was an endeavor on the part of the Arab Executive to sidetrack the Commission, that the Zionist Organization cared for the relief of unemployment by spending $1,000,000, that the Commission’s conclusions regarding close settlement were without knowledge of the facts, and based solely on information from the Arab Executive, that of the 11,000,000 dunams of land in Palestine, 5,000,000 are either bare, fallow or uncultivated, and that vast reserves of cultivatable land are available in Transjordania, where the population is less than a third of that of Palestine.”
The Poale Zion’s statement concludes by declaring that “Jews and Arabs alike, and all the world, must learn that not only does the Mandate stand but that an administration must be set up in Palestine that is determined to supplement it for the good of both peoples.”
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