Poletti, Leaving for Washington Post, Says Palestine Jews Should Have Own Army

The right of the Jews in Palestine to have an army of their own and to fight in the ranks of the United Nations under their own flag was emphasized today in a statement issued by former Lt. Governor Charles Poletti of New York, prior to his departure for Washington to assume the post of special assistant to Secretary of War Stimson.

“It is the Jews of Europe,” Poletti-said, “who were the first victims of Nazi and Fascist brutality. It is they who felt the first fury of the totalitarian assault. It is they who have been singled out as the prime and wholesale victims of the new barbarism. The Jews now stand in the front lines. The right of Palestinian and stateless Jews to engage in their self-defense remains to me unimpeachable. It is as Jews that under international guarantees they are living in Palestine. They are not Palestinians except in a geographic sense. They are not Arabs; they are not British. If every people in the world is free to fight under its own historic designation, the Jews must fight as Jews.

“I recognize that Great Britain has its own problems of policy. But it is part of our international cooperation that we shall criticize one another for policies which fail to conform to the democratic principles for which we stand together. And America would be derelict in its duty if it did not make its opinion heard in British circles on this issue. Great Britain is naturally reluctant to awaken the hostilities of the Arabs. But the answer to that is that Arabs may also volunteer and form their own units.”

Poletti concluded his statement by expressing the hope that the problem of the Jewish people will be solved after the war with justice and dignity. “That,” he said, “means that the Jews of the western democratic lands must be freed from the shadow of anti-Semitism; the Jews of European lands must be restored in their rights as human beings and as members of a historic religious and cultural community; and a Jewish homeland in Palestine must come into full being. Along with objectives for all mankind, these Jewish objectives are indispensable in an equitable post-war settlement.”