Says Laborites Use Agency Selfishly

Agency, reveals that Jacob Landau, managing director of the Jewish Telegraphic Agency, during his recent stay in Palestine, proposed an agreement to the Executive and declared himself ready to disseminate through the J.T.A. also the news of the service established in order to avoid a clash in distribution. He contended that it was not the province of the Executive to enter the business of selling news to newspapers.

Mr. Landau’s offers were, however, declined by the members of the Histadruth who dominate the Executive and who are anxious to control the news from Palestine through their own news service only.

The statement by the press office of the Jewish Agency was ignored here today in the London press and did not appear in any newspaper except one which caters to the Histadruth. The Jewish Times, the leading Jewish daily in London, edited by Morris Myers, a member of the Executive of the British Zionist Federation, also ignored the statement, since it clearly indicates that it was issued by the Executive under the pressure of the Labor Party only, which does not represent the opinion of the entire Jewish community in Palestine and which is facing opposition on the part of other leading Zionist groups, including General Zionists, Mizrachi, as well as of the Jewish industrial and farm associations.

The fact that the Executive of the Jewish Agency is being utilized by its laborite majority for fighting the only existing impartial news agency in the world today received highly unfavorable comment in Zionist circles here. It is pointed out that the Jewish Telegraphic Agency has been serving Jewish interests for the past fifteen years, occupying an important position in Jewish life and doing important work for Jewish interests, not only in Palestine but also in all other countries. Criticism has been expressed here against the Histadruth for dragging the name of the Jewish Agency into an affair of which the majority of the Jewish Agency would certainly not approve.