spite difficulties to achieve a great deal in land purchase in the near future.
He protested against the difficulties and obstacles imposed by the Palestine administration with regard to land purchases. The obstacles are unwarranted by law, Mr. Ussishkin declared and he mentioned anomalies in the existing administration of the land laws. Welcoming private initiative, he felt certain that all must now realize the importance of strengthening the J. N. F. with a view to obviating speculation.
Concluding Mr. Ussishkin said that the Jewish National Fund was the key to the whole problem and asked that the Administrative Committee of the Jewish Agency give it the greatest attention.
Basing his statement on practical experience arising from 20 years of colonization work, Dr. Ruppin gave a number of facts in connection with the land in Palestine. He categorically denied that any injustice had been done to the Arabs through Jewish colonization as in all Jewish land purchases the utmost consideration had been shown to the needs of the Arabs. Regretting the erroneous impression that had been conveyed as a result of the agitation that the Arab peasants had in any way suffered from Jewish colonization he blamed the government for not having a definite land policy and said that it did not understand that the Jewish colonization was beneficial to the Arab peasant.
Dr. Ruppin declared that there was no difficulty at all in settling another 50,000 Jewish families without doing the slightest harm to the Arab peasant and following an interruption by Dr. Weizmann he said that the Agency’s aim should be the settlement of 50,000 families in the next ten years at an annual cost of $7,500,000.
Dr. Arla Sorloff, on behalf of Palestine labor, declared that he considers the question of colonization of the utmost importance and that labor is basing its political attitude for the future entirely on the results of this session of the Actions Committee with the assurance that practical steps will be taken in land purchase and colonization and immigration. He deplored the fact that a full year had passed without constructive work and urged the necessity of immediate work to make up for lost time.
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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.
