Commenting on the report of the United Nations special Committee on Palestine, Dr. Abba Hillel Silver, in a statement before leaving for home, called the United States the key to success to the settlement of the Palestine problem.
“If the American Government assumes leadership in carrying through the solution in the spirit of the majority report of the UNSCOP,” Dr. Silver said, “such a solution is bound to be acceptable to the United Nations. The American Government has indicated time and again, by Presidential pronouncements and Congressional resolutions, the desire to see a free democratic Jewish commonwealth established in Palestine.
“Here is an historic opportunity to back up its many protestations. The American people, who have demonstrated such a consistent interest in the Jewish National ? will watch with closest attention the action of the State Department and the President in the next few critical weeks.”
Dr. Silver asserted that to the extent that the majority report represents the investigation of an international body it is “highly gratifying and may well serve as a basis for discussion.” He called for the strongest unity within Jewish sanks to ensure that the good inherent in the report shall not be “frittered away” and warned that numerous attempts will be made to “delay and to defeat the solution.”
Mrs. Judith Epstein, president of Hadassah, asserted that although Hadassah is satisfied with the UNSCOP’s majority report, “We are concerned with certain sections of the report which represent deprivations of territory which are important for the establishment of a sound economic basis in the proposed Jewish state.”
Dr. Israel Goldstein, American Zionist leader and president of the World Consideration of General Zionists, asserted that Zionists were receiving the report “with reserve” and added that it contains confusing elements. “It should be said, however,” Dr. Goldstein declared, “that the majority report shows a sincere effort to understand and to solve the Palestine Problem.”
Mendel Fisher, executive director of the Jewish National Fund, stated that the UNSCOP report did not fulfill all Zionist aspirations and that Zionists now need a submited front to meet the new problems arising from the report.
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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.
