Nahum Sokolow, president of the World Zionist Organization and the Jewish Agency for Palestine and the Zionist Organization of America, are taken to task today by the “Near East and India,” an organ regarded as close to the Colonial Office.
Dr. Sokolow is taken to task for allegedly denouncing the report of Lewis French, Palestine Land Commissioner, as a mutilated form of State Socialism and for declaring, allegedly, that the British Government’s interference with the economic life of Palestine has assumed an anti-Zionist form.
The American Zionists are scored for the resolution adopted at the July convention in Philadelphia expressing dissatisfaction with the British government for its failure to implement Premier MacDonald’s letter to Dr. Chaim Weizmann, issued in February of 1930.
The “Near East and India” says editorially that the criticism of American Zionists in open convention might have been understood were Palestine an ordinary country, but it must be remembered that in the case of Palestine criticism by the Jews encourages the Arabs.
The Arabs may be encouraged to retort that Britain is under Zionist influence, and prejudicial to the rights of the non-Jewish section of the Palestine population. The result of this might retard the upbuilding of the Jewish National Homeland for which it is necessary to eliminate for which it is necessary to eliminate Arab misgivings, the paper states.
The resolution adopted by the Zionist convention to which the “Near East and India” refers, declares:
That it record its conviction that the actions of the Mandatory Government and of the Palestine Government continue to fall short of the pledges contained in the Prime Minister’s letter of February, 1930, and of the undertakings given before and after, notably in the matters of land and immigration policies, full security of person and property, on the fair employment of Jewish labor in public works. The Convention declares that confidence in the Mandatory Government can come only as a result of the translation into actual practice of the solemn assurances repeatedly made and the discharge of such in accordance with the spirit as well as the letter of the Mandate.
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