Truman Did Not Promise to Support Palestine Partition, Dr. Silver Tells Zionist Congress

President Truman has not committed the United States to the proposal of the Jewish Agency for the partitioning of Palestine into Jewish and Arab states, but has merely said that the U.S. Government will support a compromise between this proposal and the British “federalization plan,” Dr. Abba Hillel Silver, president of the Zionist Organization of America, told the World Zionist Congress today.

Speaking this morning on the activities of American Jewry, Dr. Silver made it clear that he did not intend at present to embark on a discussion of the position of American Zionists on “the partition proposal presented in Washington by a representative of the Jewish Agency” but would reserve that for a later session.

“It is too early to say how firm and persistent Secretary of State Byrnes will be in pressing for Jewish rights in Palestine and for a just and early solution of the Palestine problem,” he declared. The Secretary of State, however, now understands “the full gravity and urgency” of the Palestine question, Dr. Silver added. He praised Truman for dealing forthrightly “for the first time” with the “unwarranted intervention” of King Ibn Saud in the Palestine issue.

AUDIENCE APPLAUDS SILVER’S OPPOSITION TO PARTITION PLAN

A statement by Dr. Silver that many Zionists regarded the partition proposal of the Jewish Agency as “an error in judgment” and that this proposal was presented in “a most unfortunate way” was a signal for a short demonstration by part of the audience, which stamped its feet and applauded. The delegates also applauded when he warned against trusting “constant unrepentant sinners” with the task of negotiation on Palestine.

The establishment of a Jewish state in our time is the only conceivable recompense of any that can be conceived at all for the slaughter of 6,000,000 Jews,” he said. Referring to the recent announcement by Byrnes that the United States will send an official observer to the London Conference on Palestine if Jews and Arabs participate in the parley, Dr. Silver said that the Byrnes statement was “made seemingly with an eye on the World Zionist Congress,” and was not very revealing.

The leader of the American Zionist movement blamed American Jewish organizations for their failure to convince the American Government of the necessity of removing Jews from Europe immediately after the war. Simultaneously, he criticized the inadequate efforts of the U.S. Government in solving “the greatest humanitarian problem in modern history.” The United States, he said, could admit 250,000 Nazi and Fascist war prisoners, but not its Jewish allies.

The cooperation of all Zionist groups in the American Zionist Emergency Council was landed by Dr. Silver. He also praised the work of the American Jewish Conference saying that it triumphed “over the vestigial oligarchy of self-appointed Haus-Juden.”