Vladimir Jabotinsky Presents Program of Zionist Revisionists to New York Audience

The program of the Zionist Revisionists, the oppositional group within the World Zionist Organization, concerning the speedy rebuilding of Palestine as the Jewish national home as provided for in the mandate of the League of Nations, was presented for the first time to an audience of American Jews by Vladimir Jabotinsky, last Sunday night.

Before an audience of over 2,000 persons who attended the lecture at the Manhattan Opera House, Vladimir Jabotinsky, the organizer of the Jewish Legion during the World War, editor of the Russian Jewish weekly, “Razsviet”, former member of the World Zionist Executive and leader of the Zionist Revisionists, outlined the program of his group, a branch of which, he announced, was formed in New York city.

Herman Bernstein, editor of the “Jewish Tribune,” who was chairman of the evening, in introducing Jabotinsky paid tribute to his ability.

“I have known him for many years, first as the brilliant Russian publicist and then as the daring Jewish nationalist,” Mr. Bernstein said.

“Like our immortal Herzl and Nordau, he came to the Jewish people through a foreign literature, and with a reputation established in the non-Jewish world. His scintillating articles in the leading Russian publications; his critical and analytical studies of foreign lands; his pen pictures of Rome, of the theatre, of art and life were masterpieces.

“When the sorrows of Russian Jewry were at their gloomiest, when the Black Hundreds ruled over Russia, and Russian Jews were massacred, Vladimir Jabotinsky threw himself into the Zionist movement with all the fire and zeal of his soul, and a new vital dynamic force began to enrich Jewish life and thought in Russia. The Jewish youth of Russia became more intensely inspired with Jewish nationalism when the idol of the Jewish intellectuals of Russia, Vladimir Jabotinsky, entered the ranks of the Zionists.

“Since that time Jabotinsky has grown into one of the most picturesque and colorful of contemporary figures of Jewish life,” Mr. Bernstein declared.

JABOTINSKY OUTLINES MAIN FEATURES OF REVISIONIST PROGRAM

A protective tariff for Palestine, the granting of state and waste land for Jewish colonization so as to enable the wave of Jewish immigration to continue at the rate of 40,000 a year, with the object of forming a Jewish majority in the country within the next 25 years, were the main features of the program as outlined by Mr. Jabotinsky.

Besides his criticism of the present Zionist Executive in regard to these matters, Mr. Jabotinsky also criticized the project of the extension of the Jewish Agency to include non-Zionists, as advocated by Dr. Weizmann. The speaker also severely criticized the project of Jewish colonization work in Soviet Russia under present conditions.

“To create a Jewish majority in Palestine within a period of, say 25 years, the Zionists would have to introduce into that country, on the average, 40,000 immigrants per year. The total population of the country (Jews and Arabs) being at present just about 800,000, that would mean a yearly influx of immigrants equal to five per cent of the local population,” Mr. Jabotinsky stated.

“The task is by no means an impossible one (in the last year more than 40,000 Jews have settled in Palestine), but it certainly is a formidable economic proposition. Even the immigration into the United States has never in modern time been above one to one and a half per cent of the population on the spot. It is therefore a fallacy to think as the present Zionist Executive seems to do that such an influx can get economically absorbed, year in, year out, simply by dint of Jewish enthusiasm and effort, without any assistance on the part of the Government. Mass colonization is essentially a state venture and can only be solved by state methods, that is, by a series of legislative measures facilitating the absorption of the immigrants. Enthusiasm, energy and money, essential assets as they are, can only bring their full results in colonization if state power paves the way.

“The grave error committed by the present Zionist Executive is the abandonment of political lines of activity. They seem to rely on collection of monies only and avoid addressing any demands to the government. The results of this omission are bound to prove most unfortunate. Those of our immigrants who settle in towns (unfortunately, the great majority) should naturally be mainly engaged in industry; and, in fact, we see them busy creating industrial enterprises (for example, the monthly consumption of electric power for industrial purposes in Tel Aviv, which was 13,000 K.W.H. in January, 1924, rose to 45,000 in January 1925 and to 87,000 in May). But a young industry developing at such a rate needs a market protected against European competition, whereas the Palestine custom tariffs do not afford the local producer any serious protection,” he said.

WANTS MORE EMPHASIS ON POLITICAL PHASE OF ZIONIST WORK

“This is only one example of the close interdependence existing between ‘economics’ and ‘politics’; without a tariff reform the economic absorption of immigrants in industry appears impossible. Still more impossible is their absorption in agriculture without a thorough land reform. The absentee landlords of Palestine force the Jew to pay fancy prices for scarcely cultivable acres; in the last year the Zionist Organization was unable to create one single new colony, and the real reason of that failure is the prohibitive price of land. Yet at the same time official statistics admit that, of the 27,000,000 dunams (a dunam is one-quarter acre) comprised in the area of Palestine, ten millions only are under some sort of cultivation; the remainder includes at least two and a half million dunams of arable soil, while the balance of the land is as yet unexplored pending general survey. It is evident that a large agricultural colonization will only become possible if all the uncultivated lands become government property so as to form a land reserve for the settlers; allotments could then be leased at a reasonable rent, a part of which could even be used as indemnity to the present absentee owners. Unless some such reform is introduced, Jewish agricultural colonization in Palestine will be practically paralyzed. At the same time, the creation of a land reserve would help solve the problem of a Jewish national loan; the land reserve could be used as security.

“This is why the ‘Revisionist’ party of Zionists to which the lecturer belongs insists on a return to political activities a ‘political drive’ in order to convince British public opinion and the British government that reforms in Palestine have become indispensable. It would be useless to deny the evident fact that the Zionist masses are far from being satisfied with the policy of the Mandatory Power in Palestine. Yet the ‘political’ drive need not be hostile to England. On the contrary, it is conception based on the belief that, whatever be the passing moods of this cabinet or that, reasonable demands, if energetically defended, will always find a fair hearing in England.

“Political activity, however, does not by any means imply abandonment of other forms of effort. Jews must go to Palestine, Jews must contribute money for her upbuilding; the lecturer fully endorses the ‘United Palestine Appeal’ for funds. Both methods, the practical and the political, are equally necessary, they complete each other.

“The lecturer strongly opposes the present Executive’s scheme of admitting representatives of non-Zionist bodies into the Jewish Agency on the basis of ‘Fifty-fifty’ and separate election. The ‘Agency,’ being the only instrument through which, according to the League of Nations Mandate, the Zionist movement can officially approach the British government and the League, can only be elected by, and must be responsible to, the Zionist Congress. The lecturer would agree to extending the Congress franchise, active and passive, to all those Jews who, though non-Zionists, are actively interested in the upbuilding of Palestine; the Agency elected by such an enlarged Congress could include a proportion of non-Zionists. But a scheme under which a million or more Zionists elect one half of the Agency and a mere handful of financiers elect the other half is unacceptable. The democratic principle has always been the foundation of the Zionist movement; destroy it, and the movement breaks down. Such a privilege granted to those who do not believe in Zionism would, besides, paralyze the Jewish Agency as a political instrument. As to the alleged material advantages of the scheme, the lecturer has little faith in the generosity of anti-Zionist contributions to Zionist funds. Up to now these prospective ‘partners’ have done nothing for Palestine; on the contrary, they have undertaken to spend their millions on Jewish colonization-in Soviet Russia, an enterprise which the lecturer severely criticizes,” he said. “It is absurd to try such experiments in a country where there is no economic stability; it is worse than absurd to do it in a country where even political stability is highly questionable. Any upheaval will place the Jewish settlers between the rage of the ‘white’ monarchists and the deep-rooted land-greed of the Russian peasant. The support given the Soviet scheme by certain financiers, people who know nothing about Russia, people who, being essentially bourgeois, fervently believe in the inevitable collapse of the Soviet regime, is a sad proof of a lack of responsibility. Such elements can still less be considered ripe for a leading role in the upbuilding of Palestine,” Mr. Jabotinsky concluded.