Weizmann Quits Presidency of Z. O. and Jewish Agency over Simpson Report Situation

Convocation of the council of the Jewish Agency for Palestine and of the Zionist World Congress in order to take such action as the situation requires is intimated by Dr. Chaim Weizmann, the president of the Jewish Agency and of the World Zionist Organization, in a letter to Lord Passfield, Colonial Minister, today, in which he announces that he has resigned as president of the Jewish Agency and of the World Zionist Organization.

Dr. Weizmann declares in this letter that the British government’s statement on policy is tantamount to “denying the rights and sterilizing the hopes of the Jewish people regarding the Jewish National Home in Palestine.

“During the past twelve years,” Dr. Weizman writes, “I have been the head of the Zionist Organization and the Jewish Agency for Palestine. I have sought to work in closest harmony with the British government and have based my action on a system of intimate cooperation with them. Nobody could therefore be more anxious than myself to respond to the appeal for further cooperation were there a basis for it, but I fail to see it now after censure has been pronounced by the British government on our past work and the decision has been taken placing the most serious obstacle for the future.”

Referring to the Simpson report and the government’s statement, Dr. Weizmann says that it is incumbent upon him to put his position plainly “before the government now in view of the important issues involved and the decisions announced which affect so vitally the rights and interests of the Jewish people. The British government’s statement reiterates the policy contained in the White Paper of 1922 but it effects profound changes in the policy of 1922 as expressed in eight years of practice and on some material points it differs even from the Simpson report.

“Although the Jewish Agency could hardly accept many of the findings of the Simpson report it would nevertheless have been prepared to seek common ground for cooperation, but the government’s statement which has already hardened opinions into decisions extends no such invitation to the Jewish Agency. It goes a long way towards denying the rights and sterilizing the hopes of the Jewish people regarding the Jewish National Home so far as it is in the power of the government to do so.

“The Council of the League of Nations at its last session warned the Mandatory Power against a policy ‘aimed at crystallizing the development of the Jewish National Home at its present stage of development’ and the Council’s view was accepted without reserve by the accredited representative of the British government. But the measures now announced by the government will produce precisely the results against which the League of Nations raised its warning voice.”