Dr. Chaim Weizmann, president of the World Zionist Organization, arrived here yesterday and tonight was putting the finishing touches on his address which will open the 21st biennial World Zionist Congress next Wednesday night.
The speech, which will sound the keynote for a fight against Britain’s Palestine policy, contains severe criticism of the British White Paper and an appeal to the civilized world to aid in ameliorating the plight of Jewish refugees by urging Britain to permit extensive immigration to the Holy Land.
With Jewish immigration developing into an international problem, a pre-Congress conference of the Mapai, Palestine Zionist labor party, yesterday discussed, behind closed doors, the question of Jewish migration, demanding that Palestine be given priority in schemes for refugee settlement, although not opposing immigration to other countries.
Speakers urged the obviating of wasted effort over fantastic territorial schemes and also condemned forced evacuation from European countries. The attitude was taken that if immigration possibilities arose in other countries than Palestine, the work should be entrusted to existing emigration bodies, without creation of new organizations. At the same time, it was stated, laborite Zionists in all countries should take an interest in realistic emigration possibilities.
Another pre-Congress conference was opened last night by the Women’s International Zionist Organization, attended by 120 delegates from the United States, Canada, India, New Zealand, Australia, South Africa, as well as European countries. The meeting was held in the Geneva Opera House. Branding Colonial Secretary Malcolm MacDonald of Britain as “a modern Pharaoh,” speakers spared no words in denunciation of British policy on Palestine. Principal speakers, including Mrs. Israel Staff and Hadassah Samuel, declared the effect of the White Paper was to place the Jews “atop a volcano spitting fire.” Women throughout the world were called upon to combat British efforts “to convert Palestine into a new ghetto” and it was urged that the Jewish reply to Britain should be the sending of more capital and more immigrants to the Holy Land.
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