What others call a split or secession from the Zionist Organisation is in actual fact only a new form of cooperation with the other Zionist groupings, while avoiding unnecessary conflicts and friction because of which unity to-day is impossible, Mr. Meer Grossman, Vice-President of the World Union of Zionist Revisionists, said in a statement to the press here with regard to the decision of the Polish Revisionist Conference to leave the Polish Zionist Federation and not to participate in its forthcoming Conference.
No one can compel us to regard ourselves as General Zionists when we are a separate and distinct movement with a special point of view on all Zionist problems, Mr. Grossman went on. The Conference has not only decided not to go to the General Zionist Conference in Poland, but it has at the same time also declared that it is ready to co-operate with other Zionists, and that the Revisionists will take part in
a Polish Zionist Conference in which all Zionist groups will be represented, and that the Revisionists will be ready to co-ordinate their activity with other Zionist groups through a joint working committee. The decisions of the Conference are a road to peace in Polish Zionism and not to warfare, he declared.
The attitude of Revisionism is, at this moment, for external and internal reasons, he said, to concentrate not on warring against the present majority in Zionism, but to create a basis for a large-scale political and economic activity, which will give an opportunity in this present period of marking time, to regroup and consolidate the Zionist forces, so that the reserves which will be collected will stand ready when a more favourable moment comes.
Mr. Grossman concluded with a warning that the Revisionists should not be provoked into a new Zionist warfare. Revisionism is now strong enough and independent enough, he said, to be able to afford the luxury of ignoring all these efforts and going its own road.
Questioned with regard to the decision adopted at Calais, that members of the Revisionist Organisation need not buy the Shekel, Mr. Grossman said that this was a matter of theory rather than of practice, and they could be sure that 95 per cent, or more of Revisionists will buy the Shekel. In any case, those Revisionists who will not buy the Shekel, he concluded, are no worse Zionists than the non-Zionist members of the Jewish Agency, with whom the Zionist Congress co-operates.
JTA has documented Jewish history in real-time for over a century. Keep our journalism strong by joining us in supporting independent, award-winning reporting.
The Archive of the Jewish Telegraphic Agency includes articles published from 1923 to 2008. Archive stories reflect the journalistic standards and practices of the time they were published.
