Reports that the Royal Commission is planning to divide the Holy Land into Arab and Jews cantons or states spurred Jewish leaders today in a fight against Great Britain’s reputed intention “to tear off part of Palestine.”
David Ben-Gurion, chairman of the Jerusalem Executive of the Jewish Agency for Palestine, declared:
“We cannot be quiet. Although the Royal Commission report is not yet known there is a heavy suspicion of cantonization. We will fight until the alleged intention to tear off part of Palestine is dropped.”
He spoke for the Jewish Agency to hundreds of delegates, including all the leading rabbis of Palestine, attending a conference of Mizrachi, orthodox Zionist organization.
Menachem Mendel Ussishkin, world president of the Jewish National Fund, said at a press reception in Tel Aviv: “We will fight cantonism as we fought against Uganda,” referring to a British proposal in 1903 to settle Jews in British East Africa.
Mr. Ussishkin said there were possibilities of purchasing 35,000 dunams of land in the vicinity of Beisan, near where six new Jewish settlements will be established shortly, and also of purchasing 120,000 dunams in the Upper Galilee.
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