You Cannot “interpret” Away a Great Wrong or Explain Satisfactorily a Palpable Betrayal Says “jewish

You cannot “interpret” away a great wrong or explain satisfactorily a palpable betrayal, the “Jewish Chronicle” writes in an editorial which will appear in to-morrow’s issue, and the Passfield Paper, it proceeds, indicated that nothing short of these qualities could rightly describe the method, so far as Jews are concerned, whereby the Palestine Mandate is to be implemented. Compare the lion-roaring of Dr. Weizmann and his Zionist friends – or rather the friends co-operating with him in the Zionist Organisation – last October with the tame and timid mouse-like attitude to which he and they have been reduced as a result of the negotiations with the Government, and can there be the remotest doubt – even without waiting to see the “interpretations” – that all the Zionist fury concerning the White Paper has ended in smoke? The protests and the demonstrations, the indignation meetings, and the bitter resentment which filled the air the world over as a consequence of the announcement of Lord Passfield’s craven abandonment of British policy in order to placate the Arabs and pay the chantage-price set up by their unruly barbarism, have resulted in nothing more substantial, so it would appear from the Prime Minister’s statement, than in Dr. Weizmann being “satisfied” – gathering up with hungry avidity the crumbs of official recognition rendered him in the utterly futile negotiations – if they can be dignified by the term – and the letter which he is, doubtless on the tiptoe of expectation, awaiting at every postal delivery ! “Interpretation” forsooth: Is that what Jews have been demanding with a unanimity that is rare among them, ever since it was issued, concerning the White Paper? “Interpretation” of a deep and lasting injury? The stone of “interpretation” in response to the demand for the bread of withdrawal of a policy which must result in the defeat for perhaps generations of the budding hopes and the nascent aspirations of the Jewish People? It is possible that Dr. Weizmann may be “satisfied”. We have not yet heard from him as to that. But it would be as well for the Prime Minister and the Government to ask themselves whether the Jewish People – or so much of it as in this matter counts – will be anything other than deeply dissatisfied. We, for our part, have no doubt about it, and we will make the Government the present of conceding that they have probably succeeded, despite the unctuous lip-service they have constantly paid to the words of the Balfour Declaration and the Mandate, in strangling the idea of Jewish Nationality anyway for years to come.