Zionist Emergency Council Says There is No Need for Anglo-american Inquiry Commission

Following the announcement today by the United States and British governments of the composition of the joint Anglo-American inquiry commission on Palestine, the American Zionist Emergency Council held a special meeting, at the conclusion of which it issued a statement reiterating its objections to the protested investigation.

“Having learned of the composition of the Anglo-American Committee of Inquiry, we see no reason to alter the position which we took on principle weeks before, as conveyed in our telegraph message to President Truman on Nov. 15th,” it said. “Without reflecting upon the character and the intentions of any of those who have been appointed to serve on the Committee, we express once more our unalterable opposition to the entire procedure.”

Charging that “by his statements Mr. Bevin prejudged the inquiry and anticipated its conclusions so far as the British Government is concerned.” the Council declared that we view with the greatest distrust this entire procedure which was originated by the Colonial and Foreign Offices of the British Government.” It added that “for its size, Palestine is the most investigated country on earth,” and that the results of the innumerable inquiries into the Palestine problem and the problem of Jewish migration are on record and well known.

“The procedure on which the British and American Governments are now embarked, means, at best, a further unconscionable delay in dealing with a problem involving many thousands of lives in the only constructive way possible, by the immediate admission of the uprooted European Jews into Palestine,” the council continued. “Actually, we have every reason to believe that the negative purpose of the British Government is more farreaching; to evade its responsibilities under the Mendate and divest itself of all its international obligations toward the Jewish people under cover of recommendations emanating from a joint Anglo-American Committee, which has virtually been directed in advance by the British Foreign Secretary. It is clearly an attempt to enmesh the United States in the toils of British policy and to make this country a partner of British betrayal.

“The ultimate decision of the whole Zionist movement regarding the position it will take in relation to the proposed inquiry rests with the executive of the Jewish Agency for Palestine, now meeting in Jerusalem. We, speaking on behalf of the Zionists of America, cannot refrain from voicing our sense of shock and resentment that our Government should lend itself to this device of the British Government, by participating in a Committee whose findings have been so largely prejudged by the spokesman of that government–a procedure repugnant to every American notion of fair play and in defiance of all Anglo-Saxon traditions of judicial inquiry,” its statement concluded.