The reaction of the Zionist Revisionists, the oppositional group within the Zionist movement, to the steps now taken by the Zionist Executive in its presentations to the Permanent Mandates Commission of the League, was expressed in a statement issued yesterday by Vladimir Jabotinsky, leader of the League of Zionist Revisionists, who is now in the United States.
“The Memorandum of the Zionist Executive to the Mandates Commission and Dr. Weizmann’s accompanying letter can be analyzed from three points of view: 1) as to whether they give a true picture of the situation in Palestine; 2) whether they contain the necessary demands; 3) what could be done in case the demands, such as they are, are not granted,” Mr. Jabotinsky declared.
“As to the picture of the Palestine situation, we cannot judge whether it does full justice to reality until we have seen the complete text of the Memorandum. But even the portions already published in America contain some interesting admissions. For instance: “Land values show a constant tendency to rise…. It follows that the more land the Jews acquire and the more improvements they carry out the higher is the level to which they are in effect raising prices against themselves… The result (is) that numbers of immigrants who have come to Palestine with the intention of starting a new life on the soil have up to the present been unable to do so.” This admission disposes of the usual cant that the cause of the slump in our rural colonization is only in the slackness of the Jewish financial response.
“Other interesting admissions: though the Executive made an application for State land in the South a year ago, ‘this application has not, up to the present, had any definite result.’ In general the Zionist Organization is hampered in ‘taking the initiative’ of such applications, because ‘its information as to the actual limits of the State lands, and the degree to which they are available, is necessarily (? !) less complete than that which is in the possession of the government’ which means that even an elementary courtesy as to give the Jewish Agency statistical data has either been refused — or never asked for. And as to the unfortunate Frontier Force, Dr. Weizmann cannot even hold out a definite hope that Jews will be sufficiently represented on it: he only ‘feels sure that the Mandatory Power will appreciate the legitimate desire of the Jewish population to take a corresponding share in the defense of Palestine.’ We already know from another cable in the ‘Jewish Daily Bulletin.’ that all the share allowed to the Jews in the Frontier Force is 28 (twenty-eight) men out of 750 (seven hundred and fifty).
“This shows that Dr. Weizmann has totally failed in his recent negotiations with Lord Plumer on this subject. And. evidently, not only on this. Presumably, the President of the Zionist Organization did also inquire–at least we hope he did–what the High Commissioner intends to do about that one year old application for land in the South–and now he has to complain to the League that there has been no definite reply.
“How, after all that, Dr. Weizmann and his lieutenants can tell us that the political situation in Palestine has never been so favorable is a mystery.
“As to the demands formulated in Dr. Weizmann’s letter, they are hopelessly inadequate. Apart from the request for land in the South (he does not say how much) Dr. Weizmann asks for a few odds and ends of the Beisan area which the Arabs may prove unwilling to use. The main problem the utilization of all the waste lands of Palestine especially of those privately owned by absentee landlords (the wasted area of Palestine is official 17 million dunams of which only one-seventh belong to the State)–the question of an Agrarian Reform is not mentioned at all. Nor does Dr. Weizmann’s letter mention the plight of our industry which owing to absence of adequately protective tariffs has recently led to closing down of important factories. The resolution of the Vaad Ha-Len### that in view of the totally non-Jewish character of the Frontier Force a Jewish military unit should be created is simply ###
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