Zionist Leaders Reject Proposal to Place Palestine Issue Before United Nations Organization

Zionist leaders today reiterated their opposition to the Anglo-American Committee of Inquiry on Palestine, and also voiced their objections to a reported British plan to submit the Palestine issue to the United Nations Organization.

Addressing a meeting here of the National Zionist Administrative Council, Dr. Abba Hillel Silver, ZOA president, said that any proposed solution by the inquiry committee which recommends admission of a certain number of refugees into Palestine at the price of liquidating the objective of a Jewish State would be rejected.

Dr. Emanuel Neumann, who was one of the leaders of the Zionist delegation which testified before the committee last week, said that the Zionists still believe that the committee can do nothing but stall, and added that the proposal of Foreign Secretary Bevin that the UNO assume responsibility for Palestine is “another move in a prolonged and elaborate run-around of which the Jewish refugees are the immediate victim. He criticized President Truman for having “lent himself to this game,” adding that the President’s record on the Palestine question “is most confusing.”

The meeting ratified a resolution proposed by the ZOA executive committee to support the strengthening and continued functioning of the American Jewish Conference. It also approved a plan for the enrollment of an additional 250,000 members, and the sale of at least 1,000,000 “shekels” so as to provide a large American representation at the World Zionist Congress slated to be held this Summer. Speakers included Rabbi Stephen S. Wise, Judge Norris Rothenberg, Louis Lipsky, Daniel Frisch and others.