Zionist Opposition Marshals Its Forces for Basle Congress

(Jewish Telegraphic Agency Mail Service)

The views of the oppositional element within the Zionist movement, indicating the course this faction will take at the forthcoming Zionist Congress, were summarized in a statement issued here by leaders of the Zionist opposition.

The statement represents the views of what was termed a conference of Zionist opposition press. Representatives of Zionist oppositional publications in European countries and Palestine were present. Dr. M. Soloveitchik and Richard Lichtheim presided.

The statement attacks the Jewish Agency plan and criticizes sharply the attitude of the British government. It urges the Zionist leaders to present “the dangers of the situation” to the Zionist public and advocates a definite break with the policy pursued up to now.

“The failure of the Jewish Agency policy,” the statement alleges, “in the organizational and financial fields, and the absence of any prospect of obtaining concrete results in the near future, as is admitted by the Executive itself, demonstrates the futility of this policy which has been for years demoralizing the Zionist Organization. In opposition to this illusory and unpromising method of bringing about the basically necessary inclusion of non-Zionist circles in the work of upbuilding Palestine, this Conference puts forward the only possible method of entering into economic cooperation with the non-Zionists in all institutions in Palestine in which they are prepared to give definite assistance, while at the same time fully safeguarding the sovereign rights of the Zionist Congress.

“Outwardly, the attitude of the British Government and the Administration in Palestine is, as hitherto, most unsat isfactory. In spite of certain small concessions in individual questions the British Administration persists in its policy of passive neutrality towards the Jewish upbuilding work. The Zionist Executive has done nothing definite of order to effect a change in this attitude. On the contrary it declares itself satisfied with it and had even allowed-through the tendency apparent in leading Zionist circles to surrender the fundamental Zionist aim of forming a Jewish majority in Palestine–the endangering of the decisive political aims of the movement. In contradistinction to this, the Conference regards it as an indispensable primary condition for the speed and the dimensions of our colonization work that the British Administration in Palestine should create the necessary political and politico-economic pre-conditions for our upbuilding work.

“In place of the policy of the White Paper,” the statement continues, “which retards our colonization work, there must be a policy of active support of our upbuilding work to which the British Government is pledged on the ground of the Mandate. It must beat joint responsibility for the reconstruction of the Jewish National Home and must provide for the active support of it is principle in the Statute Book, especially in agrarian questions, taxation and customs laws, as well as in graining public concessions. In view of the unsatisfactory position of the Defence system in Palestine, we stand for the carrying out of the demand of the Vaad Leumi for the creation of a Jewish unit within the Palestine Defence Force. This Conference is convinced that by means of a systematic, determined and conscious policy in London and in other political centres, which is at present completely lacking, it will be possible to obtain important successes in this regard.

“The economic crisis and the obvious errors in the economic and financial situation in Palestine, have shown that the Executive, which has for years been propagating a diminution of the political work and a concentration on purely economic work, has now with-drawn from the economic field also. Even if there are essential reasons for the difficult position in the country, due to the lack of the political and financial conditions, the Executive still bears the responsibility for many of the mistakes which have been made. It has in particular failed to understand the important task devolving upon it of carrying on the work of colonization on the basis of a systematic plan.

“On all these grounds, this Conference regards it as essential that the dangers of the position should be made clear to Zionist public opinion, so that it should be able to realize that the policy of liquidating the political aims and activity must lead to a crippling of the Organization by reason of the contiuning policy of compromise and the weakness and the lack of co-ordination in the economic and financial work in Palestine, and thus to a contiuning breakdown of the Movement and of the upbuilding work Nothing but a decisive rejection of the methods pursued hitherto and a definite change in the Zionist leadership is able to bring about a revival of the movement and the regaining of the confidence of the Jewish people, which will lend to an increase in our financial means and an extension of our colonization work,” the opposition contends.