Zionists Cable Churchill Urging Jewish Army

Emphasizing the seriousness of Palestine’s position in the event of attack by the Axis powers and the “special danger to which the Jewish community there may be exposed,” the Emergency Committee for Zionist Affairs, representing all American Zionist organizations, today cabled an appeal to Prime Minister Winston Churchill to give the Jews of Palestine “the possibility and the means to defend themselves, their country and their honor” through immediate establishment of a large Jewish military force. The cable signed by Dr. Stephen S. Wise on behalf of the Emergency Committee, follows:

“Speaking for hundreds of thousands of organized Zionists and millions of fellow Jews in this country, we beg to submit to your earnest consideration the specially dangerous position of the Jewish community in Palestine in the present war situation. Apart from all other considerations and the desire of the Jews to make their maximum contribution to the war effort, we strongly feel that the Jewish population in Palestine should be given the possibility and means to meet all eventualities and to defend the country themselves and their honor. We are persuaded that the urgency of an immediate decision on this request is self evident.”

A similar appeal has been cabled to Prime Minister Churchill by Col. Morris J. Mendelsohn, chairman of the National Council of the New Zionist Organization of America, who said that to leave “Palestine Jewry to be slaughtered like sheep by Nazis and their acolytes would be considered by all free peoples tantamount to an act which, in your own words, ” would be fatal to the honor of the British Empire, without which we could neither hope nor deserve to win this hard war.”