Zionists Fear Britain’s Palestine State Plan Will Omit ‘jewish Consent’ Clause

Reliable quarters predicted today that the new Palestine policy would closely follow the lines of the British final proposals rejected at the London conference, with further concessions aimed to remove Arab objections to establishment of an independent Palestine state. Fears were expressed in Zionist circles that the concessions would include elimination of the clause requiring consent of the Jews to termination of the transition period preceding establishment of the state, thus removing the Jews’ only safeguard under the plan.

According to unconfirmed but apparently authentic reports, the forthcoming White Paper will make it clear that the Government holds the view that it will have discharged its obligations to the Jews to facilitate establishment of a Jewish national home in Palestine when the Jews comprise a third of the total population.

Support for these reports is found in the fact that Colonial Secretary Malcolm MacDonald advanced to the Jews, during the London conference, the hypothesis that Great Britain had fulfilled the Balfour Declaration. Also, at the last London session with the Arabs, he had replied in the affirmative to an Arab question on whether the Government considered its obligations to the Jews discharged by completion of the transition period.

Since the collapse of the London conference there been no British-Jewish discussions on the future of Palestine, although the Government is continuing its talks with the Arabs in Cairo. When Jewish Agency representatives protested against exclusion of the Jews from the talks, they received the rather blunt reply that overmuch importance was attached to the Cairo negotiations, which were described as discussions between the Government and friendly states and consequently there was no reason to in form the Jewish Agency.