The promise that the Balfour Declaration in both letter and spirit would be carried out by the British government, that no pogroms would be permitted under the British flag, that security for the Jewish National Home in Palestine will be forthcoming as well as free and early immigration of Jews into the country to the economic capacity of the country to absorb them was given by General Jan Christian Smuts, South African statesman, lover of peace, and a member of the British war-time cabinet that issued the Balfour Declaration, at a luncheon in his honor Friday by the Zionist Organization of America.
After tracing the source of his sympathies for Zionism which are well known, General Smuts recalled something of the history of the Declaration which gave Palestine to the Jews as a National Homeland under the Mandate. The noted South African pointed out that first the Declaration issued under the stress of war was not an idle gesture but a solemn promise that will be carried out. He declared that although the framers of the Declaration never intended that all of the Jews of the world should be settled in Palestine they did intend that a national home should be established for those Jews who want to go there. In order to lessen the danger that exists as a result of the disparity in numbers of Arabs and Jews, he stated, more Jews must come to Palestine.
General Smuts then explained just what the Balfour Declaration did pledge. It pledged, he said, that such
The Archive of the Jewish Telegraphic Agency includes articles published from 1923 to 2008. Archive stories reflect the journalistic standards and practices of the time they were published.
