Jewish Council May Turn Down Immigration Certificates; Hebrew Press Favors Rejection

Neither the Jewish National Council nor the Hebrew press is satisfied with the British government’s announcement that the High Commissioner of Palestine has been instructed to release 1,500 certificates for Jewish immigration under the labor schedule. Whether the Jewish community will reject the certificates will be decided at a meeting of the Council tomorrow.

The Hebrew press has definitely taken a stand against the certificates and demands the complete withdrawal of the White Paper. Until the White Paper is withdrawn and radical changes made in the administration’s policy the Jews should not cooperate with Britain and the certificates should be returned, the Doar Hayom urges.

The same paper remarks that “a small number of certificates to be issued shortly is immaterial” and insists that the “fight must continue until the White Paper is withdrawn and the regime now bent on preventing the reconstitution of the Jewish National Home is converted into a regime assisting in the

colonization of the Jews returning to their home.”

The Haaretz is apprehensive of “unimportant concessions” and fears that Premier MacDonald “will repeat his former acts of breaking the barrel and yet trying to preserve the wine.” The paper hopes that the Zionist leaders will not accept “partial pacification, interpretations or amendments for no concessions flowing out of the latest document are acceptable.”

Although characterizing the certificates as “charity” and terming the government’s action in releasing them “a pitiful spectacle of the heads of the government disavowing responsibility for the reversal of the Mandate and all piously avowing adherence,” the Davar says nothing about rejecting the certificates. The Davar also warns against the consequences of the government’s “endless and faltering explanations which are producing excitement in both Arab and Jewish camps.” The paper hints that the government’s postponement of a definite statement to the Arabs against resorting to violence “borders on a political crime the responsibility for which falls on the governments in London and Jerusalem.”