B’nai Brith Head Urges Britain to Reconsider White Paper and Simpson Report

Voicing an “earnest appeal and solemn protest against the recently issued White Paper” on Palestine in behalf of the B’nai Brith, Alfred M. Cohen, international president of that Jewish order, today wired Sir Ronald Lindsay, British ambassador at Washington, urging that Great Britain carefully reconsider the subject matter of that document and of the Simpson report.

Speaking in the name of an international fraternity of Jews with 80,000 members in 26 countries, Mr. Cohen wrote that the B’nai Brith “respectfully requests you to convey to His Majesty’s Government its earnest and solemn protest against the recently issued White Paper which, by denying further immigration of Jews in considerable numbers and setting up insurmountable barriers to the acquisition of land by Jews, nullifies the provision in the Mandate of Great Britain over Palestine guaranteeing that His Majesty’s Government will use its best endeavors to facilitate the establishment of a national home for the Jewish people.

“The B’nai Brith further, respectfully, but none the less firmly, protests against the implication, if indeed it be not the conclusion, of both the Simpson report and the White Paper that the enormous amount of constructive work done in Palestine by Jews at the expense and sacrifice of world Jewry has been detrimental to the interests of the Arab population. The evidence of hundreds of impartial observers of many nations is to the contrary.

“The B’nai Brith unites with others, who, in behalf of the Jewish people, are urging careful reconsideration of the subject matter of the White Paper and the Simpson report to the end that the inviolability of the pledge of His Majesty’s Government to the Jewish people and to all the nations concerned in the Mandate of Palestine may be assured.”