A delegation of leading American Zionists headed by Morris Rothenberg, president of the Zionist Organization of America and joint chairman of the council of the Jewish Agency for Palestine, today presented the British Ambassador, Sir Ronald Lindsay, with a copy of the resolution protesting against recet restrictive measures curtailing Palestine immigration.
Others in the delegation included Rabbi Stephen S. Wise, co-chairman of the American representatives of the Jewish Agency; Louis Lipsky, member of the executive of the Jewish Agency; Mrs. Anna Halprin, president of the Women’s Zionist Organization; Chaim Greenberg, of Poale Zion, Zionist Labor Organization, and Rabbi Wolf Gold, president of the Mizrachi.
The resolution, adopted at a conference on Jan. 10 of the Jewish Agency for Palestine, the Zionist Organization and delegations representing the majority of the leading national Jewish organizations, in substance protested against “restrictive measures,” declaring that settlement of the Holy Land by Jews has brought prosperity to the country.
CALLED MANDATE VIOLATION
The measures were assailed for being passed in the face of the accepted fact that Palestine is today suffering from a shortage of labor. The petition insisted that the restrictions were in violation of the Mandate issued by the League of Nations to Great Britain. “The prosperity which was brought about by Jews has not,” according to the resolution, “benefitted the Jews alone but has redounded to the advantage of the Arab population as well. To the Arab population all of this has meant increased opportunities for employment and in constantly rising standard of living.”
The resolution adds that “the Jews of America in common with the Jews of the world have noted with deep disappointment recent decisions of the British colonial administration in regard to the proposed immigration schedule suggested by the Jewish Agency.
“This schedule which requested 24,700 certificates for admission of labor immigrants for a period from October, 1933, to March, 1934, and which was based on careful and detailed analysis of existing and prospective requirements were reduced to twenty precent by the Palestine government.
“This action on the part of the British administration greatly endangers the very existence and expansion of many agricultural enterprises and retards normal development of the country in general.
“Such action, moreover, is in clear contradiction to the spirit of the Balfour Declaration, the League of Nations Mandate for Palestine, the Churchill White Paper of 1932 recognizing that Jewish entry into Pal- estine is of right and not on sufferance and the letter of Prine Minister MacDonald to Dr. Chaim Weizmann in which the principle was laid down that possibilities of immigration will be estimated not by polititical considerations but on the bassis of hte absorptive capacity of the land alone.”
The British Ambassador received the momeorandum and assured the committee it would be transmitted to the proper authorities in London.
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