It is very fortunate that the Administrative Committee of the Jewish Agency for Palestine, in which Zionists and non-Zionists are equally represented, this time will hold its sessions not in Europe but in New York.
This undoubtedly will help very much to eliminate certain unfriendly feelings between the non-Zionists and Zionists, which have grown up recently due to a confidential communique sent out by the Zionist Executive in London, in which misstatements were made affecting the prestige of the non-Zionist section in the Jewish Agency.
THE ZIONIST IMPLICATIONS
The Zionist section of the Jewish Agency always has maintained that non-Zionists are not contributing their full share towards the Agency’s work for Palestine. At every Zionist gathering in Europe activities, of the non-Zionists in the Jewish Agency were criticized as insufficient. Implications were made that the non-Zionists are actually a burden on the Agency and that the entire work of the Agency is done by Zionists only.
The members of the Zionist section of the Jewish Agency who are now expected to come to the United States for the meeting of the Administrative Committee will have their chance to see that these contentions on the part of the Zionists are not at all justified. It may be true that in Europe the non-Zionists are less active for Palestine than the Zionists. In America this is, however, not the ##se. Here the contributions of individual non-Zionists to funds intended for Palestine are incomparably larger than those of Zionists.
THE TACTLESS COMMUNIQUE
The non-Zionist leaders in America may therefore be justified in saying that the Zionist Executive in London was not at all tactful when it sent a communique to leading Zionists throughout the world, asserting that the non-Zionists agreed to a less than fifty per cent representation on the Executive of the Jewish Agency. Those who remember the investigations conducted in Prague last year between Zionists and non-Zionists at the Jewish Agency Council know very well that the non-Zionists never will give up their right to a fifty per cent representation on the Executive of the Agency. The fact that today they are represented in the Executive with three members only does not obviate the principle of the fifty per cent representation agreed upon in Prague and, more recently, in Zurich.
THE PARLEY IN NEW YORK
The communique sent out by the Zionist Executive in London and to which the non-Zionists in America are strongly objecting certainly is not contributing to the good-will spirit which the non-Zionists here are exhibiting in their work for Palestine. The European members of the Zionist section of the Jewish Agency, coming now to New York to participate in the session of the Administrative Committee, will realize it was a mistake on the part of the Zionist Executive in London to send out the provocative communique. They will realize that the non-Zionists, though less active in Europe, are sufficiently active in the United States. They also will realize that the misstatement made in the London communique affecting the non-Zionists must be corrected, as requested by the non-Zionists of America.
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.
