Mayors of a number of Arab cities in Palestine today held a conference to protest against the joint declaration submitted early this month to President Roosevelt by 62 members of the U.S. Senate and 182 members of the House of Representatives, favoring the restoration of the Jewish National Home in Palestine. The conference decided to submit a protest to the U.S. Government through the American Consul-General in Jerusalem and to send a copy of the same protest to the High Commissioner for Palestine for transmission to the British Government in London.
In the city of Gaza, all Arab merchants closed their stores today as an expression of protest. Other demonstrations are expected. Especially active in organizing protests against the efforts undertaken in America to secure post-war Jewish rights in Palestine are the mayors of Nablus, Jenin, Tulkarem and Gaza.
The Hebrew press in Palestine today carries articles severely criticizing the Arab leaders for their intensified campaign against Jewish and non-Jewish activities in America in behalf of the Zionist demands for the establishment of a Jewish Commonwealth in Palestine. The Davar, leading Jewish newspaper, reprimands the Arabs for their complete indifference to the Nazi mass-extermination of Jews in Europe.
“The Nazi slaughter of Jews,” the paper writes, “has found only the slightest echo in the Arab press in Palestine. Even the mourning of the Jews in Palestine was only mentioned en-passant. The Arab newspapers did not publish a single article concerning the fact that Jews are being killed in the hundreds of thousands by the Nazis. Instead, the Arab press shouts against American sympathy which has been expressed in speeches and memorandums by Wendell L. Willkie and other Americans, and even attacks Dr. Weizmann for his addresses in the United States.
Declaring that “Arab journalists interpret the cry of the Jews in their despair as nothing but a political manuever,” Davar says that the conclusion the Arab writers have apparently reached is that Jews must remain silent when they are annihilated lest their cry to the world end with an appeal to save the remnants of the victims by giving them asylum in the only land which is able to absorb them and provide them with shelter. The article points out that the present catastrophy which has befallen the Jews in Europe is part of a world catastrophy and not merely a problem limited to Jews and Arabs. The world will have to find a radical and embracing solution for this problem, Davar concludes, stating that it can be solved “and its solution will not bring any wrong in the future as it did not in the past.”
The Hebrew newspaper Haboker writes in an editorial that “the Arab world is not conducting a wise policy from the standpoint of vital Arab interests.” The paper hopes that Arab leaders in Palestine will change their attitude and will compromise with the Zionist standpoint.
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.
