Describing the Palestine situation as “most critical,” David Ben-Gurion, chairman of the executive of the Jewish Agency, today cabled to a meeting of representatives of Jewish organzations in Palestine, urging them to resist the continued enforcement of the British White Paper now that the war is over.
“While I am convinced that the quota of 1,500 immigration certificates offered by the British Government is not the last word of the English people and even of this Government, we cannot submit any longer to this cruel and humiliating treatment,” Ben-Gurion said, emphasizing that the White Paper is void of any moral and legal validity. He said that the meeting, convoked by the Jewish National Council of Palestine and by the Zionist Actions Committee, should issue a call in behalf of the Jewish people demanding that the doors of Palestine be opened to every Jew desiring to immigrate there.
(In Jerusalem, Bernard Joseph, legal adviser of the Jewish Agency, today stated, “We are not prepared to wait any longer while our brethren are suffering all over Europe. Every Jew has the right to return to the Jewish Homeland. That is why Britain was given the Palestine Mandate.”)
ARAB LEAGUE WOULD ACCEPT PARTITION; MAGNES URGES BI-NATIONAL STATE
The Arab League would confine itself to vocal protests were Britain to enforce partition in Palestine, while the threat of military intervention by the neighboring Arab states is “strategically absurd,” it is stated today in the second of a series of articles by the Palestine correspondent of the London Times. He points out that Palestine, although the only hope the Jews have for recovering their national home, comprises only two percent of the territory held by Arabs.
Discussing the “Hebrew underground,” the correspondent says that the vacillating attitude of the Government to the Haganah, the Jewish self-defense organization, combined with the Patria and Struma tragedies and the despair cocasioned by the White Paper, led to the formation of the extreme terrorists groups such as the Stern Gang and the Irgun Zvai Leumi.
The Jewish Agency will have difficulty in restraining these activities, if Palestine remains closed to the surviving Jews of Europe, he warns. He says that the Haganah is a better fighting force than the local Arabs, but he predicts that a conflict can probably be avoided by partition.
MAGNES REJECTS PARTITION; REITERATES DEMAND FOR BI-NATIONAL STATE
Dr. Judah L. Magnes, president of the Hebrew University, in a letter appearing in the Times today, rejects the proposal of partition, reiterating his frequently voiced demand for a bi-national state based on numerical parity between Arabs and Jews. He urges the immediate transfer to Palestine of those Jews in Europe who desire to go
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.
