The Zionist Actions Committee meeting here today issued a call to the 4,400 Exodus refugees aboard three British vessels returning them to Germany to stand firm until they are admitted to Palestine.
Zalman Rubashov, editor of Davar, read a declaration calling on the Exodus refugees to remain steadfast in their determination to enter Palestine. He termed Britian’s behavior “a crime against humanity and against the Mandate.” Thanking France for the sympathy it showed the refugees, Rubashov said its “behavior was a sign that the spirit of humanity in Europe” was not dead.
Praising the “heroic, forty-day” struggle of the Exodus Jews, Rubashov denounced the inhuman conditions under which they were forced to live. Torming “thier unbreakable will” a symbol of the desire of the Jewish people to reach Palestine, he said: “Notwithstanding any difficulties or laws which may result, we do not recognize the country which has lost all right to be the power in Palestine.”
Expressing “joy over the unity of the East European immigrants, with American seamen and French Jewish youth,” Rubashov denounced Britain not only for driving the Exodus Jews from the shores of Palestine but also for threatening to use force to drive them back to “the land of blood and hate” from which they came.
REVISIONISTS URGE BREAKING POLITICAL RELATIONS WITH BRITAIN
A Revisionist statement issued here declared that Zionist leaders, as well as the British, were responsible for the present situation. Asserting that Zionist leadership “by its politics paved the way for the Exodus catastrophe,” the statement which was released by the Revisionist faction at the meeting, accused the leadership of answering the “Bevin offensive” with appeasement.
Denouncing Zionists who throw all their weight on fighting only for immigrants, the statement said fasting days and expressions of sorrow were “an ineffective means of combat,” and called for breaking political relations with Britain and the setting up of a unified Zionist front to act as a “counter-offensive.”
The members of the Actions Committee expressed doubt, during private conversations, that the writ of habeas corpus served today on Bevin and Creech-Jones will halt the return of the Exodus deportees to Germany. Several members felt that the move would strengthen Britain’s determination to take the refugees to the British zone.
The fifty-year jubilee of the Zionist Organization, which is scheduled to be held in Basle on Aug. 31, will be addressed by Dr. Chaim Weizmann, it was announced here.
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.
