The London Executive of the Jewish Agency for Palestine issued a statement today deploring the delay and suspense caused by yesterday’s White Paper, and demanding that the Mandatory Government assure in the meantime normalcy in Palestine and restore economic absorptive capacity as the criterion for Jewish immigration.
The White Paper, which outlined an investigation expected to take many months, was bitterly attacked by the liberal Manchester Guardian as increasing rather than dispelling uncertainty and showing that the British Government intended to delay things indefinitely.
The newspaper pointed editorially to a change in tone of the Government statement as compared with its original statement last July backing partition of Palestine, and said the new statement indicated the Government was now holding itself free to reject partition.
Asserting that restrictions on Palestine immigration had been defended as a temporary measure, the Guardian said it suspected that the intention was to continue the restrictions indefinitely.
The British Mizrachi Federation, which previously has opposed the partition of Palestine, urged Britain today to establish a Jewish State in close association with or as part of the British Empire.
The orthodox Zionist organization, in a message to Prime Minister Chamberlain and the Colonial Office, stressed that while it is against partition, it joins other Zionist groups in opposing a minority status for the Palestine Jews and appealing for a Jewish State.
The message expressed “profound anxiety” about rumors that the British Government was contemplating crystallizing the present Palestine situation and fixing the Jews as a permanent minority in the Holy Land.
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.
