Decision to from a Jewish Cabinet Announced in Palestine; Will Function After May 1

The Jewish Agency announced today that a 13-man cabinet will be formed as the central authority for the Jewish State in accordance with the decision adopted yesterday in Tel Aviv by the Zionist Actions Committee, the supreme Zionist body between congresses.

Prior to the conclusion of the session, the Actions Committee decided that the central Jewish authority would he composed of 37 members, including the 13 Cabinet members. Together with Arab delegates “who recognize the Jewish State,” they will form the provisional council of government which is to take over the administration if the Jewish State after the expiration of the British Mandate on May 15.

Major Michael Comay, spokesman for the Jewish Agency, today told a press conference that the Cabinet will be composed of the 12 following ministers: Foreign affairs, Defense, Interior, Economics and Finance, Immigration, Labor, Agriculture, commerce and Industry, Public Works and Communications, Justice, Education, Health and Social Welfare. They will be headed by a Prime Minister, who will be the 13th Cabinet member.

Fifty key appointments for the Jewish Civil Administration have already been made, Major Comay said. He revealed that the Jewish Agency is presently engaged in organizing in detail all of the departments which will be included in the civil service.

The “Declaration of Jewish Independence” adopted yesterday by the Zionist actions Committee is not meant to defy anyone, Comay told the press conference. “The simple and logical conclusion of the actual facts is that the Jewish National Home ##s ripe for independent existence, for which there are two practical tests: the ability to govern and to defend itself. The latter does not require much elucidation it is seen in the battlefields,” he declared.

Substantiating the Jewish claim that the Jews can govern themselves, Comay revealed that a central administrative machinery established by the Jewish Agency is already functioning with 20 departments. He said the United Nations partition resolution was not a starting point on the road to Jewish self-government, but had been the beginning of the end of Jewish efforts for self-rule. The crumbling of the British Administration helped to speed the tempo of this development, he stated.