A resolution voicing opposition to the projected Royal Commission to investigate the Palestine disorders was adopted today at the 36th annual convention of the English Zionist Federation. The commission, it was stated, would not serve any useful purpose.
Other resolutions were adopted as follows:
1) Denouncing the proposed Legislative Council for Palestine.
2) Welcoming Prime Minister Stanley Baldwin’s statement to the House of Commons on May 21 that the Government would fully discharge its responsibilities toward Palestine.
3) Urging the British Government to act to enable accelerated immigration into Palestine and demanding that the colonization area be extended to include the Transjordan.
4) Utilization of a portion of the Palestine treasury surplus to remedy public service deficiencies.
5) Expressing deep sorrow at the murderous assaults by Arabs and paying tribute to the restraint of Palestine’s Jews in the situation.
6) Deploring that resolute action against the Arab terrorists was delayed.
7) Calling attention of the British Government and High Commissioner Sir Arthur Grenfell Wauchope to the seriousness of the situation in Palestine.
8) Supporting the campaign to redeem Palestine land.
9) Voting confidence in Dr. Chaim Weizmann, president of the World Zionist Organization and the Jewish Agency for Palestine.
The Arab terror is primarily for the purpose of intimidating the British Government, David Ben-Gurion, chairman of the Palestine executive of the Jewish Agency for Palestine, told the convention today.
Asserting that if stronger measures had been used in suppressing the 1929 riots, the present events would not have occurred, he urged the Government to carry out to the full the terms of the mandate so that the work of establishing a Jewish national home might not be stopped but continued more vigorously than ever before.
WEIZMANN TERMS DISORDERS “MURDER IN COLD BLOOD”
Dr. Weizmann declared last night that the present disorders in Palestine were not clashes but “the murder in cold blood of a peaceful people.”
He denied that the disorders were on economic grounds, citing the benefits to Arabs which he said Jewish progress had brought.
“We have no quarrel with the Arab people,” Dr. Weizmann declared. “We have not come to Palestine as conquerors or exploiters, but as common workers who through the labor of our hands are creating a home and a livelihood for a people who wish to live in peace.”
He said that the Jews had not contributed anything toward the disturbances despite the great provocation.
Dr. Weizmann voiced fear that a Royal Commission to investigate the Palestine disorders would “create tension and endless discussions, suspend a good many activities and hold back development of the country.”
The Jews, he said, were now standing at the crossroads in regard to the Palestine situation. Either immigration would be continued or the Jews in Palestine would be caught “like mice in traps.”
The hope that the Jewish Colonization Association would contribute $1,250,000 toward the project of expatriating 100,000 Jews from Germany in four years was expressed in a message from Simon Marks, vice-president of the federation.
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.
