Has Moussa Kazim Pasha Resigned Presidency of Arab Executive?: Resignation Reports in Arab Press but

The resignation of Moussa Kazim Pasha from the presidency of the Palestine Arab Executive is reported today in the Arab press.

The latest proclamation of the Arab Executive issued today, appealing to all Arabs in Palestine and the neighbouring countries to boycott the Levant Fair, which will be held in Tel Aviv in April, still bears, however, Moussa Kazim Pasha’s signature as President.

Moussa Kazim Pasha el Husseini resigned the presidency of the Palestine Arab Executive in May 1931, giving as his reason old age and ill-health. Other reports, however, said that his resignation was due to political differences with his colleagues. The “Jamea el Arabia”, the organ of the Palestine Moslem Supreme Council and of the Grand Mufti, for instance, wrote that he had told his friends that “my resignation is due not to old age or weakness, but to the infirmity of the Arab Executive of which I have been the President”.

Strenuous efforts were made to persuade him to withdraw his resignation, and a few days later he did so, explaining that he had decided to remain because the Jewish press had used his resignation to argue that there was a division in the Arab ranks.

In 1928, Moussa Kazim Pasha roused a great deal of Arab opposition by giving an interview to the J.T.A. in Palestine, in which he said that the Arabs would be friends with the Jews and would treat them on an equal footing, if the Jews of Palestine would stand with them in their demand for a Palestine Parliament, and would agree to the regulation of Jewish immigration according to the economic capacity of the country. As a result of Arab protests against his assurances

of friendship to the Jews, Moussa Kazim issued a statement explaining that he had meant that in such general matters as religious freedom, trade and sanitary treaties, but not with regard to any privileges to the Jews. The Jews in Palestine, he said, should have equal rights and duties proportionately to their numbers. “I swore at the Fifth Arab Congress”, he declared, “to fight against the Balfour Declaration with all my might, and I shall remain faithful to this vow”.