“Did the Balfour Declaration and the Mandate promise us a cultural home or a national home? We wish no museum, but a national home.”
This was the answer given by Dr. Chaim Weizmann, president of the World Zionist Organization and the Jewish Agency, to the stand taken recently by Chancellor Magnes of the Hebrew University and his German sympathizers, at the 23rd annual convention of the German Zionist Federation which opened here yesterday.
The time for negotiations between Zionists and Arabs has not yet come, said Dr. Weizmann. “But no Jew should refuse to participate in our holy task on the suspicion that it is not a peaceful one,” declared the Zionist leader. “We can claim with pride that we did not from the very beginning of our work commit any injustice towards others.
NOTHING WILL STOP US
“From this platform I say to the Arabs that we come to Palestine as of right and that nothing will stop us from continuing with our work. We wish to build together with the Arabs our mutual fatherland; we wish to establish contacts with them. But they have forgotten that Israel and Ishmaei are related. We will convince them of that through honest work.
“Why has no Arab come out with a word against the atrocities of Hebron and Safed? When the Arabs will understand that they cannot build their home upon corpses, then the time will have come for that understanding for which we are always ready.
“I instructed Sacher (head of the Palestine Zionist Executive) that if the Inquiry Commission should ask whether we want a majority, to say: ‘We want the enforcement of the mandate, abso- (Continued on Page 4)
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.
