Count Damien de Martel, French High Commissioner in Syria, today officially declared that reports of his negotiations with the Zionists on the settlement of German Jewish refugees in Syria in the Lebanon were baseless.
Count de Martel also declared that Dr. Chaim Weizmann, leader of the Zionist commission for the settlement of German Jewish refugees in Palestine, had not spoken to him of the project when he visited the High Commissioner. “Dr. Weizmann never spoke of the project and never even hinted about such settlements,” Count de Martel said.
According to earlier reports from Jerusalem the project was to embrace the settlement of 100,000 German Jewish refugees in districts immediately adjoining the Palestine frontier. French officials were quoted as being most favorably disposed and the report even stressed negotiations between the Jewish Agency for Palestine and Syrian Landlords.
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.
