“I feel that your action in resigning as president of the Zionist executive can be due only to an imperfect appreciation of the government’s attitude and intentions,” Lord Passfield wrote to Dr. Chaim Weizmann on September 25, it was revealed today. Lord Passfield’s letter, and Weizmann’s reply, were made public by the Zionist Executive through the Jewish Telegraphic Agency.
On September 20, Dr. Weizmann wrote to Lord Passfield of his intention to resign. In his reply Lord Passfield said, “I must begin by expressing of the documents, and I cannot therefore agree with the implication of your letter that I was in fact consulted in advance.”
Dr. Weizmann then devoted himself to pointing out the two major flaws in the Simpson report. Emphasizing the contrast of this White Paper to that of 1922, Dr. Weizmann declares that restriction of Jewish immigration whenever there is unemployment among the Arabs “imposes fresh unwarrantable limitations upon the influx of Jewish immigrants.
“Jewish capital is being imported into Palestine primarily to give employment to Jewish immigrants,” argues Dr. Weizmann. “But Jewish capital will not come to provide against Arab unemployment.”
Further, he wrote to Lord Passfield that “Mr. Simpson’s implication that the present economic depreciation is due to Jewish immigration does not take into consideration other factors such as the catastrophe caused by the world-wide fall in the prices of agricultural produce, and not a word is mentioned about the Arab boycott propaganda in neighboring countries, which has severely affected Palestine trade.
“The White Paper also unreservedly accepts Mr. Simpson’s estimate reducing cultivable Palestine land by one third, which is unacceptable to us. Further, he suggests that available state lands be given to Arab landsmen even though they never possessed land, or lost it as a result of Jewish settlement; this suggestion disregards entirely article six of the Mandate regarding Jewish priority claim on land that is not required for public purposes.”
Finally, Mr. Weizmann points out that even Mr. Weizmann points out that even Mr. Simpson takes it for granted that encouragement of Jewish settlement on the land is a positive and imperative duty of the Mandatory power.
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.
