Israel Zangwill in a statement to the Jewish Telegraphic Agency has characterized as untrue the assertion by Louis Lipsky, Chairman of the Zionist Organization of American, that “nothing said by Mr. Zangwill in his address or in private was considered by either the Congress or any of its committees”.
Mr. Lipsky in denying Mr. Zangwill’s claim that the resolution of the American Jewish Congress expressed Mr. Zangwill’s views on Palestine called attention to the fact that Mr. Zangwill’s suggestion for a solution of the Arab question embodied in his Carnegie Hall speech and by him submitted to the Committee drafting the Palestine resolution were “specifically and unanimously rejected”.
In support of his contention that the resolution as finally adopted by the Congress was his, Mr. Zangwill has furnished the Jewish Telegraphic Agency with a copy of the resolution as originally drafted by him. This resolution is the one adopted by the Jewish Congress, with a few exceptions. The last part of the second paragraph which Mr. Zangwill proposed, but the Committee rejected, reads as follows:
“And taking note finally of the address of Mr. Zangwill pointing out that by the conditions of the Balfour Declaration and Mandate, the Arabs of Palestine are justified in demanding a free parliamentary constitution, the only objection to which is that it might be used to nullify the primary purpose of the Balfour Declaration and the British Mandate which requires the Mandatory to establish a Jewish National Homeland in Palestine.”
The Congress resolution omits also another part of Mr. Zangwill’s draft resolution asking to
“grant Palestine the parliamentary constitution desired by the Arabs, subject only to the veto of the British Governor upon all anti-immigration or any other legislation calculated to destroy the creation of the Jewish National Home”.
The final clause of the resolution as adopted by the Jewish Congress is textually at variance with the one proposed by Mr. Zangwill, the resolution omitting Mr. Zangwill’s proposed references to the Holy Land as the place where Jesus and Mary lived their earthly lives as members of the Jewish people, and that Jews and Moslems revere in common the memory of Moses.
Mr. Zangwill challenges Mr. Lipsky or other members of the Committee to produce the original resolution prepared before he, Mr. Zangwill, joined the resolutions committee in its labors. Mr. Zangwill says he found the committee’s dreft to be “incompetent”.
The issue between the two appears to be not Mr. Zangwill’s authorship of the resolution, which Mr. Lipsky does not contest, but to what extent the resolution as finally adopted by the Congress expresses Mr. Zangwill’s views.
Mr. Lipsky claims that in rejecting the concession to the Arabs the Congress rejected Mr. Zangwill’s views, whereas Mr. Zangwill insists that in accepting all of his resolution, with the exception of the Arab clauses, the Congress showed it was won over to his views.
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.
