Sharp criticism of the activities of the World Zionist Executive was voiced by some speakers at the session of the Zionist Actions Committee while others vehemently defended the Executive’s policy. Dr. Robert Stricker, leader of the Austrian Radical Zionists, criticized the Jewish Agency and indicated that it was a failure. Saying that only an intense propaganda for the idea of a Jewish State could save the Zionist movement, Dr. Stricker demanded that a Zionist Congress be convened immediately.
The adoption of what he termed “an elastic policy” towards the Mandatory Power was recommended by Leo Lewite, Zionist leader from Poland. He pointed out that only when “we have before us the promised new program of the British government will the Zionist Executive be able to decide whether it should resign.”
Kurt Blumenfeld, president of the German Zionist Federation, declared that the problem of a bi-national state in Palestine has already been decided by the fact that the Arabs are there. “All that remains to do,” he said, “is to make the greatest possible effort for the upbuilding of Palestine.”
Defending the Zionist Executive from the charges made against it by the oppositionist delegates, Nahum Sokolow, chairman of the Zionist Executive, emphasized the need for obtaining more funds to intensify the political work. He also remarked that the Jewish press “often uses language towards England which is not appropriate.”
While praising the report of the Mandates Commission on the Palestine riots of 1929 as giving moral support to the Zionist cause, David Ben Gurion, president of the General Federation of Jewish Labor in Palestine, pointed out that despite this support from Geneva, the political center for Zionism still remained in London and not in Geneva. Hence he felt that the policy of upbuilding should be aimed at cooperation with England and the Arabs on the principle that Palestine “will give us a place for millions of Jewish immigrants.”
DOES NOT TRUST BRITAIN
In the course of the long debate on the Zionist political situation, Herschel Farbstein, a member of the Actions Committee from Poland, declared that he did not trust Britain’s promise of a constructive program for Palestine. He said that the basic Zionist ideal was still the Jewish State. Isaac Gruenbaum, Polish Zionist leader and a member of the Polish parliament, demanded the withdrawal of Dr. Chaim Weizmann as president of the World Zionist Organization as “a symbol of a new chapter in Zionist history.” He also suggested that the Zionists must oppose England and “look for other support.”
Abe Goldberg, American member of the Actions Committee and a Yiddish journalist, advocated the creation of a political commission which should prepare for the coming Zionist Congress an effective slogan for the future Zionist work. Meer Grossman, Revisionist leader from England, suggested an intermission in the work in Palestine and also outlined the program of the political offensive of the Executive of the Zionist Revisionists, the opposition to the Weizmann regime within the Zionist Organization.
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.
