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Zionists Demand Change in Jewish Agency Line-up As Delegates Assemble

August 20, 1933
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All fractions of the Eighteenth World Zionist Congress, which are holding preliminary conferences here prior to the formal opening of the Congress on Monday, were united today in a determination that the present constitution of the Jewish Agency for Palestine, of fifty percent Zionist and fifty percent non-Zionist Jewish leaders in the administration of the Agency should be amended.

The Zionist Laborites, who have approximately forty percent of the total representation at the Congress, today informed the Jewish Telegraphic Agency that they favor reforming the Jewish Agency along the lines of reducing the non-Zionist representation. The Zionist Radicals, who will form a bloc with the Laborites and General Zionists and together compose a majority of the Congress, are also in favor of this action and will recommend that the non-Zionists ### resentative on the London and ##lestie executives.

The Mizrachi, orthodox Zionist organization, will also vote for the termination of the present arrangement.

FAVOR 25% REPRESENTATION

Sentiment against continuation of the present system crystallized yesterday at a closed conference of the General Zionist fraction. The General Zionist proposal was for limitation of the number of non-Zionist members of the Agency to twenty-five percent instead of the present fifty percent.

Despite the urgent appeal for peace and harmony in Zionist ranks, made yesterday in a resolution submitted to the Actions Committee by the General Zionists, the Laborites today renewed their determined fight against the Zionist Revisionists and won the first major victory recorded to date in the preliminaries to the Congress.

The victory came during the course of the meeting of the Actions Committee when the Laborites, supported by the General and Radical Zionists, succeeded in pushing through the motion of Berel Katzenelson, Palestine labor leader, for appointment of a commission of inquiry to investigate activities of certain Revisionist groups and to fix their responsibility. The commission is to report to the Actions Committee during the present Congress session and the committee will then decide upon further action.

MIZRACHI MOTION DEFEATED

A motion by the Mizrachi representatives for an inquiry along general lines was defeated although it was supported by both the regular Revisionists and the Democratic Revisionists. A motion by the Jabotinsky spokesman, Schechtman, for an immediate inquiry which would include also Revisionist countercharges against the Laborites was also defeated.

Following the adoption of the Laborite motion, the Revisionists issued an official statement in which

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