November 1931
T h e
K i n g ' s
B u s i n e s s
495
Congress of Herzl Association, in 1897), the Seventeenth Zionist Congress. In many respects, Jewry considers this Congress one of the most important ever held. Certainly it has marked a crisis in Zionism. The feature for which it will chiefly be remembered was the overthrow of Zion ism’s leader, Dr. Chaim Weizmann. And the rock on which the Jewish forces split at the Congress was Dr. Weiz- mann’s endorsement of Great Britain. Harold Lipski, writing in The Nation, sums up the situation in a nutshell thus : . Lord Passfield (the author of the famous or, as many believe, the infamous White Paper) has done what no man has ever done before or, I hope, will do again. He has led the Jews of the world to, believe that the British Govern ment had betrayed its pledged word to them. And out of that sense of desertion came the sense among the Zionists that Weizmann was the instrument of the betrayal. He was driven to resign. The Jews could not strike directly at the British Government. The success of their campaign against Weizmann was the measure of their anger against Lord Passfield. Dr. Weizmann’s own comment upon his overthrow is as follows: I have been accused of conducting a pro-British pol icy- I declare that I was neither pro-British nor anti- British. I attempted to conduct primarily a Jewish policy. In so far as this policy was compatible with cooperation with the British Government, I was happy. I consider that it will be necessary to be compatible in order to cooperate with England. I consider this policy the Rock of Gib raltar on which our work must be based. It will be recalled that Dr. Weizmann had resigned as President of the World Zionist Organization on the very day that this Passfield White Paper and the Simpson Re port were simultaneously published. Dr. Weizmann con sidered that, by their restriction of Jewish immigration into Palestine and of land purchase there by Jews, they were virtually an annulment of the Balfour Declaration and a cancellation of the mandate, leaving, as he declared, “no ground whatever for cooperation between the Jewish Agency and His Majesty’s government.” His resignation was tberefore essentially a protest against Great Britain. In reply to Dr. Weizmann’s action, Premier Ramsay Macdonald subsequently published his famous letter of February 13, 1931, reading it before the House of Com mons, in which he emphatically reaffirmed the mandate and the Balfour Declaration, interpreting in a new light the points which had caused offense in the Passfield White Paper. | Dr. Weizmann accepted this letter in the spirit in which it was written, and he was thereby entirely reas sured of Great Britain’s fidelity to her high trust. However, it did not have such an effect upon the rank and file of Jewry. They stubbornly insisted that Great Britain was the friend of the Arab and indifferent to the interest of the Jew, and that she was betraying Jewish trust. Therefore, Dr. Weizmann, as champion of Great Britain, must go down. And thus it was that the “loyal pilot was dropped overboard” by a large majority vote at the Congress. A loyal pilot indeed had' Dr. Weizmann been to Zion ism. President of the World Zionist Organization for thir teen years, for over fifteen years he had been the outstand ing leader in the cause of the Jewish homeland, the one Jew most largely responsible for the building of Palestine ac cording to the terms of the Balfour Declaration, which he had helped to win. It was Dr. Weizmann who, through the years, had been “the link between Israel and Great
Britain, the one who had steered the Jewish ship through many stormy waters; the one Jew above all others, prob ably, who was the leading authority on the Jews of East ern Europe, who furnished the greatest number of Jewish settlers, in Palestine.” T he E ssentials of th e Z ion ist P rogram Dr. Weizmann’s exalted vision, his statesmanlike con ception of Zionism, and his practical ability in Zionist in terests are revealed in the clear-cut, aggressive program which he presented before the Congress in his two-and-a- half-hour farewell speech as he formally laid down his of-' fice. The chief essentials in the Zionist program, as Dr. Weizmann saw them, are as follows : 1. The settlement of at least 50,000 families in Palestine,; 2. The raising of a Jewish loan for Palestine. 3. The establishment of a department for Arab relations within the Palestine Zionist Executive. 4. The development and encouragement of private enter prise in Palestine. 5. The strengthening of the Jewish National Fund and the Keren Hayesod. 6. Thé maintenance of Jewish rights under the mandate. 7. The consolidation and extension of existing achieve ments in Palestine. 8. The building up of the Zionist Organization and the - Jewish Agency on a broader and surer basis. Dr. Weizmann further defined the Zionist policy in respect to Jewish-Arab relationship : The Anab must be made to feel, must be convinced by deed as well as by word, that, whatever the future numer ical relationship of the two nations in Palestine, we on our part contemplate no political domination. But they must also remember that we on our side shall never submit to any political domination. Provided that the mandate is both recognized and respected, we would welcome an agreement between the two kindred races on the basis of political parity. ( Continued on page 499)
BEADING THE TALMUD
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