NEWS OF THE WEEK
11 HE temperate terms of the Government statement on illegal immi- gration into Palestine do not, conceal certain disquieting features of the document. These, to be sure, are subsidiary aspects of the main problem, but they demand unqualified consideration by the quarters concerned because they recall, inevitably, other unspoken suspicions that the recent news has suggested. "The present illegal traffic," states the report, "is not . . . a movement arising spontaneously among the European Jews who see in Palestine their only hope for the future. . . . Recent developments have revealed the illegal immigrant traffic as a widely ramified and highly organised movement supported by very large financial contributions from Zionist sources, which has been built up and put into operation by unscrupulous persons. ." Who are these persons who have pro- vided the very large financial contributions? Clearly not the suffer- ing thousands in the D.P. camps of Europe. It is pertinent to recall the statements of General Morgan, while head of U.N.R.R.A. opera- tions in Europe, concerning a second Jewish exodus from Europe. Similarly, by whose authority is there included in these drafts "the terrorist element" which has played such a predominant role in the recent outrages in Palestine, and whose inclusion has been at the price of the exclusion of mothers and children legitimately hoping to rejoin their relatives by means of the legal monthly quota. The suspicion arises that the sufferings of innocent homeless Jews are being used in some cases by an organisation bent on creating the maximum of embarrassment for the British administration in Pales- tine, with the object of establishing Zionism at no matter what frightful cost. If such suspicions are justified—and if they are not It is within the means of influential Jewry in this country to put them at rest—then not only is irreparable harm being done to the cause of Zionism and countless hundreds of thousands of innocent Jews, but sympathy for that cause in this country will be dealt a heavy blow. In the report it is rightly stated that "no country in the world has been a better or more consistent friend of the Jewish people than Britain." It would be tragic to sacrifice that friendship, and clearly no right-minded individual has any wish to indict Jew in this country for the actions of a co-religionist in Palestine unless there is evidence that those actions receive either his sympathy or active support. Can it be denied that that evidence exists? Nobody would doubt the presence of just and conflicting loyalties, but the responsibilities of British citizenship involve obligations to the State that cannot lightly be put aside.
