Political report of the Executive of the Jewish Agency submitted to the ... Zionist Congress and the ... session of the Council of the Jewish Agency · 1937-08-01 · 8.1937 · p. Seite 22

22 acts of physical violence and the strike movement — the latter being treated as a lawful activity which could not and perhaps should not be opposed by the Government. The Jewish Agency contended that the toleration accorded by the Government to a racial strike, backed by terroristic pressure and intimidation, and conducted with the avowed object of forcing the Government into submission was bound to destroy all official authority and to deliver the large mass of the peaceful inhabitants into the hands of a subversive militant group. The Jewish Agency urged that the strike should be declared illegal and that those engaged in organising it should be made liable to prosecution. It continually appealed to Government to adopt a policy of actively combatting the strike and made specific suggestions for action to be taken to this effect. Not only were these proposals for the most part not adopted, but at the beginning of the strike the Government went so far in its benevolent neutrality as to employ in the transportation of troops Arab bus drivers who were on strike in so far as their services to the general public were concerned. Only after the Political Representative of the Jewish Agency had written to the Chief Secretary that Government was thereby actually helping to finance the Arab strike, was this practice discontinued and the work given to Jewish transport cooperatives. Eventually an Ordinance was promulgated enabling the authorities to enforce the opening of shops, but it remained a dead letter and no action was taken under its terms. The Jewish Agency had to point out that the publication nt a« emergency measure which subsequently was allowed to remain inoperative was even more detrimental to the general respect for authority than the non-enactment of such a measure. The main demand of the Jewish Agency that a racial strike conducted for the purpose of defeating the lawfully established regime should be declared illegal, remained unheeded. 26. The attitude of the Palestine Administration to the official leadership of the subversive movement — the so-called Arab Higher Committee — was equally disconcerting. The Jewish Agency repeatedly urged that this self-constituted body, which openly defied the authority of the Government and publicly preached sedition against the Mandatory regime, should be disbanded and that those of its members who held appointments under the Government should be dismissed from office. Such action Govern-