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 69

APPENDIX I. STATEMENT ISSUED BY THE JEWISH AGENCY OF THE PROPOSED RESTRICTION OF LAND SALES. The Executive of the Jewish Agency desires to make public its attitude with regard to the statement made by His Excellency the High Commissioner on January 29th to representatives of Arab political parties concerning the intention of the Government to promulgate a law designed to interfere with the free disposal of land by its owners. 2. The proposed restriction, though formally applying to land transfers taking place between all the inhabitants of Palestine without distinction of race, is clearly intended to limit the acquisation of land by Jews from Arabs. It is thus a new attempt to curtail the possibilities of land purchase for purposes of Jewish agricultural settlement which is the essential basis of the Jewish National Home. 3. The Jewish Agency regards this scheme as contrary to the provisions of the Mandate. Article 6 of the Mandate imposes upon the Government of Palestine the obligation to encourage the close settlement of Jews on the land. The statement of His Excellency the High Commissioner contains no reference to any positive steps for the furtherance of Jewish colonisation but is limited to the enunciation of a negative measure directed against Jewish land settlement without being conducive, in the considered opinion of the Jewish Agency, to any amelioration in the position of Arab land own'ers. 4. The Jewish Agency furthermore considers the proposed measure to be contradictory to the Prime Minister's letter to Dr. Weizmann of February 1931. That letter has been declared by His Majesty's Government to be an authoritative interpretation of the White Paper of 1930. In paragraph 7 of the letter His Majesty's Government declared that "the obligation to facilitate Jewish immigration and to encourage close settlement by Jews on the land remains a positive obligation of the Mandate, and it can be fulfilled without prejudice to the rights and position of other sections of the population of Palestine." In paragraph 10 His Majesty's Government announced their intention "to institute an enquiry as soon as possible to ascertain, inter alia, what State or other lands are, or properly can be made, available for close settlement by Jews under reference to the obligation imposed upon the mandat-