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 77

77 The Council therefore re-affirms its opposition to the establishment of a Legislative Council in the present stage of the development of Palestine, and is reluctantly compelled to express its categorical rejection of the scheme." This attitude of the Jewish Agency and other Jewish représentâmes has been endorsed with complete unanimity by Jewish public opinion in Palestine and throughout the world, and has met with a considerable measure of understanding and sympathy in authoritative non-Jewish circles. It would indeed be a cause of deep regret and disappointment if the Government persisted in their intention to carry out a scheme which would force the Jews in Palestine into a minority position in relation to the non-Jewish population. I have to reiterate that the Jewish Agency regrets its inability to cooperate in the establishment of the proposed Council. 7. On January 29, 1936, Your Excellency announced the Government's intention of promulgating a law imposing serious restrictions on the sale of land in Palestine. Prior to this announcement the Jewish Agency had made strong representations to Your Excellency against the introduction of any such measure which in its view is bound very seriously to curtail the possibilities of land purchase for Jewish agricultural settlement—the essential basis of the Jewish National Home. The Jewish Agency then pointed out that the proposed measure would be contrary both to the provisions of the Mandate and to those of the Prime Minister's letter to myself of February 13, 1931. Article 6 of the Mandate imposes upon the Government of Palestine an obligation to encourage the close settlement of Jews on the land, whereas the statement made by Your Excellency contains no reference to any positive steps for the furtherance of Jewish colonisation, but is limited to the announcement of a negative measure directed against the acquisition of land by Jews. In the Prime Minister's letter this obligation was described as "a positive obligation of the Mandate," an enquiry was promised in order to ascertain what State or other lands could be made available for Jewish settlement, the initiation of an active policy of development was foreshadowed, and it was laiü down that such control of land transfers as might be resorted to would be, firstly "regulative and not prohibitory," and, secondly, "of limited duration and operative only within the framework of à development scheme." It was expressly stated that control would be applied only during "such interim period as may reasonably be necessary to place the development scheme upon a firm foundation," and that only those transactions would be prevented which might be found "inconsistent with the tenor of the scheme." As against these clear provisions, what it is now proposed to introduce is a prohibitory and not a regulative measure, which is, moreover, not connected with any development scheme or any programme of as-