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 129

129 not use their influence to check illegal acts unless Jewish immigration was suspended." It is submitted that this statement gives an entirely wrong impression of what had actually happened. In fact, after the attention of your Excellency had been drawn on May 4th to the manifesto of the car-owners' and drivers' committee which had been published on May 2nd, appealing for civil disobedience and calling upon the Arab Officials to strike, Your Excellency summoned the Arab Higher Committee and uttered to them a grave warning in regard to the publication of this appeal. An official communique was published on that interview on May 5th, in which it was recorded that Your Excellency had drawn the attention of the Arab Higher Committee to that manifesto and called upon them in strong terms to dissociate themselves openly from such illegal,action. In spite of such warning, a manifesto of the Arab Higher Committee appeared in all Arab papers on May 15th, informing the Arab public that a resolution in favour of civil disobedience had been adopted, urging them to behave peacefully and constitutionally but calling upon them to stop the payment of taxes. Thus it was after the warning given by Your Excellency and not, as the Report would seem to imply, before such warning had been administered, that the decision of the "Congress of National Committees including the President and members of the Arab Higher Committee" was taken and published. This essential fact that the Arab Higher Committee openly defied the authority of the Government is entirely blurred by the vague statement quoted above, the effect of which cannot be other than to exonerate the Arab Higher Committee. Para. 62. 24. The Report contains no reference to the numerous representations made by the Jewish Agency to the Government during the course of the disturbances urging that more effective steps be taken to secure the restoration of order, the protection of Jewish life and property, and the termination of the Arab strike. It is noted with regret that while the various manifestos of the seditious Arab Higher Committee are reproduced verbatim and almost with an air of deference, no mention at all is made of the representations submitted and the statements issued by the Jewish Agency and the Vaad Leumi. 25. In conclusion, attention should be drawn to the fact that no mention is made in this very detailed Report of the most heinous misdeeds committed by Arab terrorists, such as the setting of fire to a Jewish babies' home, the throwing of bombs at a Jewish schoolyard where children were playing and into the bedroom of a Jewish family with the result that two children were killed, or the murder of two Jewish hospital nurses going on duty to the Jaffa Government Hospital. Equally regrettable is the omission, on the