Report to the ... Zionist Congress and to the Council of the Jewish Agency in ... · 1935-08-01 · 8.1935 · p. Seite 27

9. The Conflict regarding Discipline. 1. The principle of discipline within the Zionist Organisation was never contested or questioned until the advent of the Revisionists. By discipline is, of course, understood in our movement not the utter subordination of the individual will to the authority or dictatorship of a superior power such as is customary in the army or a school. It has never occurred to the Zionist Organisation to demand a military obedience from its members. What the Zionist Organisation claims is the subordination of the persons and bodies affiliated to it in regard to Zionist affairs to the collective will of the Organisation as expressed in its laws and decisions. Without such respect of its collective will, every social community would be doomed to decline or impotence. This applies particularly in the case of an organisation which, like ours, is not merely a debating society, but has undertaken practical and national aims that can be achieved only by joint systematic action. 2. This demand for discipline is closely linked up with the principle of democracy upon which our Organisation is built up. Where differences of opinion cannot be avoided they are decided by the majority, and the efficiency of the Organisation requires that the minority, even when it is justified in exercising criticism, should not undertake anything that is opposed to the will of the majority, which is binding upon the entire body. 3. Although these principles were originally not set forth in our Constitution, they were understood as matters of course and were adopted in the constitution of the Court of Honour (in 1926), which in par. 1 declares : " The Court of Honour is competent in regard to proceedings against members of the Zionist Organisation in respect of any infringement of Zionist discipline." 4. In the trial before the Court of Honour, in 1931, against Mr. Meyer Grossmann, whose Counsel, Mr. V. Jabotinsky, argued that in the absence of an express legal provision the duty of discipline did not exist at all for the individual members of the Organisation, the Court of Honour declared in its judgment (August 1931) : " There is no need for many words to refute this view. Discipline within the Organisation is the foundation of the driving power of the movement. This is such a matter of course that it did not need any special codification whatsoever. This discipline has been recognised from the very beginning as a basic law of the Organisation." 5. In order to counteract the destructive propaganda denying discipline, the General Council, at its meeting in London in August, 1932, confirmed the existence of Zionist discipline, formulated its principles, and claimed for it in Zionist matters; priority before any other disciplinary obligation. 27