MIGRATION OF JEWS

Press, Volume LXXXII, Issue 24902, 15 June 1946, Page 7

MIGRATION OF JEWS

Remarks By Mr Bevin INDIGNATION IN U.S.

(N.Z Press Association—Copyright) (Rec. 9.30 p.m.) ... NEW YORK. June 13 The tide of indignation created by the attitude of the British Foreign Secretary (Mr Ernest Bevin) to the question of Jewish refugees has reached new heights,” says the “New York Times."

Mr Bevin said to the British Labour Conference: “The agitation in the United States, particularly in New York, for 100,000 Jews to be admitted to Palestine—and I do not want Americans to misunderstand me—is because they do not want too many of them m New York."

The Mayor of New York (Mr William O’Dwyer) expressed astonishBevi n’s remarks, and said that the city was proud of its Jewish people, who had made great contributions to the city’s life and culture. Dr. Joseph Tenembaum, president of the American Federation of Polish Jews, charged Britain with backing much of the underground terror that was taking the lives of Jews in Poland at a terrific rate. He had gained the impression in Europe that Britain was the problem child of the world and a barrier to peace. The Socialist Party’s National Action Committee condemned Mr Bevin and said that European Jews had become a football in a game of international Power politics. One Leftist paper in New York published a cartoon of Mr Bevin holding a copy of “Mein Kampf." Another gaper says that “never before has a ritish statesman reached so low and despicable a level,” and it describes his remarks as “vulgar, brutal Nazism.’’ Mass meetings of Jews demand that the British and American financial agreement should be voted out. Mr Bevin was accused of anti-Jew-ish bias and his arguments for postponing Jewish migration to Palestine were bitterly assailed at a rally in Madison Square Garden. A correspondent says that no newspaper denies the truth of Mr Bevin’s remarks, nor is it mentioned that during the war, Britain gave asylum to 52,000 Jewish refugees, while the United States took very few. Obviously angered by Mr Bevin’s criticism of the United States policy on Palestine, Mr Sol Bloom (Democrat), chairman of the Foreign Affairs Committee, introduced to the House of Representatives a resolution calling on Great Britain to up to its treaty obligations to America regarding the Palestine mandate. The resolution said: “It is the sense of Congress that the terms and guarantees on which the United States gave Britain a mandate over Palestine should be strictly adhered to.” Mr Bloom’s reference was to the British-American Treaty of 1925, which, he said, was violated by a White Paper in 1937 and other British steps to limit immigration to Palestine.