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Jewish Agency Acceptance]
Dr. Silver (Jewish Agency for Palestine):
On behalf of the Jewish Agency, Dr. Silver approved, with one exception, the Committee's eleven unanimous recommendations contained in chapter V, section A of the plan. In regard to recommendation VI, on Jewish displaced persons, of which the Agency did not disapprove, he recalled that the Anglo-American Committee, while recommending that new homes should be found for displaced persons, had pointed out that the information received from countries other than Palestine held out no hope. The refugees would spend their third winter since the end of the war in camps. Dr. Silver called attention to the intense urge to proceed to Palestine, as mentioned in the Special Committee's report, which sprang not only from the fact that there was no other solution but also from the refugees' desire to find a real home with everything the word implied-congenial surroundings, friendliness and stability; it was all the longing of those uprooted people for a life of peace and dignity, for a normal and secure existence, which found expression in that intense urge.
The majority plan proposed that the City of Jerusalem should be established as a separate unit. But modern Jerusalem contained a compact Jewish community of 90,000 inhabitants and included the central national, religious and educational institutions of the Jewish people of Palestine. Moreover, Jerusalem held a unique place in Jewish life and religious traditions. It was the ancient capital of the Jewish nation and its symbol throughout the ages. "If I forget thee, O Jerusalem, let my right hand forget her cunning": that was the vow of the Psalmist, and of an exiled people throughout the ages.
Dr. Silver strongly urged that the Jewish section of modern Jerusalem, outside the walls, should be included in the Jewish State. He also reserved the right to deal later with other territorial modifications.
If that heavy sacrifice was the inescapable condition of a final solution, if it made possible the immediate re-establishment of the Jewish State, that ideal for which a people had ceaselessly striven, if it allowed an immediate influx of immigrants, which would be possible only in a Jewish State, then the Jewish Agency was prepared to recommend the acceptance of the partition solution to the supreme organs of the movement, subject to further discussion of constitutional and territorial provisions. That sacrifice would be the Jewish contribution to the solution of a painful problem and would bear witness to the Jewish people's spirit of international co-operation and its desire for peace.
The Jewish Agency accepted the proposal for economic union despite the heavy sacrifices which the Jewish State would have to make in that matter too. It was a promising and statesmanlike conception for, as stated in part I, chapter VI of the Special Committee's report, "in view of the limited area and resources of Palestine, it is essential that, to the extent feasible, and consistent with the creation of two independent States, the economic unity of the country should be preserved". The
limit to the sacrifices to which the Jewish Agency could consent was clear: a Jewish State must have in its own hands those instruments of financing and economic control necessary to carry out large-scale Jewish immigration and the related economic development, and it must have independent access to those world sources of capital and raw materials indispensable for the accomplishment of those purposes.
Referring to the equal division between the two States of the net revenue from customs and joint services, which was provided for in the majority plan, Dr. Silver said that that would in fact mean a large subsidy from the Jewish to the Arab State, but the Jewish Agency was prepared to assume that additional burden in order to find a way out of the impasse.
The Jews of Palestine wanted to be good neighbours in their relations not only with the Arab State of Palestine but with all the other Arab States. They intended to respect the equal rights of the Arab population in the free and democratic Jewish State. What the Jews had already achieved in Palestine augured well for the future. Nevertheless, if that offer of peace and friendship were not welcomed in the same spirit, the Jews would defend their rights to the end. In Palestine there had been built a nation which demanded its independence, and would not allow itself to be dislodged or deprived of its national status. It could not go, and it would not go, beyond the enormous sacrifice which had been asked of it.
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