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The Committee of Inquiry should, while in Palestine, also look into the real, the fundamental causes of the tragic unrest and violence which to-day mar the life of the Holy Land to which our Jewish pioneers came, not with weapons but with tools. They will inquire, I am sure, why a peace-loving community, whose sole interest was in building a peaceful home and future for themselves and their children, is being driven to a pitch of resentment and tension and lamentably driving some of its members to actions which we all deplore. They will ask themselves, I am sure, why shiploads of helpless Jewish refugees—men, women, and children, who have been through all the hells of Nazi Europe—are being driven away from the shores of the Jewish national home by a Mandatory Government which assumed, as its prime obligation, to facilitate Jewish Immigration into that country. They will also investigate, I hope, how the mandatory Government is carrying out another of its obligations which was to encourage close settlement of the Jews on the land ; when, in actual practice, it is to-day severely restricting free Jewish settlement to an area less than 6 per cent, of that tiny country, and is enforcing to-day in the Jewish national home discriminatory racial laws which the mandate, as well as the Charter of the United Nations, severely condemns. By way of digression, let it be said —if it need be said at all —that we are not engaged, nor shall we be engaged, in any criticism or condemnation of the people of the United Kingdom. We have no quarrel with them. On the contrary, we have the highest regard and admiration for that people and for its monumental contributions to democratic civilization ; and we shall never forget that it was the United Kingdom which first among the nations gave recognition to the national aspirations of the Jewish people. It is only a wrong and unjustifiable policy which contradicts and tends to defeat the far-visioned British statemanship of earlier years which we condemn. We hope most earnestly that the Committee of Inquiry will also visit the displaced persons camps in Europe and see with their own eyes the appalling human tragedy which mankind is permitting to continue unabated two years —it is exactly two years to-day since VE day—after the close of the war in which the Jewish people was the greatest sufferer. While Committees of Investigation and study are reporting on their sad plight, and while inter-govermental discussions and negotiations are going on, these war-ravaged men and women are languishing in their misery, still waiting for salvation. They ask for the bread of escape and hope ; they are given the stone of inquiries and investigations. Their morale is slumping terribly. A spiritual deterioration, I am afraid, is setting in among them. It is only the hope that to-morrow—perhaps to-morrow —redemption may come that keeps their spirit from breaking utterly. Most of them are desperately eager to go to the Jewish national home. I hope that the conscience of mankind, speaking through you and through your Committee of Inquiry, will make it possible for these weary men and women to find peace at last and healing in the land of their fondest hopes, and that their liberation will not be delayed until the report of the Committee is finally made and the action of the Assembly is finally taken, but that, pending ultimate decisions and implementations, these unfortunate people will be permitted forthwith to migrate in substantial numbers to Palestine.
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