March 25, 1946 — Anglo-American Committee of Enquiry Regarding the Problems of European Jewry and Palestine, Jerusalem, British Mandate

The men and women responsible for the activities of the labor movement in Palestine came here some forty years ago to lay the foundation of what we like to call a labor commonwealth. They came mainly from Eastern Europe, from countries where Jews endured persecution or, at beast, existed on sufferance. It was the generation described by the Hebrew poet [Chaim Nachman] Bialik in a famous poem written after a wave of pogroms in czarist Russia. He expressed his anguish over Jewish helplessness in life and death:

I grieve for you, my children, my heart is sad for you,
Your dead are vainly dead and neither I nor you
Know why you died or wherefore, nor for whom,
Even as was your life, so senseless was your doom.

This generation decided that the senseless living and senseless dying of Jews must end. It was they who understood the essence of Zionism — its protest against such a debased existence. The pioneers chose to come to Palestine. Other countries in the world were open to Jews, but they came to Palestine because they believed then, as they believe now, as millions of Jews believe, that the only solution for the senselessness of Jewish life and Jewish death lay in the creation of an independent Jewish life in the Jewish homeland.

The pioneer generation had still another purpose in coming here. They had two goals which inevitably shaped themselves into one. Their second aim was the creation of a new society built on the bases of equality, justice, and cooperation. When they arrived here, they were faced with tough realities Their mission was to conquer not their fellowmen, but a harsh natural environment, marshes, deserts, the malaria-bearing mosquito. They also had to conquer themselves for these young people were not accustomed to physical labor. They had no experience of a society based on principles of cooperation. They had to overcome much within themselves in order to devote themselves to physical labor, to agriculture, and to the making of a cooperative society.

From the outset they sought to achieve these goals in complete friendship and cooperation with the Arab population and with Arab laborers. It is significant that the first organization of Arab labors in this country was founded by the Jewish workers who came at that time.

Since 1919, from the formation of the Railway Workers Union, the Histadrut and the labor movement in Palestine have never abandoned concrete attempts for cooperation and contact with our Arab comrades in labor. This was not easy. We have no record of uniform success, but we believe that some of the seeds that we planted during this long period have taken root in spite of all those who opposed such cooperation.

The accomplishments of the labor movement in the villages and towns, in industry and in agriculture were due mainly to two factors: First, these young Jews who wanted to live a life of dignity felt that they had no alternative; they had come here to make a success of it. Another factor was their unlimited faith in man. Throughout these years, in spite of all the obstacles that were put in our way, neither did the members of the labor movement, or the young generation trained by the labor movement, give up the hope that humanity and all progressive people would realize the justice of our cause.

From the very beginning of the labor movement in Palestine, we were in close contact with the international labor movement, with the British Labor Party and Trades Union Congress in England and with the labor federations in the United States. We believed in those organizations, in their programs and policies, a were certain that they, above all, in moral sympathy with our purpose, would help us.

Probably one of the greatest factors in helping us to overcome our initial difficulties was the fact that from the very first, since 1917, we constantly received encouragement from the British labor movement and in later years from the American labor movement. Perhaps that is why the blow that we have lately suffered [the anti-Zionist attitude of the British Labor government under Ernest Bevin] has been felt most keenly by the labor movement — even more keenly, if that is possible, than by other sectors of the community. Must we conclude that even those we believed in — those in whose hands it lies to bring about a happier and juster world — do not understand our cause and what we are doing? To us

As I have said, we came to Palestine to do away with the helplessness of the Jewish people through our own endeavors. Therefore, you will realize what is meant for us to watch from here millions of Jews being slaughtered during these years of war. You have seen Hitler’s slaughterhouses, and I will say nothing about them. but you can imagine what it meant to us to sit her with the curse of helplessness again upon us; we could not save them. We were prepared to do so. There was nothing that we were not ready to share with Hitler’s victims.

Several times at these hearings we were asked about the wages of labor and if the Jewish labor movement were prepared to make sacrifices for a large Jewish immigration. I am authorized on behalf of the close to 160,000 members of our federation, the Histadrut, to state here in the clearest terms that there is nothing that Jewish labor is not prepared to do in this country in order to receive large masses of Jewish immigrants, with no limitations and with no conditions whatsoever. That is the purpose for which we came; otherwise, or life here too become senseless. Need I explain what it meant to use to be only a short distance away from the Struma [a ship with “illegal” immigrants], to see hundreds of Jews who had fled for their lives go down to the depths of the sea while we here were unable to save them.

We have many grievances against the government. We have grievances because the government did no help us, as it should have, to establish a sound Arab-Jewish relationship among workers. (We can bring evidence of obstructionism on the part of the government.) We also have grievances because the government did not contribute its share in aiding the social welfare, educational, and medical institutions that we established.

We have taken great burdens upon our shoulders; sometimes it seems that the government has perversely punished us for assuming such responsibilities. Government has practically shirked its duties as far as our labor population is concerned. These are among our grievances. But our chief accusation against government and is White Paper policy is that it forced us to sit here helplessly at a time when we were convinced that we could have rescued not millions but probably hundreds of thousands of Jews. We are convinced that due to this government policy, Jews went to their deaths because they were not allowed to enter the one country where they could have been saved.

Perhaps, gentlemen, this will help you understand the young people that you saw in the DP camps. History repeats itself once again: Jews with their backs against the wall with no alternative, and these young men, like those who came to Palestine forty years ago, find themselves with only one way before them — to reach Palestine so that their lives may have reason, and so that if they die, their deaths will have reason, too.

In this country we have not overcome all the difficulties before us. There are still deserts, marshes, and misunderstandings. Nevertheless, these young people in the DP camps realize, as we have for decades, that there is no other road.

I don’t know, gentlemen, whether you have the good fortune to belong to the two great democratic nations, the British and the American, can, with the best of will to understand our problems, realize what it means to be the member of a people whose very right to exist is constantly being questioned: our right to be Jews such as we are, no better, but no worse than others in this world, with our own language, our culture, with the right of self-determination and with a readiness to dwell in friendship and cooperation with those near us and those far away. Together with the young and the old survivors in the DP camps, the Jewish workers in this country have decided to do away with this helplessness and dependence upon others within our generation. We Jews only want that which is given naturally to all peoples of the world, to be masters of our own fate — only of our fate, not the destiny of others; to live as of right an not on sufferance, to have the chance to bring the surviving Jewish children, of whom not so many are now left in the world, to this country so that they may grow up like our youngsters who were born here, free of fear, with heads high. Our children here don’t understand why the very existence of the Jewish people as such is questioned. For them, at last, it is natural to be a Jew.

We are certain that given an opportunity of bringing in large masses of Jews into this country, of opening the doors of Palestine to all Jews wo wish to come here, we can go on building upon the foundation laid by the labor movement and create a free Jewish society built on the basis of cooperation, equality, and mutual aid. We wish to build such a society not only within the Jewish community, but especially together with those living with us in this country and with all our neighbors. We claim to be no better but surely no worse than other peoples. We hope that with the efforts we have already made in Palestine and will continue to make we, too, will contribute to the welfare of the world and to the creation of that better social order which we all undoubtedly seek.

Source: Report of the Anglo-American Committee of Enquiry Regarding the Problems of European Jewry and Palestine, Jerusalem, Mandatory Palestine, March 25, 1946, (London: His Majesty’s Stationery Office, 1946).

Also: Golda Meir Speaks Out, ed. Marie Syrkin (London: Weidenfeld and Nicolson, 1973) pp. 52-57.