U.S. Plan For Peace In Palestine Under U.N.O. Trusteeship

Grey River Argus, 7 April 1948, Page 3

U.S. Plan For Peace In Palestine Under U.N.O. Trusteeship

(Rec. 8.50). NEW YORK, April 5. The United States delegation today presented to an informal meeting of the U.N.O. Security Council delegates a fifteeji-point plan for a Palestine trusteeship. It was, however, emphasised that the presentation of the plan did not commit th/' United States to any final line of action. Mr Warren Austin, chief United States delegate, said that the plan was submitted in the hope that, it would draw ideas from other delegates, so that a multi-lateral trusteeship pronosal would be ready for submission to the General Assembly on April 16. Main points of the United States plan are:— (1) A trusteeship agreement should be worked out without prejudice to the character of an eventual settlement. (2) A trusteeship could be Indefinite, but be subject to a prompt termination whenever the Jews and Arabs agreed on a future form of government. (3) The United Nations itself should be the administering authority. through the existing sixteennation Trusteeship Council. (4) A United Nations administration in Palestine, to be known as “The Government of Palestine”, should be headed by a governor-gen-eral appointed by the Trusteeship Council, and assisted by a “derao-cratically-elected legislature”. (5) This Palestine Government should maintain law and order through a locally-recruited police force and volunteer troops. When such forces proved insufficient, the gover-nor-general should be empowered to call on States, to be specified in the trusteeship agreement, to assist, in the maintenance of security. The United Press comments: “The American formula appears carefully to have been calculated to exclude Russia from any active role in the administration of the strategically situated Holy Land. Russia has bovcotted the Trusteeship Council since its inception, and, even if she decided to take her seat, she could be easily out-voted by the Western Powers and their supporters”. M. Gromyko (Soviet delegate) continued the Soviet’s boycott ot Palestine trusteeship matters to-day, and he was supported by M. Vassily Tarasenko (Ukraine). M. Gromyko said, earlier in the day, that an invitation to him to discuss a trusteeship with Mr Austin was informal, and he would disregard it.

Palestine Battle For Settlement Lasts 20 Hours ■ LONDON, April 5. Jewish sources claimed that the Arabs suffered a heavy defeat when more than 100 Arabs were beaten oif in an attack on Mishmarkaemek. south of Haifa. Tht Jews claimed 40 Arabs were killed and 60 wounaed and that the Jews lost two killed and 100 wounded. Jewish Haganah sources said the fighting at Mishmarhaemek raged for 20 hours. Arabs directed heavy mortar fire into the settlement. Arab sources claimed that they occupied the settlement as the result •of an attack in which they used heavy mortars, artillery and armoured cars. N Arabs under the command of Fawzi el Kawakji, for the first time used 25-pounder guns in the assault on Mishmarhaemek. Arabs claimed that Kawakji called on the Jewish settlers to surrender, by leaflets fired from guns, and stated that when the surrender call was rejected the settlement was captured. The Haganah radio repeated tire assertion that the Arabs had been repulsed and added, “the battle has ended.”. . , , Haganah forces killed at least lo Arabs and wounded 20 in an attack on Sarafand, a village on the Jerusa-lem-Tel Aviv road. The attack was an attempt to lift the blockade ot the old citv of Jerusalem.