FANTASTIC CHAOS Possibility in Palestine

Otago Daily Times, Issue 26618, 14 November 1947, Page 5

FANTASTIC CHAOS

Possibility in Palestine

BRITISH INSISTENCE ON RAPID WITHDRAWAL

N.Z.P.A. Special Correspondent. Rec. 9 p.m. LONDON, Nov. 13. The special correspondent of the News Chronicle in Jerusalem says that Palestine is facing a period of “ fantastic chaos and the possibility of an unprecedented anarchy ” if the British Government decides to evacuate its forces without any alternative administration to take over the government of the country. Unless such administration is established before Britain leaves Palestine, says the correspondent, all Government offices and public utilities would presumably cease to function for lack of direction, communications would come to a standstill, taxes would not be collected, public security would be non-existent, prisoners would break their way out of gaols, postal services, broadcasting, and street cleaning and water supply services would cease to function. Under such a condition, Palestine would inevitably slide from chaos into anarchy. War would break out between Jews and Arabs and there would be no one to limit the fighting.

.The correspondent says that although this may sound like a fantasy it will undoubtedly happen if the British Government insists on withdrawing before some alternative administration is provided. Unfortunately there appears to be every indication that this is their intention.

Plans are already being made for the withdrawal of the administration and occupying troops, yet it is obvious that any rapid withdrawal is impossible unless the British Government is prepared to sacrifice large sums of the taxpayers’ money. It would take months to pack and load the vast stores of equipment in the country through Haifa, Palestine's one usable port, which is already taxed to capacity with a shipment of the current citrus crop. A Rome message states that an increase in Italian vigilance against illegal immigrant traffic to Palestine appears to have diverted much of this to North African ports. The new Jewish strategy is to transport would-be immigrants from Sicily to deserted parts of the Algerian and Tunisian coast in small boats where they board illegal immigrant ships. A diversion of traffic to French North Africa is considered likely to stimulate the French colonial authorities to fresh action as they are anxious to avoid accusations by the Arabs that they are assisting Jews to reach Palestine. The New York Herald Tribune’s European edition publishes a report from Beirut in which the Grand Mufti predicts that partition of Palestine would lead to the immediate sabotaging of all Anglo-American oil interests in the Middle East and the withdrawal of the Arab League from the United Nations. The Mufti, who answered a questionnaire addressed to him by the Herald Tribune’s correspondent, said that the Arabs considered that neither the United States nor Russia had any moral or economic justification for supporting partition and they would fight it to the bitter end. “ The Arabs are unwaveringly determined to defend all of Palestine from any aggression, irrespective of whence it comes,” said the Mufti.