PARTITION APPROVED

Otago Daily Times, Issue 26632, 1 December 1947, Page 5

PARTITION APPROVED

Vote on Palestine Receives Required Majority ARABS CONDEMN VERDICT Rec.. 10 p.m. NEW YORK, Nov. 29. The General Assembly to-day approved the partition of Palestine by 33 votes to 13, with ten nations abstaining. The vote easily provided the two-thirds majority required for the Assembly to act. The final vote came after a last-minute Arab offer to compromise on a plan for a Federal Government in Palestine and two “ State ” Governments for the Arab and Jewish areas which would be subordinate to the Federal Government. > Dr Oswaldo Aranha, president of the Assembly, ruled that the vote on the Partition Plan drawn up by Russia and the United States must come first. When the vote was taken many Jews in the public galleries wept unashamedly or clasped hands in silent exultation. Iran, Saudi Arabia, Syria, Pakistan and Yemen declared they could not feel themselves bound by the partition decision \and reserved the right to take whatever action they deemed fit.

One by one the Arab delegates, some wearing ceremonial swords, strode to the rostrum to brand the Assembly’s verdict a violation of the United Nations Charter.

the partition from Arab organisations, but a Jaffa newspaper in a leading article said the decision had been taken in America, but it will not be carried out in Palestine. Within a few hours of the vote on the Palestine partition a crowd of 11,000 singing, dancing and cheering Jews swarmed around St. Nicholas arena, New York, to-night to celebrate the new Jewish State. Police emergency squads rushed to the arena, but their pleas to disperse were drowned by the chanting of Jewish folk songs. Dr Chaim Welzmann, who addressed the meeting in the arena, expressed the opinion that there would be no holy war. “I think we can get along with the Arabs,” he said.

Faris el Khoury (Syria) said that ■ all the Arabs in the Moslem world /would obstruct the carrying out of the partition. Emir Adel Arslan (Syria) said: “It is always the custom to allo.w a man to speak freely to his hangman. I say, therefore, the Charter is dead. It was murdered, and you will ail know who are the culprits. Responsibility for the consequences will fall on your heads. The Arab delegates thereupon walked out in a body. ' . / The Assembly appointed Bolivia, Czechoslavakia, Denmark, Panama and the Philippines as members of the Palestine Commission to administer Palestine between the time Britain withdraws and the date of indepen'dence^ Among the nations voting for the partition were New Zealand, Australia, Canada and South Africa. Greece and Cuba voted with the Arab countries against >the partition. Abstentions included Argentina, China, the United Kingdom, Ethiopia and Yugoslavia* ~ *„.. . The Partition Plan calls for Britain to withdraw her occupation troops by August 1, 1948. By October 1, 1948, three new political entities are due to come into existence—first, an Arab State, area 4500 square miles, population 804,000 Arabs and 10,000 Jews; secondly, a Jewish State, area 5500 square miles, population 397,000 Arabs and. 538,000 Jews; thirdly, an enclave of Jerusalem, area 298 square miles, population, 105,000 Arabs and 100,000 Jews. The enclave will be a United Nations trusteeship. The plan does not provide for troops to enforce the partition.

Semi-hysterical Jewish crowds in Tel-Aviv and Jerusalem were still celebrating the partition vote at dawn on November 30. Many big cafes in TelAviv served free champagne, and a brewery threw open its doors to the crowd. Jews jeered some British troops patrolling Tel-Aviv streets but others handed them wine. In Jerusalem crowds mobbed armoured cars and drove through the streets on them. Arab quarters in Jerusalem have so far been quiet, but a Jewish spokesman said the Haganah was prepared to meet, trouble. Palestine’s Arab papers publish an appeal from the Grand Mufti to rally behind him when he gives the signal to rise.

Representatives of the Arab States, after their walk-out from the General Assembly, announced that they would have absolutely nothing to do with the United*Nations Commission for Palestine, nothing to do with the transitional period after the mandate, and nothin'? to do with the partition. The. New York Times correspondent says ithere was an open threat or warning running through all their comments. They .spoke of bloodshed to come, and said the responsibility would be on the countries that pressed for the partition. Later, after a meeting in New York, they issued a joint statement challenging the validity of the Assembly’s action and expressing the conviction that the vote was under great pressure and duress. “We believe the world's conscience will not tolerate the dire consequences which will inevitably follow if nothing is done to remedy the unequalled injustice that has been meted to the Arabs,’’ the statement concluded.

Reuter’s correspondent says the next -move arising from to-day's historymaking decision by the United Nations Assembly is the appointment of representatives who will compose a five-nation commission charged with the task of directing the partition of Palestine. The commission, according to informed sources, will make’ its headquarters at Tel-Aviv, where it is expected to contact Jewish defence forces, mainly the Haganah, in order to prepare for the actual transfer of power when the British forces leave. One of the commission’s main tasks will be to contact Jewish organisations such as the Hisadruth, the principal Jewish trade organisation, the Jewish Agency and the Jewish National Fund to lay, the foundations for the creation of the Provisional Government Council which is envisaged in the United Nations plan. The greatest problem facing the United Nations is how to enforce the Partition Plan in the Arab part of Palestine. Competent authorities believe the Arabs will set up their own Provisional Government with headquarters probably in Nablus, and will attempt to hold as much of Palestine territory as they are able. While the Jewish control of the coastal plain is. regarded as certain, experts fear conflict in such regions as Safad and Beersheba, where the Arabs are in the majority. The fate of the Jews in Iraq and Egypt also remains a disturbing problem. . Jamal Husseini, of the Arab Higher Committee, commenting on the partition decision, said: “This is a decision on paper, and the implementation of it will have to take place in Palestine. I hope you all live to see and hear of it.”

Sir Alexander Cadogan, m a press statement, said: “The Assembly has now taken its decision. The British Government, as it always said it would, accepts it and will facilitate its implementation within the limits clearly laid down by the Colonial Secretary in September.” Mr Andrei Gronjyko (Russia) commented: "I think the decision is a just one. It is the best of all possible decisions under the circumstances.” Most of the Jewish organisations in the United States hailed the decision as a turning point'in Jewish history, and a credit to the United Nations. Dr Abba Hiliel Silver, chairman of the American section of the Jewish Agency's Executive, said: “We pray for the peace of Palestine. We extend the hand, of genuine friendship to the new Arab State which is to be established. In this historic hour we call on the Arab people of Palestine and all the neighbouring Arab countries to join us in an era of peaceful and 'fruitful collaboration.” In Jerusalem, the secretary of the general Arab League said the decision in favour of partition could mean only one thing for the Arabs—war against the jews. * , . The Associated Press correspondent in Jerusalem, quoting Arab sources, says recruiting stations for the Palestine Arab army were opened on Novomber 29 in the old city of Jerusalem, arms and ammunition being smuggled in from neighbouring countries. Police searching a bus on the Beersheba road arrested an Arab carrying 400 rounds of ammunition. The driver of a donkey carrying 151 b of gunpowder was also arrested. • The British United Press correspondent in Tel Aviv reports that a tremendous cheer went up when huge crowds heard of the Assembly’s decision. Thousands of Jews danced in the streets. Others swarmed over the city’s buses, cheering exultantly.

The Jewish terrorist organisation. Irgun Zvai Leumi, announced from its headquarters that it would cease to exist in the new Jewish State. The Jewish Agency, in the confident hope that UNO would vote for the partition, had already organised a skeleton administration to take over the government of the new Jewish State says the London Sunday Times. The veteran Zionist leader, Dr Chaim Weizmann, was the first president and Mr David Ben-Gurion would almost certainly be the first Prime Minister, with Mr Moshe Shertok the first Foreign Minister. Jewish international lawyers had already prepared a draft Constitution based on the Mosaic Law. The Constitution, however, provides for popular representation, which does not go back so far. The Egyptian Government placed police forces throughout the country under a state of emergency when news of the Assembly’s vote was received. The Jewish Agency’s political chief, Mrs Meyerson, told the tumultuous throng of Jews which gathered before the agency’s headquarters in Jerusalem: “We say to our Arab friends ‘ Our hands are outstretched in peace.’” Pyjama-clad men and women then danced the traditional Jewish folk dance “Hora.” There was no immediate reaction to