BRITAIN TO MAINTAIN ORDER

Otago Daily Times, Issue 26634, 3 December 1947, Page 5

BRITAIN TO MAINTAIN ORDER

Police and Troops Stand By

Rec. 10 p.m. LONDON, Dec. 2. There was an uneasy calm throughout Palestine last night as British troops and police were ordered to stand by to deal with possible disturbances when the three-day Arab general strike in protest against the United Nations partition decision begins at dawn. The High Commissioner, Sir Alan Cunningham, yesterday warned both Dr Hussein Khalidi, secretary of the Arab Higher Organisation, and Mr David Ben-Gurion, chairman of the Jewish Agency, that the British would maintain law and order until they leave, adding: “ I count on both Arabs and Jews to do nothing which will conflict with this policy.” The Higher Arab Organisation has refused to recognise the partition or make any efforts to establish its own administration. The Jews, on the other hand, are pushing ahead their arrangements. They have already announced that “ certain classes ” between the ages of 17 and 25 will be “called up” on December 6 for service in the security forces. They are also forming a police force and militia.

The Times Jerusalem correspondent says that at present there seems small prospects of the Arabs having anything to do with the United Nations Commission when it . arrives, and the question of what is to happen outside the borders of the Jewish State is a conundrum. The Arabs are asking whether the British will protect the commission. One suggestion is that it should be based on Tel-Aviv. This would ensure admirable contacts with the Jews but would hardly show much faith in forming relations with the Arabs. The tendency among the Arabs, the correspondent adds, is still to accuse Britain of having allowed the Jewish national home to become established, and the fact that the four senior dominions voted for the partition has caused theories to be aired that the whole scheme was really Britain’s doing. According to a telephone report from a usually reliable Beirut source, the Arab mob in Damascus killed all the members of the Soviet Union’s Legation staff in yesterday’s attack, says the Jerusalem correspondent of the New York Times. The Russians are reported to have fired on the mob trying to storm the Legation and burn its flag. Ten thousand Arab students in a demonstration at Beirut stoned the United States information office and the French Legation as a protest against the United Nations decision, reports Reuter’s Beirut correspondent. Demonstrators of both sexes carried flags and posters inscribed: “Fire and steel, the only language the Zionists understand.”

The Beirut correspondent of the British United Press says the Syrian Government dissolved the Communist Party following a clash yesterday, in which three Arabs and four Communists were killed. The State Department in Washington disclosed that the Syrian Government had apologised for the mob violence yesterday at the American Legation at Damascus. The Charge d’Affaires at the Legation reported that about 2000 persons broke into the Legation, tore down the American flag, and burned three cars. The violence occurred a few hours after the General Assembly had voted for Palestine partition. In Jerusalem 600 Arab students marched from Jaffa Gate to Damascus Gate chanting “ Down with the United States.” Reuter’s Cairo correspondent says steel-helmeted police escorted the students of Faud Ali Awal University who marched through Cairo shouting “ Down with the United Nations. Palestine for the Arabs.” . The world Zionist leader has indicated that the immigration of Jews from Europe to Palestine will not be without restrictions, even when the new Jewish State is created. Dr Chaim Weizmann said that the stability of the Jewish State must not be imperilled by so great a wave of unsupported immigration from European displaced persons' camps that economic organisations in the new homeland would be shattered. “We must not risk Palestine s essential stability in the first two Jo three years of freedom,” he said. I plead for a certain amount of conservatism for the sake of the very people waiting in displaced persons’ camps. Dr Weizmann added that the Jews in Palestine were able to defend themselves against any foreseeable attack and were ready now to take over the machinery of government. The British Cabinet will discuss tomorrow the starting date of the British troop withdrawals from Palestine. These are not likely to begin until the end of the first or second month in 1948, says Reuter's political correspondent. It is expected that about ninetenths of the troops will return to England. A very small proportion might go to Trans-Jordan. In New York the Secretary-general of the United States, Mr Trygve Lie, called his top staff members together to-day to take the first steps for organising the Five Nations Commission which will supervise Palestine during the transition from the mandate to two States. It is hoped to have the organisations operating within two W A key United Nations official told the United Press that violence in Palestine would compel the commission to make the formation of a Jewish home defence militia its first and most urgent task.