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interests at stake. We naturally agree that independence must be the ultimate goal of the political evolution of Palestine and of its peoples. On the other hand, independence was not the sole purpose for which the present regime in Palestine was established. The terms of the international trust under which Palestine has been governed —and has to be governed, to our mind, to-day—includes as the primary objective the establishment of the Jewish national home. It is, to our mind, impossible to consider the problem of the independence of Palestine without direct reference, without an organic connection with that primary purpose of the mandate. We would therefore suggest that a phrase, contained in the original United States Government's proposal for the terms of reference, and which we see reproduced, with a slight modification of wording, in the proposal submitted by the Soviet delegation, should be added to paragraph 3 —namely, " to study various other issues connected with the problem of Palestine." The paragraph, therefore, in our submission, should read : " That the Committee shall bear in mind the principle that independence for the population of Palestine should be the ultimate purpose of any plan for the future of that country, and various other issues connected with the problem of Palestine." I should also like to comment on paragraph 6, which says : " That the Special Committee shall give most careful consideration to the interests of all the inhabitants of Palestine and also to the religious interests in Palestine of Islam, Jewry, and Christendom." Naturally, we have not the slightest objection to the underlining of the basic historical fact that Palestine is a land holy to the three faiths, and that all the three faiths have religious interests in it. But coupled with emphasis put on that positive point, there is here a suggestion that what is also basic is the interests of all the inhabitants of Palestine. Naturally, these interests are fundamental, and fully relevant to the purpose of the inquiry, but again, I would submit, not they alone. It is in the interests of the Jewish people which is also fundamentally relevant to the purpose of the inquiry, and we should like this stated in paragraph 6—that is to say, that the paragraph should read : " That the Special Committee shall give most careful consideration to the interests of the Jewish people and of all the inhabitants of Palestine, and also to the religious interests in Palestine of Islam, Jewry, and Christendom." Should this information not .be found acceptable, we would then alternatively suggest to limit this paragraph merely to the stressing of the religious interests of the three faiths, and to delete the reference to the interests of the inhabitants of Palestine, which may well be accepted, as going without saying, as a subject which must be fully present in the committee's mind. I should like to add that in Article 80 of the Charter of the United Nations the rights of all peoples in territories under mandate, pending the transformation of mandates under trusteeship, have been insured. While the committee is now going to study the problem created, we submit that it would not be right and proper to appear to prejudge the issue by disregarding the rights involved of all the peoples that have to-day, a stake in the country's future. I should like to conclude by saying that the Jewish Agency for Palestine and the organized Jewish community in Palestine are most sincerely anxious to co-operate in the inquiry upon which the United Nations