TRUSTEE PLAN

Ashburton Guardian, Volume 68, Issue 141, 27 March 1948, Page 5

TRUSTEE PLAN

PROPOSAL FOR PALESTINE

Truman Explains Change

(N.Z.P.A. —Copy right)

WASHINGTON, March 25

The United States would appeal to the Security Council to arrange an immediate truce conference between the Arabs and Jews to halt the bloodshed in Palestine, President Truman told a press conference to-day.

He gave a warning that unless emergency action was taken there would be consequences in Palestine of the gravest sort, involving the peace Q f the world.

The President said that the United States reversed its original stand for partition because partition could not be enforced without American troops. The proposal for a temporary United Nations trusteeship did not mean,the final abandonment of partition. “The trusteeship is not proposed .as a substitute for the partition plan, but as an effort to fill the vacuum soon to be created by the termination of the mandate,” said Mr Truman.' Asked whether the United States had requested Britain to continue in Palestine after May 15, Mr Truman said: “We did not want the British to leave. They were supposed to stay until August 15, but suddenly they got a notion, to leave on May 15. i do not know why.”

He aded emphatically: “I do not run the British Government either.” Afterwards British officials said that the President’s implication that Britain had agreed to stay in Palestine until August 15 and then changed its mind was “inaccurate.” . ■

Anglo-U-S. Negotiations

Reliable United Nations sources report that special State Department emmissaries are in London trying to negotiate British support of an American scheme for a United Nations trusteeship in Palestine and that Britain has reacted favourably so far. The United Press says that the report dovetailed with the theory of many observers at Lake Success that the American formula for junking partition hinged largely on a hope that Britain could be persuaded to extend its deadline for leaving Palestine. The Secretary of State (Mr G. C. Marshall) told a closed session of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee yesterday that the United States had decided to'‘reverse its stand on partition, because it feared it would start another world war. Members of the committee said Mr Marshall hold ont. the hope that the abandonment of partition might avert the need for fhe maintenance of a large.international force in Palestine. He also indicated that Britain might relent in her decision to surrender the mandate and withdraw from Palestine. Palestine Mail Suspended The announcement by the Palestine Post Office that certain mails will b suspended next month lias provoked' strong Jewish criticism that the Government is acquiescing in chaos after the British mandate ends, and even before, says Ihe Jerusalem correspondent of “The Times.”

The reply of the Post Office is. that it asked the United Nations Commission to accept responsibility for continuing 1 mails after the mandate, but “as the responsibility was not accented bv the Commission, the Post Office had no alternative but to 1 login the suspension of services.’’ The correspondent’s comment is that iii this, as in many other issues, Palestine is falling between two stools— Britain’s determination to end her responsibility and the United Nations inability to take them up.

RIVAL APPEALS STATEMENTS IN JERUSALEM (Rec. 9.30 a.m.) JERUSALEM, Mar. 26 Abdul Kadar Nusseini, commander of the Arab forces in Jerusalem, lias ordered the Arabs to intensify their war against Zionism. “Don’t be swayed by temporary political triumphs—this is our opportunity to get the whole of Palestine by military action,” he said. A Jewish agency spokesman to-day suggested that 10,000 Danish and Norwegian troops, now stationed in Northern Germany, should garrison Jerusalem, when the British mandate expires on May 15. The spokesman stated that this would prevent the forthcoming “battle of Jerusalem,” guarantee life and property and protect the holy places of all religions. “It is our duty,” he added, “to warn the world what may happen in Jerusalem, through no fault of the Jew's, if something is not done.” Truce for Procession Reuter’s correspondent says that Arabs and Jews observed a tacit truce in Jerusalem to-day, while a procession of Roman Catholic clergy and a few hundred laymen passed along the Via Dolorosa (Way of the Cross) and through the narrow' cobbled streets of the old city. The procession was small, compared with other years. No British troops participated. Elsewhere in Palestine six Jew's and four Arabs were, killed to-day. British troops found the bodies of 16 Jews killed by Arabs in the attack between Jerusalem and Tel-Aviv.