FOUR-POINT PLAN

Press, Volume LXXXII, Issue 24866, 4 May 1946, Page 7

FOUR-POINT PLAN

The Secretary-General of the Arab League (Abdul Rahman Atzam) commenting in Cairo on Mr Attlee’s reported inquiry to the United States regarding the extent to which America is prepared materially to implement the committee’s recommendation, said: “If I were in the place of the British I would not use my arms for something which is not my business nor my decision. It is very easy to sit in America and ask the British to fight the Arabs in Palestine. The position of the British is really critical because they have to use force to carry out this policy.” Abdul Assam said that the BritishAmerican Committee’s report was disappointing to all the Arabic East. A committee consisting of Zionist extremists would have drafted a similar report. He emphasised that it was easy for the United States to recommend the wrong policy without actually participating in its execution. “Will Britain, who has already paid for her numerous mistakes in Palestine, accept the responsibility for the execution of this policy end endeavour to carry out the pacification of Palestine—and behind Palestine the Arabic and Islamic world—in order to support a policy contrary to her undertaklngr* he asked. Abdul Azzam said that he to-day visited the British and American Ambassadors to express the objections of the Arab world and to beg them to consider the matter very carefully before supporting the Anglo-American proposals. Newspapers in Iraq, inside black

borders, published the committee's recommendations and called on the nation to stand by to defend the homeland by all means. The Left Wing National Democratic Party published a demand that Iraq should break off relations with Britain and the United States if they adopt the recommendations. Cabinet already has before it estimates in men and money of heavy immediate and long-term commitments to which Mr Attlee referred in his statement on Palestine, states the diplomatic correspondent of “The Times,” in order that terrorism and the use of illegal armies by Jews and Arabs should be resolutely suppressed, as the committee's report recommends. Jewish newspapers in Palestine are indignant over Mr Attlee's statement that private armies must be disbanded before any steps are taken to implement the Palestine report. One paper calls this “political blackmail'* and declares that for the Jews to obey it would be gambling with their lives and security. A message from New York states that a member of the Security Council declared to-night that there was a very strong possibility that the Palestine question would be brought before the Council. A Correspondent states that this spokesman declined to be identified, and he would not say who would bring the matter before the Council. He indicated, however, that action might be taken by an Arab State in the United Nations Organisation.