The Press MONDAY, SEPTEMBER 23, 1946. Palestine

Press, Volume LXXXII, Issue 24987, 23 September 1946, Page 4

The Press MONDAY, SEPTEMBER 23, 1946. Palestine

The invitations to the London conference on Palestine could not have been sent in any mood of confidence. The bitter background of controversy over the Jewish national home forbade all but a glimmer of hope that Jew and Arab would seek constructively to end—let alone succeed in ending—a situation intolerable to both races. But such hope as then prevailed receded when the conference met. Though all the States of the Arab League attended, the Palestine Arabs refused to participate. So, too, did the Jewish Agency and other bodies representative of Jewish opinion; and the boycott by Jews and Palestine Arabs has still to be lifted. The absence of the Palestine Arabs—they would not attend because their spiritual leader, the Mufti of Jerusalem, was hot invited—might not be crucial, for the Arab League is there to speak for them. But certainly there can be no agreed solution, nor the prospect of one, so long as the Jews remain outside. Nevertheless, the situation may not yet be hopeless. It is still too early to say that the Jews and the Palestine Arabs will maintain their boycott. The Palestine Arabs have been pressed to attend by the rulers of Saudi Arabia and Transjordan, and by the President of Syria. It may, too, prove an impelling factor that, as the “Man- “ Chester Guardian ” has observed, the States of the Arab League are not nearly so much concerned about Palestine as the Palestine Arabs like to pretend, and would be happy to see the matter settled so that they could concentrate on more important affairs in an area of which Palestine forms a very small corner. In spite of Hussein Khalidi’s denial that the Higher Arab Committee is about to reconsider its decision, the outcome of the talks to which the Mufti has urgently summoned the committee will be awaited with interest. But, however the doubt may be resolved, there is no question that the Jewish Agency is having second thoughts. It refused to attend the conference unless the British Government agreed, first, to allow the agency to choose its representatives freely and, second, to accept as the basis for discussion, in place of the federal plan recommended by the ■ British and American experts who studied the Anglo-American committee’s report, the agency’s own scheme for partition. On Thursday the Zionist Inner Council met to consider again whether it should send delegates to the conference. Before the meeting, moreover, a spokesman said that, on these two points, there was no difference of opinion witljin the Zionist movement. After the meeting, which wais said to have reached no decision, the spokesman repeated that the agency would enter the London conference if it were free to choose its representatives; but apparently, said nothing of the second condition. It is a curious and, for the present at least, heartening omission.