UNO PALESTINE INQUIRY

Press, Volume LXXXIIi, Issue 25214, 19 June 1947, Page 7

UNO PALESTINE INQUIRY

COMMITTEE’S FIRST PUBLIC SESSION JEWISH AGENCY LEADER’S EVIDENCE (N.Z. Press Association—Copyright) JERUSALEM, June 17. At its first public session to-day, Dr. Moshe Shertok, head of the Jewish Agency’s Political Department, told the United Nations Special Committee oh Palestine that when Zionists referred to Palestine they excluded Transjordan from the Jewish claims. Dr. Shertok denied that Jewish land purchases in Palestine had created a class of landless Arabs. He said that all Arabs whose land was bought by Jews were resettled elsewhere. It was impossible for Jews tqzbe integrated among Arabs in the same way as conditions compelled them to be in other countries. Giving examples of Jewish-Arab co-operation. Dr. Shertok referred to the number of Arabs working under a Jewish mayor in Haifa, the joint Jewfsh-Arab control of the Palestine citrus fruit industry, and the repent joint strikes by Jewish and Arab Government and military employees. Questioned by Chief Justice E. Sandstrom, the chairman, about JewishBritish co-operation. Dr Shertok said that the British White Paper restricting immigration had knocked the cornerstone out of co-operation. Hie Stern Gang, in a message to the Committee said: “Unless the British are called upon to respect the United Nations’ appeal for a truce, we shall be compelled to adopt more drastic measures.”

The Irgun Zvai Leumi to-day distributed pamphlets in Tel Aviv warning the authorities that it would give them only a few days to commute the death sentences on three terrorists who were concerned in the Acre prison break.