MONDAY, SEPTEMBER 29, 1947. Palestine

Press, Volume LXXXIII, Issue 25301, 29 September 1947, Page 6

MONDAY, SEPTEMBER 29, 1947. Palestine

The British Government’s decision, announced to the United Nations General Assembly by the British Colonial Secretary (Mr A. Creech Jones), is both wise and necessary. To relinquish the Palestine mandate is wise because it will make the problem of Palestine both more urgent and more real to the United Nations; it is necessary because, while Britain retains the mandate,, she must be the main instrument to enforce any settlement decided on by the* United Nations. And no settlement is likely to be acceptable to both Arabs and Jews.

The majority report of the United Nations Special Committee on Palestine suggested that for a transitional (and tentative) period of two years Britain should carry on the administration under the United Nations with the assistance, if de.sired, of one or more members of the United Nations. During the two years 150,000 Jewish immigrants would be admitted to the Jewish State; if the transitional period should continue for more than two years immigration should then be stepped up to 60,000 a year. The form of partition recommended by the majority report is unusual. Seven zones would be created. Jerusalem and the surrounding villages would form one autonomous zone administered directly by the United Nations through a non-Palestinian governor. The Arab and Jewish States would each consist of three zones, none of them contiguous but -having contact one with another at the points of intersection. The “ Economist ” estimated that of some 10,000 square miles of Palestine, about 6400 would be in the Jewish State; in the Arab State there would be 620,000 Arabs and 15,000 Jews and in the Jewish State 550,000 Jews and 500,000 Arabs. A joint economic council, designed to preserve the economic unity of the country, presupposes a measure of collaboration between the two States. The federation plan of the minority assumes a much greater degree of collaboration and assumes that it could be achieved virtually at once. The boundaries proposed by the minority are much more favourable to the Arabs than those of the majority report. Jaffa and the western part of the Beersheba subdistrict, including Beersheba town and a strip along the Egyptian frontier, are awarded by the minority plan to the Arab State. The “ Economist ’’ summed up the territorial provisiqns of the two schemes, and their points of appeal to the respective communities, in .these terms:

The minority plan concedes so mitfh both in form and substance of tne Arabs’ own depiauds that it is curious to find it bracketed with the majority plan by the Mufti’s office in Cairo in one sweeping rejection. The majority plan, on the other hand, goes further in appeasing the Zionists than any previous plan for partition. Even the Jewish Agency plan discussed by the Woodhead Commission in 1938 was less drastic. The Jewish State is given some two-thirds of Palestine’s total area, both its ports, most of its vital water supplies, most of the Arab as well as the Jewish citrus plantations, 45 per cent, of its Arab and 91 per cent, of its Jewish population. With the important exception of the Dead Sea potash works, nearly all Palestine’s industry, including most of the more important Arab industries as well as those set up by foreign enterprise (neither Arab nor Jewish) would be in the Jewish State, although this result would be mitigated by thje provision of an economic union aind joint operation of the ports and railways.

The majority report is favourable to the Jews in an even more important respect. It permits unlimited Jewish immigration once the Jewish State is established; and this, above all, is what the Arabs fear. The minority report suggests that immigration policy, during a transitional period of three years, should be determined by an international commission and thereafter left to the federal government. As it is recommended that the form of the federal government should be determined by a constituent assembly elected “by popular vote ” and therefore presumably having an Arab majority, ip this case immigration policy would be determined by the wishes of the Arabs.

Anxious as-Britain js to lay down a burden that has become intolerable, she has responsibilities to both communities which must have made the new decision a reluctant one. Yet neither of these proposed solutions, nor any compromise between them, is likely to lead to a peaceful transfer of power in Palestine. Britain, as Mr 'Creech Jones and other spokesmen have said, is prepared to assist in implementing any agreed plan. She may be prepared to assist other members of the United Nations in enforcing a United Nations settlement, provided she is convinced of its inherent justice. She cannot be expected to do more.