TRUCE SOUGHT IN PALESTINE

Press, Volume LXXXIV, Issue 25445, 17 March 1948, Page 5

TRUCE SOUGHT IN PALESTINE

BIG FOUR APPEAL TO ARABS AND JEWS LEAGUE STATES ASKED TO CO-OPERATE (N.Z. Press Asaoclation—Copyright) (Rec. 11 p.m.) NEW YORK, March 15. The Big Four, to-day called on the Palestinian Arabs and Jews to say by to-morrow whether they would enter into a cease-fire pact. A scheduled meeting of the Security Council was postponed to give the disputants time to answer. The #Big Four also decided to ask the six Arab countries in the United Nations to agree to co-operate in arranging a truce. The truce move came after the Arab Higher Committee’s representative (Isa Nakhleh) had repeated before a closed meeting of the Big Four that the committee would not accept (the partition plan. Isa Nakhleh said that the committee wished to emphasise that the only solution compatible with the ideals of the United Nation* Charter, and the only solution guaranteeing peace and security in Palestine, would be the formation of one independent'State for the whole of Palestine. Such a State would include adequate safeguards for ihinorities. U.N. Commission Reports Unless security is restored in Palestine it will be impossible to implement the General Assembly’s resolution for partition of the Holy Land, says the Palestine Commission, which has reported to the Security Council on information received from the cohimission’s advance party in Jerusalem. “Present indications point to the inescapelble conclusion that ‘ when the mandate terminates Palestine is likely to suffer Severely from administrative chaos’ and widespread strife and bloodshed,” the report says. It adds that Arab resistance makes it impossible to establish a provisional council of Government in the proSosed Arab State by April 1, and that 101 gh the commission has already taken preliminary steps to select a Jewish provisional council this will be unable to carry out its functions before the mandate ends. The report describes Britain’s refusal to permit tke preliminary organisation of militias as unsatisfactory, and says that municipal police forces would be “an inadequate device.” It therefore concludes that only by the creation -an-international force for Palestine can the Situation be met.