ARMING THE JEWS

Evening Post, Volume CXXXIII, Issue 135, 10 June 1942, Page 6

ARMING THE JEWS

LORD WEDGWOODS

AIM

VIGOROUS DEBATE

(Rec. 1 p.m.) LONDON, June 9, "I want to know whether we sit here by permission of the Foreign Office, or as Peers of the Realm," declared Lord Wedgwood, in initiating a debate in the House of Lords on the! advisability of arming the Jews in Palestine. ; Lord Cranborne had accused him of inciting Jews to violence in the broadcast reported on May 27, he said, but it was years since anything he had said i had been published in Palestine. "I j appealed directly to America because I am not playing a game in trying to get arms for the Jews. I told the Americans only the truth, because I wished to force the hands of thej Foreign Office." Lord Cranborne, Secretary for the Colonies, in reply, said that Lord Wedgwood's broadcast deliberately incited Jews, at a critical moment in the war to oppose by arms legally constituted authority. One could scarcely regard war between the Arabs and the Jews as likely to lead to a satisfactory solution of the Palestine problem. It was wicked to make such statements; it was mischievous and dangerous nonI sense. "He tells the Americans that I and my officials are Fascists, backing up the policy of the enemy. That is what the broadcast means, if it means anything at all; and that is: untrue. We do not intend to run away from our duty regarding Palestine."