GRAVE: SITUATION

Greymouth Evening Star, 2 August 1946, Page 7

GRAVE: SITUATION

Palestine Discussions •in. London URGENT MEETING OF CABINET (Recd. 10.40 a.m.) LONDON, August 1. Five hours after landing in England the Prime Minister (Mr. Attlee) left Northholt areodrome outside London for Paris. He was airborne four minutes after arriving at the aerodrome. Mr. Attlee came to London this morning to attend an urgent Cabinet meeting on Palestine. Diplomatic observers state that this indicates that the Palestine situation has reached a grave stage. The Evening News political correspondent says that President Truman’s sudden decision to recall the American experts who have been working with their British colleagues on the four-zone plan has shocked the Cabinet. Efforts are being made to discover the underlying reasons for President Truman’s reluctance to support the plan as a basis for further negotiations. The British Ministers are anxious to summon a round-table conference with the Jewish and Arab representatives, but, if both sides cannot be persuaded to attend the same conference separate discussions will be held.

The Government believed combined' action with the United States to bel more potent and more likely to succeed than action by Britain alone, I declared Sir Stafford Cripps, resuming the House of Commons debate on Palestine. He added that the present temper of the Arab and Jewish peoples, exacerbated by' the terrorist outrages made compromise difficult. There was nothing to be gained, he said, by antagonising either side. Britain was equally anxious to maintain friendship with the Jews throughout the world and with the great Arab populations in the Middle East. The present situation in Palestine made impossible the bringing of Arabs and Jews together in a unitary government. The experts’ plan should not be regarded as a rigid final decision, but as an important stage in the effort to achieve Arab and Jewish collaboration in the government of their own country, said Sir Stafford. Mr. Churchill’s Views Mr. Churchill declared that if the United States did not share the burden of the Zionist cause Britain should give notice that the Palestine mandate would be returned to the United Nations and the country evacuted in a given period. He always intended to press the United States, which sat on the sidelines and criticised us, with perfect detachment of irresponsibility, to come to help Biitain on equal terms. The Jewish warfare against Britain would, if protracted, automatically release Britain from all obligations. He declared that the idea that the Jewish problem could be solved by a vast dumping of Jews in Palestine was too silly to consider, The idea of Jews living in Europe wheie the., belonged should not be given up too S °Mr. Churchill continued that the Government had weakened its position regarding Palestine by its precipitate abandonment of the treaty o rights in Egypt, particularly the Suez Canal. They were now forced to look for a good jumping-off place to pi feet the canal from outside Egyp • The Government could not be accuse ot having a national strategic mobte for wishing to retain its hold on I al eS Mr e ;Hall. replying to a question said he hoped that a meeting w th.the Arabs and Jews would be auangect in mid-August.