JEWS AND ARABS AGAIN DISCUSS DEMILITARISATION

Greymouth Evening Star, 4 October 1948, Page 5

JEWS AND ARABS AGAIN DISCUSS DEMILITARISATION

(Rec 10.30 a.m.) LONDON, October 3.

Renewed conferences under the American Consul-General, Mr J. J. MacDonald, are being held between the Jews and Arabs in an attempt to secure the demilitarisation of Jerusalem, says the Associated press Jerusalem correspondent. Mr MacDonald is trying to get Jewish agreement to a plan which the Arabs have already accepted in principle. Mr MacDonald is reported to . be next on the Stern Gang’s assassination list. . . Maapostrophers, the pamphlet ol the outlawed Stern Gang, which used to threaten the British in Palestine and announce the gang’s killings, appeared on the walls of Tel Aviv for the first time since the declaration of the Jewish State, says the Associated Press Tel Aviv correspondent. In it the Stern Gang admitted responsibility for the assassination of Count Bernadotte and threatened “all other foreigners who were in Palestine to impede and try to govern Israel.”

Ready for War or Peace King Abdullah of Transjordan told a mass meeting of several thousand Palestine refugees in Amman that he was ready for either war or peace. The meeting gave King Abdullah power to act for Palestine and adopted 12 resolutions attacking the new Palestine Arab Government at Gaza. Egyptian reports from Gaza earlier said that Haj Arnim el Husseini, the Grand Mufti of Jerusalem, had been elected president of the National Council of Palestine, which later, by 64 votes to 'll, expressed its confidence in the new Palestine Arab Government. A Palestine Arab Higher Executive bulletin said that the National Assembly of the new Palestine Arab Government had declared the independence of all Palestine, says the Associated Press correspondent in Cairo. The bulletin added that the assembly considered the Jews “aggressive intruders.” Husseini Detained

“The well-informed Cairo independent weekly magazine, Akbar el Yom, says that King Abdullah has detained in Amman, the capital of Transjordan, Jamal el Husseini, who is Foreign Minister in the newlyformed Palestine Arab Government set up at Gaza,” says Reuter’s Cairo correspondent. “The magazine says that Jamal ei Husseini visited King Abdullah to gain the King’s recognition of the new Palestine Arab Government. It adds: ‘Jamal el Husseini failed, as he was preparing to leave Amman, King Abdullah issued orders that he should be detained.’ . “The magazine carries a number of items emphasising the extent of the split between King Abdullah and the Arab leaders. It says that the Lebanese Foreign Minister cabled to King Abdullah, holding him responsible ‘for the consequences of breaking the unity of the Arab League by his persistent refusal to recognise the Palestine Arab Government.’ ”

SOVIET SYMPATHY

(Rec 11 a.m.) _ x , k LONDON, October 3.

The Soviet Union’s sympathies are with Israel not “with the invading Arab legions commanded by British officers,” according to a letter from a leading Soviet author Ilya Ehrenburg. published in the German Socialist Unity organ, Neues Deutschsaid: “The Soviet Union as the first nation to acknowledge the new Jewish State has protested sharply against its aggressors. We feel sympathy for the struggle or the working class of Israel.