ARABS DETERMINED

Gisborne Herald, Volume LXXIV, Issue 22241, 29 January 1947, Page 6

ARABS DETERMINED

NO PARTITION “FUTILE AND UNJUST” EXASPERATION REACHED LONDON, Jan. 27. Mr. Jamal Husseini, leader of the Palestine Arabs, told the Palestine conference when it resumed to-day that it was a foregone conclusion that the Palestine Arabs are determined to reject partition and resist it with all the means at their disposal. A Jewish State, he said, would be a “running sore and another Balkans in the Middle East.” The inflation of the Jewish claims from a modest spiritual home to a Jewish State, which they were seeking to enforce by terrorism, had driven the Arabs to the point of exasperation. Mr. Husseini added that Britain had entered the Holyland as allies and deliverers of its people, not as conquerers. However, during the last 25 years Palestine had been denied the right to selfgovernment in violation of pledges as well as the covenant of the League of Nations. An autocratic administration had been established with the primary aim of assisting the Jews in their invasion of Palestine.

The Balfour Declaration, upon which the policy was based, was a vague, onesided encouragement by Britain to alien Jews in the absence and complete ignorance of the Arab owners of the country. The Jews enjoyed privileges of a State within a State, while the Arabs had no say in the Government of their country.

The futility, injustice and impracticability of partition had already been proved. The creation of an alien Jewish State would destroy the Arabs’ territorial continuity and national unity which constituted a natural bulwark for Middle East peace.

The Foreign Secretary, Mr. Ernest Bevin, attended the conference from which the Jews were absent. The conference adjourned to enable the British Government to. study Mr. Husseini’s statement.