Partition With Reservations

Northern Advocate, 18 October 1947, Page 7

Partition With Reservations

(New Zealand Official News Service.) (Rec. 2.30 p.m.) NEW YORK, Oct. 17. The Assembly must not lightly agree to partition and wash its hands of the extremely difficult consequential problems that would obviously be involved, said Sir Carl Berendsen, leader of the New Zealand delegation, speaking before the Palestine Committee of the United Nations Assembly on partition proposals. Each member of the United Nations must take its full and proportionate share, not only of responsibility for the decision that would be reached, but for its proper and orderly implementation.

It was the New Zealand :Government’s earnest hope that it would yet be found possible, in the light of discussions in the Assembly and of developments as they occur, to arrive at a just settlement of this grave and serious problem. The New Zealand Government had come to the conclusion that, in the present circumstances, there was no acceptable alternative to the principle of partition, but the New Zealand delegation would reserve to itself the right to discuss in detail at the appropriate time the implications of such a policy, the boundaries involved and all subsidiary questions, such as those relating to economics and immigration.

DETERMINED TO WITHDRAW Britain reaffirmed its intention to wind up the Palestine mandate and withdraw from the country in a limited time at today’s meeting of the United Nations Assembly's Palestine Committee.

The British Colonial Secretary (Mr A. Creech Jones) told the committee that Britain would not accept responsibility for enforcing any United Nations decision, either alone or in the major role.

Mr Creech Jones said his Government would continue to make available what experience and knowledge it possessed for the use of the United Nations in its search for a solution to the Palestine problem.

N.Z. SUPORTS PARTITION Sir Carl Berendsen (New Zealand) said his delegation had decided that there was no alternative to paritition, but at the same time hoped that a solution might yet be reached by agreement between all parties concerned. Emir Feisal (Saudi Arabia) said the Arabs absolutely rejected the partition plan and denounced American support of the Zionists.

“If America's motive is humanitarian, why does she not open her gates to those destitute refugees?” he asked. “After all, the United States is richer and more spacious than PalestinCi which is already congested with these foreign aggressors.

What would be the' position of the United States Government and the American people if some foreign country’s Parliament passed a law urging the opening of the immigration gates to refugees simply because the United States is vast and can absorb millions of people? “Parition will afford nothing but constant conflict and continuous disturbances which may eventually spread bevond Palestine’s borders.

The Syrian and Egyptian delegations submitted motions calling on the United Nations to defer a decision until the International Court of Justice had been given an opportunity to rule: —

(1) Whether it lies within the competence of the General Assembly to recommend either partition or federalisation of Palestine. (2) Whether it lies within the right of any member state or group of states to implement any of the proposed solutions without the consent of the people of Palestine.