BRITAIN ATTACKED

Otago Daily Times, Issue 26216, 29 July 1946, Page 5

BRITAIN ATTACKED

ACCUSED OF TERRORISM WORKING TO FORMULA (Rec. 10.15 p.m.) LONDON, July 27. Mr. Ben Gurion, chairman of the Jewish Agency, at a press conference attacked the authenticity of the telegrams mentioned in the White Paper on Palestine. He said the British policy was directed towards destroying the Jewish community in Palestine, and he indicated that the Jewish Agency would issue a “ Black Paper,” not to, refute the British document, but to list what he said had been acts of British terrorism.

Mr Gurion claimed that only one of the eight telegrams contained the names of the sender and addressee. He asked if Britain knew the identities of the persons connected with the others. He asserted that he had never received such a telegram as the eighth, in which he himself was named. He pointed out that the telegram said that Dr Shertok had instructed that the text of the broadcast for the Voice of Israel should be handed to Mr Gurion. Dr Shertok was with him in London at that time, and there would be no need for a telegram. “I won’t go so far as to say the telegrams are forgeries. but they are very queer,” he said. Mr Gurion alleged that the British .policy in the Middle East was shaped by “ Fascist reactionary feudalism groups centred in the .British Embassy in Cairo and the Middle East Army Command.” These groups found that the progress of the Jews menaced British policy. The groups were antiFrench. anti-Russian, and anti-Ameri-can, just as they were anti-Jewish. He claimed that Britain was using a formula to destroy the Jewish community in Palestine as follows:—“ First, they are to be disarmed, and then the Mufti’s people are to be turned loose on them. Few will survive, and at the last moment the British Army will be given the humanitarian role of protecting them.”