DECISIVE HOUR AT HAND

Otago Daily Times, Issue 26773, 17 May 1948, Page 5

DECISIVE HOUR AT HAND

British Withdrawal Signals Full-scale Attacks EGYPT AND TRANSJORDAN ACT N.Z.P.A. —Copyright. Rec. 10 p.m. LONDON, May 15. The Arab League General Secretariat has issued a formal declaration of a “ state of war ” against Palestine Jewry, says the Associated Press correspondent in Damascus. The Secretariat requested the public to accept current developments in the spirit of the state of war which the Arab countries were facing “ against an enemy prepared for many years to seize all Palestine by force.” Reuter’s Damascus correspondent reports that King Abdullah, of Transjordan, announced that the Balfour declaration had disappeared with the end of the British mandate. He added that the Arabs rejected both partition and trusteeship. They denied the Jewish claim to independence in Palestine. Egypt has decided to intervene in P alestine “ to put an end to the massacres, and establish a respect for the laws of universal morality and the principles recognised by the United Nations,” the Egyptian Government declared in Notes to Britain, the United States, France, Belgium, Poland, and China. The Notes added that the intervention was not directed against Palestine Jews but against Zionist terrorist bands. It was officially announced in Haifa that British troops will not intervene in the Palestine fighting unless the clashes threaten the British withdrawal. The British Army announced that it has completed the evacuation of all its forces from Jerusalem. Arab armies moved from Transjordan at one minute past midnight to liberate Palestine from Zionism, state reports received in Beirut from Amman. King Abdullah led his troops into Palestine over the Allenby bridge and fired the traditional first shot in the invasion. A call for a Jehad (holy war) against Palestine Jews was broadcast last night by Sheikh Mamoun al Shinawi, rector of Alazhar University and spiritual leader of Moslems throughout the world, reports the Associated Press correspondent in £!airo. “ The decisive hour has come,” he told the Arabs. “To-day is your day. The whole world is watching you. Unless you rise and fight your enemy and are ready to die for God, humiliation will be your lot. He concluded with a prayer for an Arab victory and added, quoting from the Koran: “Twenty with patience can overcome 200, and 100 can overcome 1000 with patience.