AMERICAN RECOGNITION

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

AMERICAN RECOGNITION

UNITED NATIONS DELEGATES STAGGERED SITUATION RIDICULED N.Z.P.A.—Copyright WASHINGTON, Rec. 9 p.m. May 14. President Truman announced tonight that the United States has recognised the new Jewish State in Palestine. The statement said that ihe United States had been informed that the Jewish State had been proclaimed in Palestine, and recognition was requested by the Provisional Government thereof. “ The United States recognises the Provisional Government as the defacto authority of the new State of Israel,” the President's statement said. American correspondents at Lake Success report that the closing session of the United Nations General Assembly on Palestine was staggered by the news that the United States had recognised the de facto Jewish State of Israel. The United Prens correspondent says that on and off the floor diplomats ridiculed the position of the United States, who pushed the historic Palestine partition programme through the General Assembly last November, summoned an emergency session to reverse the partition action, and then acted abruptly to recognise the Jewish State.

The Herald-Tribune correspondent asserts that the consensus of opinion among United Nations delegations friendly to the. United States was that Mr Truman’s announcement, was prompted by two considerations—the desire to beat Russia in extending recognition to the Jewish State, and considerations of domestic politics in an election year. In an editorial, however, the Herald-Tribune says that in the recognition of Israel, Mr Truman has recognised an inescapable, fact. However oddly his act may fit into the curious pattern of American diplomacy in the Near East, this step is the only one consonant with American tradition and with the realities of the According to the New York Times, Mr Andrei Gromyko indicated at Flushing that the Soviet Union would recognise the new State. The Times also carried a report from a Washington correspondent that Britain proposed to withhold recognition pending a stabilisation of the Palestine situation, and indications that Israel was in control of its borders. Guatelama's United Nations delegate announced that Guatemala formally recognised' the Jewish State of Israel. New Zealand voted in favour of both the Assembly’s resolutions—to appoint a United Nations mediator for Palestine, and not to accept the United States proposal to establish a trusteeship type of regime for Jerusalem. -