OPINION GROWING THAT BRITAIN SHOULD LEAVE PALESTINE SOON

Wanganui Chronicle, 19 January 1948, Page 5

OPINION GROWING THAT BRITAIN SHOULD LEAVE PALESTINE SOON

Recd. 5.30 p.m. London, Jan. 17. Opinion is growing that the British should leave Palestine as soon as possible, and the question -being debated is whether, if the United Nations Commission decided it cannot serve a useful purpose in Palestine without the backing of force the British mandate might be transferred on paper to the Commission in London or New York, says "The Times” Jerusalem correspondent. The Commission’s presence in Palestine, he points out, would have only a brief and formal significance. The Jewish State already virtually exists, the partition already has largely come about through the wedge of fear and hostility between Arabs *nd Jews, and the Arabs seem committed to force. Only an independent and powerful force at the command of the Commission could alter the intentions vt the Arabs to make trouble, and of the Jews to reply with more trouble. The view is sorrowfully held, the correspondent adds, that the best that can be hoped for is to safeguard Jerusalem, and that events elsewhere must take their course. Jerusalem messages say that armed Jews surrounded three Arab villages near Hebron, it is believed In retaliation for an Arab ambush near Surif. Arabs last night bombed a cafe in .a Jerusalem street and injured three Jewish girls.

Shootings and bombings by Jews and Arabs continued over a wit’*’ area, says the Associated Press Jerusalem correspondent. Arab bomb throwers penetrated the British-Jew-ish perimeter of Old Jerusalem and blew up a foodshop and killed,one Jew. Arabs killed two Jews durin? attacks on Jewish traffic leaving terrorised and virtually paralysed Haifa. The Haganah claimed that its forces blew up two Arab houses on the Tel Aviv-Jaffa border. Police reported that Jews made a major attack on the Arab village of Surif, In the Judean hills, and wounded six Arabs. Arabs ambushed attackers returning to their operational base and wiped out about half of them. The Arabs claim'that -*) Jews were killed. It is officially announced that British troops and police found the bodies of 35 Jews and four Arabs near Surif. Reuter’s Haifa correspondent says British artillery and machhie-auns turned back a large force of Syrian Arabs which entered Palestine, annarently to attack two Isolated Jewish settlements in Upper Galilee. Military sources said British troops had now replaced the Trans-Jordan frontier force, which has been manning the borders of Lebanon, Syria and Palestine.