British troops with bayonets fixed were posted at Jerusalem street corners today as 3,500 Jewish youths, chanting “No Surrender” marched by the Jewish Agency offices in a demonstration against the Palestine White Paper.
The youths paraded through Jerusalem to the suburb of Rehavia where they gathered in the Hehavia Gymnasium playground and, before a crowd of 3,000 onlookers, symbolically burned the White Paper.
Danger of a repetition of Thursday’s violence in Jerusalem’s shopping center threatened when shouts were raised by the crowd of “On to the District Offices!” The Government District Offices, on Jaffa Road, had been the center of the Thursday demonstration, which resulted in the death of a British constable and casualties to more than 100 Jews.
Troops equipped with machine guns and police armed with tear gas guns were stationed atop and inside the District Offices building to guard against a recurrence of the rioting. All midtown shops were closed and traffic was diverted by the police.
Returning to Jerusalem the demonstrators, now numbering 5,000, marched through Jaffa Road, parading three times past the Government District Offices, booing and shaking fists at the British flag. The crowd was skillfully handled by Jewish special policemen, linked arm in arm, and finally dispersed without untoward incident.
A special meeting of the Jerusalem Jewish Community, meanwhile, vigorously protested as unjustified the Thursday night raids by British police against its offices and the head quarters of the rabbinate.
Six Revisionists were under arrest in Tel Aviv following a demonstration broken up by police wielding batons. Four persons were seriously and 20 others slightly injured.
The 310 Jewish immigrants who debarked illegally near Ascalon on Friday have been taken to Haifa, where they are being detained at the Jewish Agency’s immigration hostel. It is understood they will be released tomorrow and their number deducted from the regular immigration schedule.
Spokesmen for the group related that immediately after landing and prior to the arrival of troops, the immigrants had been attacked by an Arab mob from a nearby village with knives, sticks and stones. Several of the immigrants were slightly wounded and three disappeared, of whom two were arrested yesterday. One named Arthur Weitz is still missing.
The party, it was stated, had been at sea for one month and had camped for some time on a desert island in the Mediterranean.
British retaliation against Jews for rioting on Thursday in which an English policeman was fatally wounded was reported. Six Jews who were brought to Hadassah Hospital late Friday night stated that they had been searched at gun-point by British in civilian clothing and beaten without cause. The Englishmen sprang at them out of the darkness, the injured Jews said, because street lights had been broken in Thursday’s demonstrations.
Plans of many Jews to visit the New York World’s Fair were disrupted as result of the Government’s action in barring the services of the Immigration Department offices to Jerusalem Jews for a month in reprisal for an incendiary fire on the premises Wednesday night. Special cases will be serviced at the immigration offices in Tel Aviv. Jewish quarters pointed out this was the first case of punitive racial discrimination in Government services.
Jewish responsibility for the death of the British policemen was denied by David Ben Gurion, chairman of the Jewish Agency Executive in Palestine, in a letter to Major General Robert H. Haining, General Officer in Command of British forces in Palestine, who yesterday warned Jewish leaders that forceful measures would be employed to suppress violence.
Deploring the policeman’s death, the Zionist leader declared: “For 60 years, especially during the three years of terrorism, the Jews’ way has been constructive building. They now face the breaking of promises and surrender to Arab terrorism. Thursday’s demonstrations marked the beginning of Jewish resistance. Jews will not be intimidated into surrender, even if their blood is spilled. The Jewish Agency places entirely on the Government the responsibility for whatever may occur in enforcing its policy.”
Meanwhile, two British officers were wounded in an encounter between a detachment of the Queens Royal West Surrey Regiment and an Arab band near Affin in Samaria. Police announced they have confiscated a thousand rifles, 400 firearms of other types and 70,000 cartridges in Palestine since last Sept. 1.
The Archive of the Jewish Telegraphic Agency includes articles published from 1923 to 2008. Archive stories reflect the journalistic standards and practices of the time they were published.
