President Roosevelt never believed that the establishment of a Jewish Commonwealth in Palestine was in any sense “hostile” to the Arab peoples, Summer Welles, former Under-Secretary of State, says today in his syndicated column on international affairs in the New York Herald Tribune. “On the contrary, to believed that such a solution would prove beneficial to both Jews and Arabs,” Mr. Welles discloses.
The former Under-Secretary of State emphasizes that the United States Government is definitely committed to the establishment of a Jewish National Home in Pales- tine. He urges that the British Government should, under Article 77 of the United Nations Charter, transfer its mandate over Palestine to the International Trusteeship Council as soon as the Council is established. “Until then,” he adds, “if large scale immigration into Palestine is to be permitted, the United States should share in the tesk of keeping the peace in that area.”
“The commonwealth of Palestine,” Welles writes, “is not going to be established through any unilateral armed imposition on the part of the British Government. It will not be created as a result of mere protestations of sympathy on the part of the United States. The commonwealth will only come into being when the United Nations Organization decides, as it must, that the establishment of a Jewish commonwealth in Palestine is essential to world peace and to world stability. Unless the International Trusteeship Council to be set up by the United Nations Organization is charged with the obligation of carrying out such a decision, the commonwealth of Palestine will continue to be an ideal and not a reality. Only the United Nations Organization itself, representing the concerted determination of the free peoples of the world, will possess the necessary authority to achieve a final solution of the Palestine problem.”
RECOMMENDS UNRESTRICTED IMMIGRATION TO PALESTINE BE PERMITTED
As soon as the Council is intrusted with a trusteeship over Palestine, unrestricted immigration should be permitted, Mr. Welles urges. Immigration should thereafter be interrupted only if the International Trusteeship Council, or the future government of Palestine, decides that such restriction is temporarily required for economic reasons. “Such authoritative surveys as Dr. Lowdermilk’s admirable report prove that immigration can be greatly increased over the year if an intensive program of irrigation and of power development is undertaken,” he says.
“From the moment the Council assumes jurisdiction the United Nations Organization should make available whatever armed force may be required to give assurance of security to all inhabitants of Palestine,” Mr. Welles recommends. “The Council should thereupon summon representative Jewish and Arab leaders for consultation as to the most desirable solution.
“Should it prove impossible for the International Trusteeship Council, after full consultation with both Jewish and Arab leaders, to obtain their agreement to whatever solution it considers most equitable and desirable, the United Nations Organization should nevertheless decree that its decision be carried out,” Mr. Welles suggests. “Once this step has been taken the International Trusteeship Council should set up a broadly representative provisional government in Palestine and intrust it with all necessary authority until such time as free elections can be held and an independent and democratic government can commence to function.”
Mr. Welles believes that unless “the United Nations Organization immediately assumes the responsibility for finding a solution, the danger of an outbreak in the Near East is very real. Unless all of the major powers share in the responsibility for the settlement to be reached, the whole of the Near East will become a fertile field for power politics.
“No people in the history of mankind have suffered more grievously than the Jewish people. If a free and peaceful world is within our grasp, they must receive something better than illusory promises–something more tangible than hollow assurances of sympathy,” he concludes.
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.
