The British Government hopes that Jews and Arabs in Palestine will reach an agreement which will avert the necessity for a rapid evacuation of British troops and the resultant dangers and dislocations in administration until another authority takes control, a Foreign Office spokesman said today.
He added that arrangements for the withdrawal have been made by all departments concerned and that they will implement their plans as soon as the final decision is made. He confirmed that the Foreign Office had received a “flood” of Arab protests concerning U.N. action on Palestine, but reiterated the official government de?al that Transjordan and Iraq desire to cancel treaties of alliance with Britain as ?result of the situation.
Izzeden Shawa Bey, head of the Arab political mission in London, today expressed agreement with Britain’s attitude at Lake Success. Speaking to a press conference, the Arab leader criticized both the U.S. and U.S.S.R. for favoring partition. When asked whether his failure to attack Britain meant that the Arabs approve the British stand, he said: “You may take it that way. This is the first time Britain has ?de a wholesome declaration consistent with Arab wishes.”
He asserted that the Arabs were not surprised by the Soviet’s endorsement of the UNSCOP majority. However, he violently attacked America for “falling into Rusa?’s trap,” by taking the same position. He reiterated the well-worn Arab threat of war if a U.N. decision is forced on the Palestine Arabs.
ANTI-SEMITISM RIFE AMONG TOP BRITISH OFFICIALS, INFLUENTIAL PERIODICAL SAYS
The influential business weekly, The Economist, in an editorial on Palestine today, charges bluntly that anti-Semitism flourishes in high official circles in Britain. In a remarkably outspoken article, the Economist declares that anti-Semitism is particularly evident in the War, Colonial and Foreign Offices. It specifically ?arges that the treatment afforded the Exodus Jews was not mere thoughtlessness but deliberate act “to teach them a lesson.”
The article states that Britain has by a sequence of events become legatee to ? tradition of European anti-Semitism. It warns that “antagonism to Jews in Palestine cannot be separated from antagonism to Jews in Britain.” It adds that it is possible to check anti-Semitism in London and Manchester while the newspapers re?rt violence resulting from the government’s attempts to enforce immigration laws in Palestine.
Asserting that “morally Zionism today holds the field in Jewry” without a ?se competitor, the magazine appeals to the government to use its announced forth?ming withdrawal from Palestine as a means of extricating itself from the position “archenemy” of Zionist aspirations into which it has maneuvered itself by a policy which has “hardly paid the expected dividends in Arab goodwill.
“The government must set an example by not yielding to anti-Semitism in high ?aces and the episode of the Exodus must never be allowed to happen again,” it con?udes.
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.
