Acting on the suggestion of its president, general Andrew L. McNaughton of Canada, the U.N. Security Council today decided mere?y to take of the first monthly report of the Palestine Commission and to post-##ne discussion on the Palestine question until the Commission submits its special report ca the Palestine security situation. The report la expected to be submitted within a few days.
Syrian representative Faris El Khoury attempted to challenge the legality of the Palestine commission and its right to submit reports. He argued that the five remembers of the Commission were appointed by the president of the General Assembly whereas they should have been elected by a secret ballot.
El Khoury also argued that any discussion of the Palestine report would be premature.” The General Assembly, he said, had merely recommended the Palestine partition plan to member states. “Have the member states really adopted the plan?” ##e queried, adding that he did not believe they had.
Soviet delegate Andrei Gromyko asked whether he understood the president of the Security Council to suggest that the monthly reported of the Palestine Commission be discussed together with the special report, When McNaughton answered affirmatively, Gromyko agreed to the suggestion.
McNaughton added that the security report will be circulated shortly and will be included in the draft of the provisional agenda of the Security Council “as soon as it is practicable, having in mind that proper opportunity must be given to members of the Council to study it, before it is discussed in the Council.”
JEWISH AGENCY INFORMS U.N. OF ARAB AGGRESSION; OBJECTS TO PLAN FOR JERUSALEM
On the advice of the Implementation Commission, the Jewish Agency today submitted a memorandum to Secretary-General Trygve Lie formally the Arab countries neighboring Palestine with aggression.
The memorandum, which is documented with photographic proof, calls the attention of the Secretary-General to the fact that the Arab countries threaten the passes of Palestine and the Middle East. Under the provisions of the U.N. Charter, the Secretary-General has the power to direct such a charge to the attention of the Security Council.
The Agency today objected to a proposal by the United Nation working group on the city of Jerusalem that only citizens of the international city be allowed to serve on its Legislative Council.
The resolution adopted by the U.N. General Assembly provided that Arabs and Jews and other residents of Jerusalem might retain their citizenship in their respective states. But the draft statute issued last night, provides that while all residents may vote in the elections to the Legislative Council, only citizens of Jerusalem may serve on that body. Terming this a “very severe limitation, and hardly democratic,” the Jewish Agency urged that all residents of Jerusalem, irrespective of their citizenship, be permitted not only to vote, hut also to “be elected.
The draft statute provides that seats in the Legislative Council “be allotted to Arabs, Jews and “others” on a fixed “basis, irrespective of the numerical strength of the three groups. The Agency termed this a departure from the principles laid down In the U.N. Palestine resolution in that it makes for discrimination. Since “other” residents for the most part identify themselves with Arab Christians, the Arabs would predominate under the proposed arrangement and the Jews, a majority of the population, would be reduced to a minority status, the Agency maintained. The “other” residents would be given 10 percent of the Legislative seats under the statute although they constitute only one percent of the population.
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.
