New York Press Critical of American Stand on Palestine at Security Council

While members of the United Nations and high officials of the U.N. Secretariat continued to be confused over the U.S. attitude on the Palestine issue as outlined before the Security Council by Senator Austin, the New York press today insisted. on the necessity for sending an international armed force to Palestine to help in the implementation of the partition decision.

The New York Times, referring to Austin’s statement that “the situation does not permit any further delay,” said: “Austin proposes prompt action to ascertain whether or not the threat to peace is sufficiently grave to warrant the first resort to military measures on the part of the United Nations. We think that events have already given the answer to this question and that the answer calls for action,” Who editorial said. “Palestine is in a shadow zone between two regimes.”

The New York Herald Tribune says editorially that the American stand is “wobbling,” and is not likely to impress the Arabs or the other members of the Security Council. “It will not counter-balance the proposal for another committee, which can only convince the Arabs that they have partition on the ropes and that with a continuation of their present tactics they may even finish it for good.” The paper calls upon the United States to say with “forthrightness” what it will do and what it will urge the Security Council to do before “Palestine slides into chaos, carrying the United Nations with it.”

The New York Post says that the U.S. statement at the Security Council is “an outrageous statement containing the very essence of betrayal.” The paper points out that “if the enforcement of the partition decision is not the business of the Security Council – the only United Nations organ empowered to use force – then it is the business of nobody and is meaningless,” The editorial says that the U.S. statement actually amounts to killing the partition decision and to taking the whole Palestine problem away from the Assembly and placing it effectively in British and Arab bands for settlement.

WISE ATTACKS U.N. STAND; COUNCIL FOR JUDAISM WANTS TRUSTEESHIP OVER PALESTINE

Rabbi Stephen S. Wise, in behalf of the American Jewish Congress, issued a statement declaring that the U.S. stand at the Security Council “is above everything else a tribute to the effectiveness of Arab violence and at the same time a confession that the United States accepts the necessity of reconsideration. The U.S. statement, Dr. Wise says, decides nothing except that the earlier decision of the General Assembly is unenforceable. “That is not a decision but a sheer surrender to the Arabs,” Rabbi Wise said.

The American Council for Judaism announced today that its president, Lessing J. Rosenwald, addressed a letter to the State Department calling for a United Nations trusteeship over all of Palestine as an alternative to the present situation, “if the national interests of the United States will be beat served by a complete review of the action taken November 29, and by an alternative decision more calculated to bring peace to that country.