Rabbi Samuel Thurman, of the United Hebrew Temple St. Louis, discussed Palestine with President Truman today and said he was “very each encouraged” as a result of the talk. He told reporters that he did not think the President had really departed from partition as the ultimate solution for the Palatine problem.
In response to questions, Rabbi Thurman said he thought the Jewish State should be established on May 16, but said he did not know whether the United States should recognize the new state. He said he thought a declaration of independence by the new state on May 16 would put things “in focus,”
Asked if he thought the President would lift the arms embargo, Rabbi Thurman said the subject did not come up, but said he thought such a move would be only fair since “we know for a fact” that the Arabs are getting arms from the British.
Thirty-six House Republicans from 15 states today wrote President Truman and the nine members of his Cabinet urging that the U.S. Government work towards establishing “a truce under fair conditions which could lead to a permanent settlement in Palestine.” To obtain these objectives they urged that the U.S. Government:
1. Lift the arms embargo until the truce is obtained or until the Arab forces from neighboring states are withdrawn and “foreign arms are no longer a factor in the Palestine fighting,”
2. Prepare to participate in any effective measures to protect Jerusalem send its environs and to put these areas under international control as already proposed by the U.S. representative at the U.N.
3. Support all U.N. efforts to apply such sanctions that are provided for in the Charter in order to bring about “compliance” with the General Assembly’s resolution to partition Palestine. The 36 Congressmen–substantially the same group that has several times in the past petitioned Secretary Marshall to clarify America’s Palestine policy–said they were writing the letter at present because the Palestine crisis affects “so many interests vital to the U.S. and the world’s hopes for peace,” They said that the continued and accelerated pace of the warfare in Palestine, the reported and admitted incursions into Palestine on a large scale of non-Palestinian Arabs and the de facto establishment of a Jewish state in Palestine” required the taking of the steps they outlined.
Moshe Shertok, Jewish Agency leader, told a meeting of the United Jewish Appeal here last night that partition was the only solution to the Palestine problem. Declaring the birth of a Jewish state “is inevitable,” Shertok told the 5,000 people who attended the meeting that “if the United Nations does not come to the aid of Palestine to prevent a threat to world peace, we will take up the challenge and fight alone.” Rabbi Jonah B. Wise and William Rosenwald, national co-chairmen of the U.J.A., also spoke.
A rally sponsored by the American Council for Judaism here, which was attended by 300 persons, heard Kermit Roosevelt, executive director of the Committee for Justice and Peace in Palestine, charge that the Jewish Agency allocated a very small percentage of the Palestine immigration certificates to European refugees. He said the Zionists repudiated the DP’s after having claimed that Zionism “would solve the DP problem.” Rabbis Morris Lazaron, of Baltimore, and Irving Reichert, of San Francisco, were among the other speakers at the meeting.
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.
