The United Nations today received an affirmative reply from the Government of Israel to the Security Council’s cease-fire and stand-fast order. The reply was originally given by a Jewish representative to American vice-consul William C. Burdett in Jerusalem for transmission to the U.N.
The message declared that “the Provisional Government of Israel has ordered a cease-fire on all fronts as of eight o’clock Jerusalem time, May 24th. If the other side ceases fire at any earlier hour, then the Jewish cease-fire order cones into effect at that earlier hour. If after twenty hours, local Jerusalem time, the other side does not cease fire, the Jewish defense must continue.”
In a communication to the State Department Burdett said that the Jewish official further informed him that this announcement was made in Tel Aviv in response to the Security Council’s appeal for a cease-fire and that the Jerusalem front was included in this order which covers all of Palestine.
(In Washington the State Department announced that Thomas C. Wasson, American consul general in Jerusalem who died today of wounds received from a sniper’s bullets will be buried tomorrow in a Catholic cemetery across the street from the consulate.)
The Security Council’s cease-fire order was issued late last night after the numbers of that body rejected an American proposal to determine that the Arab invasion of Israel constituted a threat to and a breach of the peace under the terns of the U.N. Charter. Earlier, Sen. Warren Austin called the Arab states “aggressors” on the basis of their own replies to a Security Council questionnaire on the situation in Palestine. He warned that if there is not complete compliance with the ceases-fire order, the United States will revive its demand for the application, of sanctions against the aggressors.
U.N. circles were also deeply interested in informal talks which took place yesterday in London and Washington between British and American officials over the divergence in Palestine policies of the two major Western Powers. It was rumored here that Foreign Secretary Ernest Bevin would come to this country to speak with Secretary of State George C. Marshall on the problem. However, the Jewish Telegraphic Agency was informed in Washington today that there is no basis for the rumor.
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.
