The U.S. has informed six Arab Governments that it is “gravely disturbed at the present course of developments in Palestine” and has asked each of the Arab Governments to cooperate to the fullest extent “as a fellow member of the U.N.” in the cease-fire resolution adopted May 22 by the U.N. Security Council, the State Department disclosed today.
Instructions to this effect were telegraphed yesterday to the American diplomatic representatives in Egypt, Iraq, Syria, Lebanon, Saudi Arabia and Yemen to be communicated to the head of state or foreign minister in each of the governments concerned. Similar instructions were sent to Acting Vice-Consul William C. Burdett in Jerusalem to communicated to a representative of the government of Transjordan. The United States has no diplomatic representative in Transjordan, it was explained.
Reports circulating here today state that the U.S. is considering making a second demand to the Lebanese Government to release 41 Americans seized last week at Beirut following Lebanon’s rejection of an earlier State Department note. A Department spokesman said that the Lebanese Government’s reply was under “active consideration. “
(A dispatch from Beirut quoted U.S. Minister Lowell Pinkerton as saying he will ask Lebanon ton permit the detained Americans, all of whom are Jewish, to return “to the U.S. or to go to any other country except Palestine. “)
Senator William F. Knowland told the Senate today that it was time for the United Nations to demand a truce in Palestine and suggested that if the Arabs did not agree to such a truce, sanctions should be applied to the “aggressor nations. “
Legislation to send military and economic assistance to Israel on the same basis as American aid to Greece will be introduced in Congress tomorrow be Rep. Jacob Javits of New York. Rep. Adolph Sabath of Illinois said he has asked the House Appropriations Committee to write safeguards into the European Recovery Program to prevent any E.R.P. funds being “used for the support of Arab nations directly or indirectly. ” Sabath made public the text of a letter to Committee Chairman John Taber, whose group must provide funds for the Marshall Plan, declaring that:
“I protest against the use of American funds to finance attacks on Israel by Transjordan, a British dependency. No funds should be appropriated to help slaughter innocent men, women and children. It is apparent that the American people and the Congress never intended that American funds should be used to help Arab armies wage war against the only democratic state in the Middle East. “
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.
