Tel Aviv was quiet today after disturbances yesterday during the funeral of Irgunists killed in battles with the Israel Defense Army which halted attempts to land munitions and arms in Tel Aviv in contravention of the U.N. truce.
The sympathy of the public has obviously swung toward the government after a period when the charges of the Irgunists that the government was surrendering to the British by accepting the truce had brought the dissidents considerable popularity public opinion also sided with the government because it acted swiftly and decisively when the Irgun attempted to revolt against its authority.
As the political situation started to return to stability, the army’s operation commander announced that the military situation was well in hand.” Yesterday’s presidents were relatively miner and the only one in which casualties were inflicted followed attempts by some of the Irgun mourners to break into the off ices of the His?adruth when the procession passed them. Meanwhile, both the Irgun and the army were concentrating additional foces in the city.
It was revealed today that Abraham Stawski, who in 1934 was charged with the assassination of Dr. Chaim Arlcearoff, head of the Jewish Agency political department, and was freed by the Palestine Supreme Court, was killed during the fighting at Kfar ?itkin Monday when the Irgun made its first unsuccessful attempt to land the war cargo of the gunrunner Vladimir Jabotinsky. Stawski was an Irgunist.
Menachem Beigin, head of the Irgun, last night made a two-hour broadcast over the Irgun underground radio attacking the government, but asserting that the Irgun would not permit the development of a civil war if it could avoid it. During the long Speech, Begin cried several times and throughout the entire address he shouted.
He accused the government of a willingness to talk truce “with all, the United Nations, Bernadotte, et cetera, but not with us,” Asserting that Jewish blood was flowing on both sides “on Ben Gurion’s orders,” Beigin declared that “we never made attempts ## Ben Gurion’s life, but he made them on us and succeeded. Nevertheless,” he stressed, “I am ordering all Irgun troops in Tel Aviv and Jerusalem and everywhere, when the enemy attacks again from the outside to stand arm-in-arm with the Pal mach and Ha### units. There will be no fratricidal war if we can help it as the enemy is at the gates. “
ARABS PLAN TO BREAK TRUCE; MAY ATTEMPT TO CAPTURE HAIFA
Jewish circles have learned from reliable British sources that the British high command intends to give the Arabs a complete timetable of the British evacuation schedule Which is believe to call for the removal of the last British Palestine bout June 30. The Jews have learned that the Arabs plan to break the truce and attempt to capture Haifa in the wake of the British withdrawal.
The Arabs plan a double-barrelled that attack: a land campaign through the Vailey of Esdraelon and an Egyptian naval attack on the port side. The Arabs, it is believed, will break the truce on a pretext, probably that the Jews violated the cease-fire at ? remote point of the battle front.
Foreign Minister Moshe Shertok has been negotiating with the U.N. mediator’s staff Haifa for permission to send food convoys through the Egyptian lines to the Negev settlements, it was revealed today. The mediator’s headquarters has agreed that the request is justified and has so informal the Egyptians. The latter, however, have not replied.
Shertok warned the mediator’s staff that he will not permit the Egyptians to starve out the Jews in the Negev and that convoys will be sent there. If the Arabs fire on the trucks, the Jews will return the fire and consider the Egyptians as having broken the truce.
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.
