Premier David Ben Gurion today visited Jerusalem to confer with Israeli Military Governor Dr. Bernard Joseph on the new military situation created on the Holy City’s southern sector by the Arab Legion’s moving into Bethlehem, Beit Jallah and Hebron yesterday.
The Israeli Premier and Dr. Joseph were also reported to have conferred on Israel’s attitude towards the United Nations’s inability to carry out an agreement regarding the demilitarization of the Mt. Scopus area, where the Hebrew University and Hadassah Hospital are located. Ben Gurion and Joseph also reviewed the question of the political future of Jerusalem in the light of recent military developments.
(In Rome, Pope Pius XII, in an encyclical letter issued over the week-end to the Catholic episcopacy throughout the world, urged that prayers for the cessation of hostilities in Palestine be offered and called for guarantees to give "an international character to Jerusalem and its vicinity." He said it also was necessary to assume by international guarantees both "the right of free access to the holy places scattered throughout Palestine and the freedom of religion and the respect for customs and religious traditions.")
Jerusalem’s southern sectors, as well as the settlement of Ramat Rachel, were subjected to heavy Egyptian artillery and automatic fire today. Fire was also directed at this area from newly-occupied Arab Legion positions along the entire southern front. The Israelis reported that they replied to the Arabs’ fire in this section.
MORGENTHAU PAYS SURPRISE VISIT TO JERUSALEM; VISITS FRONT LINES
Henry Morgenthau Jr., general chairman of the United Jewish Appeal, who is now visiting Israel, accompanied by Finance Minister Eliezer Kaplan and other members of the Israeli Cabinet, today paid a surprise visit to Jerusalem. The former Secretary of the Treasury told correspondents that "the state of Israel without Jerusalem would be like the Jewish people without its history."
Referring to the "Burma Road" over which he made the trip from Tel Aviv to the Holy City, Mr. Morgenthau stated: "The ‘Burma Road’ was carved out of the rock of the Judean hills; Israel had to link up with the heart and core of the nation. The road is an unbelievable achievement of human stamina. It could not have been made possible if the young men and women built it were not motivated by an unquenchable search for freedom and peace."
Prior to his arrival here, Morgenthau visited Ramleh and said he was "impressed with the care taken by the Israeli soldiers protecting the Arab mosques and shrines." Soon after coming here he participated in a meeting of the Jewish Agency executive which was attended by nearly all its members. Before returning to Tel Aviv, he paid a brief visit to Jewish front lines here and saw at first-hand the incessant Arab firing against Jewish positions.
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.
