A.J.C. Prefers Trusteeship, but Backs Partition if U.N. Votes to Take Final Decision Now

The American Jewish Committee today informed the ##ited Nations Palestine Committee that if a final solution of the Palestine problem ##st be found now, it favors partition along the lines proposed last summer by the wish Agency.

In a memorandum submitted to the U.N. inquiry body, the Committee stressed, powever, that it opposed immediate determination of Palestine’s final political constitution, and favored a U.N. trusteeship. Immediate independence, for the whole of Falestine, the memorandum said, would make of the Jews a “helpless minority.”

The memorandum reaffirmed the right of Jews to immigrate and settle in Palestine and termed the British White Paper of 1939 a “breach of trust” which “must be struck down.” It added that the Balfour Declaration and the Mandate did not merely record “a pious hope,” but granted the Jews certain rights in the country. The statement reiterated that the European conditions which originally gave rise to the Mandate have been intensified and the survivors of European Jewry are in many caaes living under conditions that, bluntly stated, are a disgrace to humanity.”

It condemned as “wholly erroneous” Britain’s requirement of an ultimate political solution for Palestine as a condition precedent to any decision on immigration, and continued: “We submit that it is not yet too late for Great Britain to recede from the intensigent position that immigration on a large scale cannot be permitted until there is an immediate, final political solution.”

The American Jewish Committee cited the Jewish achievements which have made of Palestine “technically and agriculturally, medically and culturally the most advanced state in the Middle East today.” The statement paid a special tribute to the “selfless and unsparing efforts” of American Jewish women, working through Hadassah to improve medical care for all the inhabitants of Palestine, Arabs as well as Jews.

The memorandum, which was signed by Joseph M. Proskauer and Jacob Blaustein, president and executive chairman respectively, of the A.J.C., urged the following seven-point interim program:

1. Immediate granting of 100,000 immigration certificates for Palestine during 1947 for Jews in European displaced camps;

2. Subsequent facilitation of maximum Jewish immigration, and guarantee of Jewish land purchase rights;

3. Plenary power to the U.N. trusteeship council to determine the rate of Jewish immigration and the character of land ownership;

4. Steady development of local self-government under trusteeship council direction;

5. Complete provision for the sanctity of Holy Places of all faiths;

6. The United Nations to furnish adequate policing of Palestine at the request of the administering authority; and to reserve the right of policing the country even without such request.

7. Continuation of the trusteeship until the U.N. determines that the time for independence has arrived, with complete equality of all citizens guaranteed by a bill of rights.