Joint Anglo-American recognition of Palestine independence, complemented by a British-U.S. recommendation to the United Nations for inclusion of the new state in the U.N. has been urged in a report submitted to President Truman by former Rep. Joseph Clark Baldwin, administrative chairman of the Political Action Committee for Palestine, who recently returned from a month-long visit to the Holy Land.
The report, which was made public today, also suggests that the United Nations set up and supervise the machinery for transformation of the mandate into an independent state, and assume temporary control over land sales and military matters. It says that homeless European Jews should be considered Palestinian citizens for purposes of political organization of the new state.
At a press conference yesterday, Baldwin did not disclose the results of his talks with President Truman and Lord Inverchapel earlier in the day, except to say that the British Ambassador had been “impressed and interested” and that Mr. Truman wanted to take the report up with General Marshall when he assumes his duties as Secretary of State.
Specific recommendations by Mr. Baldwin include the calling by the U.N. of a “Palestine Constitutional Convention” and subsequent elections (with homeless European Jews included as electors); termination of the British mandate when the new Palestine Government assumes power; creation of a U.N. Palestine Land Commission, which will supervise land sales so as to guarantee Arab rights and, at the same time, secure assignment to the new government of the land holdings of the mandatory government; establishment by the U.N. of an international military force to replace the British forces until a local army is trained or it is decided that no military force is needed; and, contingent on recognition by Transjordan and the other Arab League states of the proposed state, the U.S. Export-Import Bank should loan $300,000,000 to several Middle-Eastern states, “having particularly in mind the use of the Jordan River for industrial power and irrigation purposes.”
Mr. Baldwin says in his reports that British policy in Palestine is based on four main theses, all of which, he states, are fallacious. They are: “First, that if a decision in Palestine is made ostensibly in favor of the Jews, the Arabs will rise. Second, that the Jewish underground is a minority group of violent extremists, frowned upon by the mass of the population. Third, that the country is presently incapable of absorbing any increase in population, and fourth, that Russia will surely rush in where Britain fails to tread. It will be the purpose of this report to attempt to prove each of these arguments unfounded,” he emphasized.
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