In a violent statement, which charged President Truman with bartering the Palestine Arabs for Jewish votes, the Arab Higher Committee today replied to the White House announcement that the United States was willing to assume financial and technical responsibility for the transport and resettlement of 100,000 Jews in Palestine.
The Arab reply protested against “such flagrant, empty and irresponsible statements issued now and then by the President of the United States, irrespective of their effects.” It added: “The Arab Higher Committee wishes to assure President Truman that it is not within his power of jurisdiction or that of others to determine the future and destiny of this Arab country.
“Palestine is not a parcel of merchandise which can be bought in the world financial market in Wall Street for a number of dollars or bartered for Jewish votes in spite of the fact that President Truman controls the atom bomb,” the statement said.
The statement advised President Truman “if he is really in sympathy with the Jews and their plight in Christian Europe to open the doors of the American continent which can absorb not only 100,000 Jews, but millions of them.”
The Arab Committee’s reply said that President Truman’s statement “came at a time when the American President was begging for Jewish votes in the forthcoming Presidential elections. Arabs in Palestine and elsewhere are determined to resist any further Jewish immigration into their country with all power and faith and in spite of President Truman’s statements and the hue and cry raised by his Jewish friends and supporters in the United States,” it concluded.
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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.
