Intimating that the Palestine administration had “one law for the Arab and one for the Jew,” Col. Josiah Wedgwood, Laborite, protested in the House of Commons today arrest of Jewish colonists for illegal possession of arms.
Replying to a request by Col. Wedgwood for details of a police raid on the Jewish colony of Kfar Saba, Colonial Minister William Ormsby-Gore said the action followed shooting at a truck bearing six Arabs. He said search revealed rifles and other military equipment, and six Jews were arrested, of whom two were still in custody.
Col. Wedgwood demanded release of the two still held, citing a Palestine Appeals Court ruling by which Arabs seized with arms in their possession were ordered released because they had been arrested after expiration of the emergency regulations. The Colonial Secretary refused declaring they had been arrested on suspicion of being implicated in the shooting.
Col. Wedgwood asked Mr. Ormsby-Gore for an explanation of the Government communique on the recent Tiberias rioting which put responsibility on the Jews. The Colonial Secretary said his evidence showed the disturbance was caused “by a small party of New Zionists marching in uniforms.”
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