Australia will send no troops to Palestine to enforce any decision concerning that country’s fate, nor will it take any part in the administration of Palestine, Prime Minister Joseph B. Chifley today told the Australian House of Representatives.
He added that the Australian point of view on Palestine will be delivered to the United Nations General Assembly by Minister for External Affairs Herbert V. Evatt, who is his country’s chief delegate at Lake Success and chairman of the U.N. Ad Hoc Committee on Palestine, Chifley also declared that Britain has been carrying the "burden" in Palestine "with little thanks and a great deal of abuse."
Sir Isaac Isaacs, former Governor-General of Australia, last night told a meeting in Melbourne that in the absence of a solution of the Palestine problem Britain was justified in relinquishing the Palestine Mandate. If a peaceful solution did not materialize, Britain was right in choosing the "lesser of two evils" and withdrawing, he said.
Although he asserted that he supported "religious and cultural Zionism," Isaacs insisted that he was "constrained by a sense of duty to the Empire" from following the lead of "political Zionists." Neither the claims of the Jews nor the Arabs for statehood in all of Palestine was valid, he said, concluding that the only peaceful solution of the issue was through equal representation for both peoples in a legislative and administrative body, with Britain acting as arbiter and protector.
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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.
