The first British envoy to Israel may be named by the Foreign office tonight or tomorrow, Reuters reported. The report revealed that the British Consul-General in Haifa, Cyril Marriott, has been instructed to find out whether the candidate proposed for the off ice would be acceptable to the Israeli Government. If a favorable reply is received from Tel Aviv, the name of the envoy is expected to be announced at once.
At a private meeting of members of the Labor Party in the British Parliament, Prime Minister Clement Attlee rebuked those members who abstained from voting following the debate on Palestine in Commons last week. He emphasized that in view of the solid opposition on the part of the other political parties to Bevin’s policy on Palestine, their large-scale abstention endangered the position of the Labor Government.
Diplomatic moves by Britain and the United States during the past week to resolve the Palestine problem do not mean that peace can quickly be restored to Palestine or that the British and American Governments have reached agreement on what peace should be the Times declared in an editorial today. Despite the “praiseworthy attempt at coordination” of their policies on Palestine in their acts of recognition last week, Britain is still “one step behind” the United States, the paper said. It stressed that there is still no agreement between the British and U.S. governments on what peace in Palestine should be.
British de facto recognition, accorded to Israel last week, merely recognized the existence of the government, not the state of Israel, the Times declared. British recognition cannot go further than that, it added, until the territorial delimitation of the state is decided along with the disposition of the remaining parts of Palestine.
The paper predicted that settlement of the boundary In the Galilee, where the Israelis hold territory assigned to the Arabs by the United Nations partition plan, will prove more difficult than boundary decisions in the Negev. The problem of Jerusalem for which the U.N. recommended internationalization, and Haifa, for which a special status was proposed, will prove even more difficult, it asserted.
The future of the Arab part of Palestine–whether it is to be an Independent state, attached to Trans Jordan or divided among the neighboring Arab state–would also have to be decided before peace can be restored and conditions created for British de jure recognition of Israel, the Times declared.
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