Britain Permits Mufti’s Aides to Return to Palestine; Pro-zionists Alarmed

Alarmed over the pro-Axis activities of the ex-Mufti of Jerusalem, British political leaders here who support the Zionist aspirations in Palestine, today expressed their astonishment over the fact that the British Government has permitted sixteen of the ex-Mufti’s followers to return to Palestine with British visas. All of them had accompanied the ex-Mufti to Iraq and Iran from where he conducted violent anti-British propaganda in Arab countries.

Ten more Palestinian Arabs who were aiding the ex-Mufti in Iraq and Iran before he escaped from there to Berlin have also received British permission to return to Palestine and their arrival there is expected shortly, the British pro-Zionist political leaders revealed. Among them is Jamal Husseini, nephew of the ex-Mufti, and former secretary of the Moslem Supreme Council in Palestine of which the ex-Mufti was president. He was once sentenced to imprisonment for taking part in the Arab disturbances in Jerusalem, and in 1937 was re-arrested and removed, together with other Arabs, on a British cruiser to an island in the Indian ocean as a person dangerous to the security of the country. In October, 1937, the Palestine Government, in a special issue of the Palestine Gazette, announced that he was barred from returning to Palestine.

Negotiations for the return to Palestine of another group of Arabs banned from the country as aides of the ex-Mufti are going on, the British political leaders charged today. They expressed alarm over this development and emphasized that they have reliable information that the ex-Mufti is now operating in Turkey and even in Palestine from centers in Berlin, Athens and Rome, and through agents who are organizing Arab fifth columns in Moslem countries.