The British government has released hitherto secret documents related to the Palestine situation 30 years ago, including Cabinet papers of the Labor government headed by Prime Minister Clement Attlee. They show that the Attlee government made strenuous efforts to avoid antagonizing the Arab states in face of strong Jewish pressure for immigration and independence in Palestine. At the same time, Attlee himself sought to retain the good will and cooperation of moderate Zionist leaders.
A number of documents not released last weekend, among them records of Cabinet deliberations, have been withheld on grounds that they are still too sensitive for publication. These are said to include Cabinet discussions of a proposal to arrest ships at sea carrying illegal Jewish immigrants to Palestine. They will not be made public for another 20 years.
Two former members of the Attlee government, Lord Shinwell, who was Minister of Fuel in 1946, and Christopher Mayhew, who was Parliamentary Secretary of the Foreign Office headed by Foreign Secretary Ernest Bevin, differed yesterday over the reasons why some of the Cabinet papers were not released after expiration of the mandated 30-year period covering classified documents. Shinwell said this was probably in order to protect the reputation of the late Mr. Bevin against revelations that might imply that he had acted in a criminal fashion with respect to Palestine.
But Mayhew, long a supporter of the Arab cause and now a member of the Liberal Party, did not think the suppressed papers would show any evidence against Bevin. He claimed they were withheld “because they revealed the unusual forms of pressure, including assassination threats, which Zionists used at that time against British ministers, including Mr. Bevin and myself.” He said that at least one person believed responsible for the pressure now holds a high position in Israel and the government wants to avoid offending Israel or its supporters in Britain.
Lord Shinwell said on a radio interview that when the full documents are released “people will be startled because they are a bit distasteful, a bit distressful.”
SOME INFORMATION DISCLOSED
The papers made public record the effects of the dynamiting of the King David Hotel in Jerusalem in 1946 which took the lives of 91 persons–British, Arabs and Jews.
However, Attlee counseled against extreme action and won the Cabinet’s support for his view that it would have totally alienated the moderate Zionist leadership, the released documents show.
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