Senator Claude Pepper of Florida at a press conference today called for immediate surrender by the British of the Palestine Mandate and the placing of Palestine under United Nations Trusteeship Council jurisdiction. He urged all great powers to accept some share of Jewish immigration with the United Nations fixing the quotas.
Pepper said that he thought the existing situation in Palestine constituted “a clear threat to world peace” and would never be solved until it was approached “by the combined authority and conscience of the world. The sooner the United States calls upon Britain to give up its mandate in Palestine the sooner we will be able to solve the Palestine situation,” he declared.
Asked if he thought the United States should allow increased Jewish immigration to this country, Pepper said that he would be willing for 100,000, and “possibly a larger figure,” to come here and that if the executive department did not provide the authority for such proposal, he would back any such move in Congress.
Rep. Emanuel Celler of New York today issued a statement calling upon the United States to withhold all further payments of money and credits promised under the British loan until the British Government permits 100,000 displaced European Jews to enter Palestine. Pointing out that all other methods of forcing Britain to keep her pledges under the Palestine Mandate have failed, Rep. Caller suggested that “perhaps we can bring Britain to honor her promises by pressure on her ‘pocket nerves.'”
Rejection or postponement of a decision on Transjordan’s application to membership in the U.N. has been urged by Sen. Francis Myers of Pennsylvania in a letter to Acting Secretary of State Dean Acheson. He asked that official action on Transjordan’s status be held up until the entire Palestine issue is solved. The letter was released today by the Hebrew Committee for National Liberation.
Rep. Adolph Sabath of Illinois, in a statement included in the Congressional Record, attacked the State Department’s “indecent haste” to recognize Transjordan. He also assailed the activities of the Arab Office in Washington and affiliated Arab organizations throughout the country.
JTA has documented Jewish history in real-time for over a century. Keep our journalism strong by joining us in supporting independent, award-winning reporting.
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.
