The British Government’s effort to secure the cooperation of member states of the United Nations in preventing “illegal” Jewish immigration to Palestine was appraised here today as “a colossal failure.”
To date only 16 of the 55 member nations polled by the U.N. secretariat have made reply to the British request that they cooperate in “doing all in their power to discourage illegal immigration into Palestine” while the question remains in the inquiry stage. Of these only tiny Guatemala gave a positive assurance of cooperation on the immigration issue.
Nine of the 16 are nations from the Western Hemisphere with little, if any, direct contact with immigration lanes. Even the British dominion of Canada side-stepped the request. The Australian dominion remained equally noncommittal.
None of the countries in the path of the Jewish exodus from Europe–France, Poland, Yugoslavia, Czechoslovakia or the Scandinavian members replied. The Soviet Union bluntly stated it had no concern with illegal immigration.
Most of those who made replies did so in the most formal of acknowledgements, while most all affirmed adherence to the General Assembly resolution calling for abstention from violence–a diplomatic statement which by implication seems to say “our obligation extends only to what the General Assembly has approved.”
The United States reply also avoided direct commitment to the British request by forwarding President Truman’s statement which calls for abstention from “any activities” tending to promote violence in Palestine.
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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.
