A full session of the British Cabinet to deal with the downing by Israeli forces of five British planes in the Negev will be held on Wednesday, it was learned hare today, the meeting was convoked by Prime Minister Clement R. Attlee after hearing a full report today from Foreign Secretary Ernest Bevin and after consultation with high-ranking military experts.
A Foreign Office spokesman today stated that Britain is not violating any decisions of the U.N. Security Council by sending troops to Aqaba in Trans Jordan. The Security Council, he said, was aware of the existence of British military installations in TransJordan when it adopted its May 29 resolution on cessation of all tracts of aimed force in Palestine and had no objection to the supplying of personnel and equipment for these installations. He termed as “impertinent” the Israeli complaint against Britain to the United Nations.
The highly influential, liberal Manchester Guardian today bluntly warned Foreign Secretary Bevin that the British people will not follow his Palestine policy and “recoil from the idea of an attack on Israel.” The newspaper editorially denounced the sending of aircraft to the battle zone in Palestine and the sadden withdrawal of technicians from Haifa. While the dispatch of troops to Aqaba is defensible, the Guardian said, it was “ill timed” because it gives an “air of a concerted plan of action against Israel.”
The Guardian was almost alone among today’s newspapers, most of which were fairly violent in their language. Most of the newspapers also either called on the United States to bring Israel into line or reexamine its position in relation to the Jewish state. The London Times described the shooting down of the five R.A.F. planes over Israeli territory last Friday as an “unfriendly, provocative act.” The York-shire Post, spokesman for Anthony Eden, former Foreign Secretary and Conservative Party leader, said that “British airmen have been shot down as a result of violation of the Security Council’s decree by Communist plotters and American Zionists linked in an opportunist alliance.”
The Daily Telegraph termed the incident an “act of madness” and the “latest act of aggression” by the Israelis, while the Daily Mail said that if “Israel backed by Russia” secures a strong position in the Middle East it will be a “greater threat to the West than a China dominated by Communism.” The News Chronicle warned Israel not to strain British friendship too far and suggested that a U.N. force was still needed in Palestine and that if one could not be recruited Britain and the U.S. must find a common policy on Palestine in order to bolster the U.N.
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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.
