British soldiers today launched a “private war” in retaliation for the killing yesterday by members of the Stern Group of a paratrooper who was fired upon from a car as he was motorcycling over the Petach Tikvah road. The dead soldier, incidentally, was a Jew. He was identified today as Sergeant Arthur Lohman.
Several soldiers who sped through Tel Aviv in a jeep sent a burst of machine-gun fire into a house, wounding a Jewish girl. The incident is considered an indication of the troops’ intention to retaliate “privately” for attacks on individual members of the armed forces.
Fifty Jews were arrested today in several seashore cafes in Tel Aviv and taken in armored cars for questioning by the police. The buildings were cordoned off while the police checked the identity of all male guests, allegedly in search of suspected members of the Irgun Zvai Leumi.
British paratroopers, using mine detectors, today searched the orange groves of the Jewish communal settlement of Kvutzath Schiller, fifteen miles south of Tel Aviv. The results of the search have not been announced.
HAGANAH HITS EXTREMISTS, BUT SAYS IT WILL SHUN CIVIL WAR
The Haganah today issued an “Order of the Day” to all its members, emphasizing that although the organization condemns the “irresponsible and damaging acts” of the Irgun Zvai Leumi and the Sternists, it nevertheless will not “fulfill the will of the authorities to open a bloody war among the Jews.” The text of the order read:
“The Jewish Resistance Movement does not bear any responsibility for the recent activities of the Irgun Zvai Leumi and of the Stern Group. Immediately after the attack on the King David Hotel, the Haganah demanded from the dissenting organizations that they accept national discipline. The latter declined. They are now returning to their own way of irresponsible, damaging acts alien to the Jewish resistance.
“But even now, even in the face of renewed violence, the Haganah will not fulfill the will of the authorities to open a bloody war between the Jews. Neither the government’s provocation nor the licentiousness of the dissenting organizations will divert the Haganah from its fateful struggle against the strangling anti-Zionist policy.”
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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.
