British Will Not Act on Experts Recommendation Until Round-table Conference Concluded

The British Government will probably not attempt to act on the recommendations of the Anglo-American conferees until after conclusion of the projected round-table discussions among the British, the Jews and the Arabs, which will probably be held here within the next four or five weeks, it was reported today.

It is learned reliably that no “automatic invitation” to attend the conferences will go out to the Jewish Agency, and it is considered doubtful in informed quarters that the Agency will be invited. However, that probably depends on events of the next few weeks.

A full-dress debate on Palestine is scheduled to be held in the House of Commons and the House of Lords on Wednesday and Thursday. Prime Minister Attlee is expected to participate and Foreign Minister Bevin may return from Paris for one day to join in the debate. Winston Churchill and former Colonial Secretary Col. Oliver Stanley will lead the speakers for the Conservatives.

The Arab Office here today issued a statement reiterating Arab opposition to any solution based on partition. The statement said the recommendations of the U.S.-British experts were not satisfactory.

The Paris radio said today that several Jews have been arrested in Damascus after a police raid on the Jewish quarter. They will be tried for maintaining “illegal relations” with Zionists, the broadcasts said.

In a welcoming address to the delegates to the international conference of the World Union for Progressive Judaism, Rabbi Israel Mattuck, chairman of the organization’s governing body, said today that all Jews “condemn emphatically” the terrorism perpetrated in Palestine by a small band of Jews.” However, he continued, “at the same time, we voice our sympathy and solidarity with the large majority of our fellow Jews in Palestine who seek a just and peaceful solution of the Jewish problem.”