The British Cabinet is still split on the Palestine issue, with Foreign Minister Bevin and his adherents determined to wage a last-ditch battle to defeat partition at the U.N. General Assembly, it is learned here. The Cabinet is scheduled to meet on Thursday or Friday.
According to informed circles, the Russian-American agreement on termination of the Mandate and British withdrawal “came as no surprise, to put it mildly,” and strenuous efforts will still be made to keep Britain in Palestine, at the same time that the government formally maintains its decision to evacuate its civil and military forces.
The British maneuvers are expected to take the form of appeasing the U.S. and U.S.S.R. by agreeing in principle to termination of the Mandate and the granting of independence to Palestine, but leaving in abeyance the question of the form that independence should take. The anti-partition forces feel that this would enable Britain to secure a bi-national solution based on a modified version of the Morrison federalization plan with Britain in the role of “impartial arbiter.”
This could be achieved, the Bevin group hopes, by inducing the General Assembly to evade a final solution, and to merely “take note,” instead, of the fact that the Mandate is to be abolished, Britain is to withdraw by an unspecified date and Palestine is to be given its independence–with it being left to Britain to establish conditions under which such independence would be achieved.
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