Forms Three Working Units to Study Federalization, Boundaries, Constitution

After almost three weeks of private, informal exanges of views on various aspects of the Palestine problem, the United Nations Speacial Committee on Palestine today split into three working groups which will go furtuer into the details of the question and will present their conclusions in writing. addition to the three groups, which will consider federalization, a constitution boundaries, a sub-committee to study the question of the Holy Places has been set

The members of the group which will work on federalization are Iran, India, ? Yugoslavia. The delegates from Sweden, Canada, the Netherlands and Guatemala ?l prepare a constitution for Palestine. The boundaries of possible Palestinian ?ates will be the province of the representatives of Uruguay, Australia and Czechoovakia.

It is understood that the members of the constitutional and boundaries submittees are those who favor partition. This would tend to substantiate recent reports that UNSCOP is divided eight to three in favor of partition as a final solution the Palestine issue.

ARAB EXTREMISTS AND MODERATES TRANSFER THEIR BATTLE TO GENEVA

The long-standing internecine feud between Arab extremists and moderates, which has been fought simultaneously in Washington, London and Jerusalem, has now ?ved to Geneva where it is being battled out on a world stage with UNSCOP as an inrested spectator. It is a feud between the Palestine Arab Higher Committee, led by ?e ex-Mufti of Jerusalem, on the one hand, and the Arab Office on the other.

The Higher Committee has sent two high-pressure envoys here: Rassem el Khali?, who was refused a visa by the United States to attend the U.N. sessions at Lake ?ccess because of his collaboration with the Nazis, and Marouf Dawalibi, a Syrian ?ose passport the Mufti used in making his escape from France in 1946 and in whose ?lla he lived while in exile in France. These two represent Arab extremism.

The Arab Office is now represented in Geneva by Musa Alami, its director; ?cil Hourani, director of the Washington branch; Edward Atiyah, director of the Arab ?fice in London and Omar Dajani, Musa Alami’s assistant. They represent what might called the Arab moderates.

The position of the Higher Committee is the demand for Palestine as an inpendent Arab state with minority rights only for those Jews who were in the country ?fore the issuance of the Balfour Declaration in 1917. Since only about 80,000 Jews are in Palestine at that time, this would mean the disenfranchisement of some 600,000 ?ws. The Arab Office says it wants a democratic state with citizenship for all Jews ? Palestine.

All activities on behalf of the Higher Committee are contrary to the Committee’s boycott of the UNSCOP, the terms of which prohibit any Arab from coming in ?ntact with the UN committee. The envoys of the Higher Committee hope to achieve ?e following aims in Geneva: Firstly, to counteract whatever influence the Arab Office representatives may have gained with UNSCOP: secondly, to act as advisors to the official Arab liaison with the U.N. group–Camil Chamoun, Lebanese Minister of the interior and formerly Lebanese Minister to Britain, who is here in Geneva; and third?y, to see what influence they can bring to bear on such delegates of UNSCOP as they think are pro-Arab to kill any solution of the Palestine problem which is not in con##ormity with the aspirations of the Higher Committee.