A further indication that statements by Arab Higher Committee members warning that the Arabs might boycott the U.N. inquiry committee are empty threats was given today, when it was revealed that the Higher Committee has sent letters to the Arab chambers of commerce in Jerusalem, Jaffa and Haifa asking them to prepare memoranda for the inquiry group.
Meanwhile, it was learned that the Mufti, who heads the Higher Committee, is preparing to move his headquarters from Egypt to Lebanon. The reasons behind the shufti’s change of residence appear to be twofold. The first is that Egypt is about to submit her case against Britain to the U.N. security council, and the continued presence of the politically active Mufti might alienate sene members of the security council who might otherwise be sympathetic to the case of Egypt.
The second is that the Cairo Government has viewed with increasing disfavor the widening scope of the Mufti’s political activity. Egypt gave the Mufti asylum a year ago when he escaped from France. Since then he has reconstituted the Palestine Arab Higher Committee, making himself its head as well as the commander-in-chief of the recently created Palestine Arab para-military formations of the Nejada and the Futuwa. Recently the Higher Committee transferred its head quarters to Cairo.
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