The Israeli Government, in a statement submitted today to the U.N. Security Council on the situation of displaced Jews in Europe and of Arab refugees in countries neighboring Palestine, estimated that there are still today about 250,000 displaced persons of Jewish nationality in Europe who must depend on Jewish aid for their support.
“The American Jewish Joint Distribution Committee expends nearly $2,000,000 every month for their maintenance, relief, vocational training, education and other requirements,” the statement emphasized. “Despite this vast expenditure, three years after the war these persons remain utterly uprooted and frustrated, living the demoralizing life of camp inmates and social outcasts, for the most part in places evoking tragic memories of the mass slaughter of their kith and kin and amidst a populate which is only prevented by the presence of Allied occupation armies from venting an inveterate hatred against the Jews.”
Reporting that since the proclamation of Israeli statehood on May 14, the Jewish state has absorbed 28,551 immigrants, the memorandum said that the Israeli Government has decided to continue, and even enlarge, this rate of absorption during the coming months and year. “The economy of the state of Israel is urgently in need of working hands — for existing agricultural settlements, industrial enterprises and public works, as well as for the execution of a comprehensive development program in the coming years,” the memorandum pointed out.
Estimating the number of Arab refugees in Palestine and the neighboring countries at about 300,000, the Israeli Government stressed in its memorandum that most of them left Palestine partly in obedience to direct orders by local Arab military commanders and partly as a result of the panic campaign conducted among Palestinian Arabs by the leaders of the aggressor states.
“In the view of the Provisional Government of Israel, the responsibility for providing immediate relief for the Arab refugees should primarily be borne by the Arab states,” the memorandum stated. “Only when the aggressors are ready to conclude peace with Israel can the refugee question in its entirety come up for a permanent constructive solution as part of the general peace settlement and with due regard to Jewish counterclaims for the destruction of life and property caused by Arab aggression as well as to the position of Jewish communities in Arab countries and other relevant considerations.”
The memorandum complained that the food rations provided by British authorities to the approximately 11,000 Jewish detainees in Cyprus are “utterly inadequate.” It protested against the lawless detention by the British of the Jewish refugees in the comps on Cyprus.
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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.
