To the accompaniment of Arab shells crashing to Jewish areas of Jerusalem the Israeli Supreme Court was formally inaugurated is morning in the same chamber in which the British Administration’s High Court terpreted the Mandate’s laws for 28 years.
The five members of the court were sworn in by Minister of Justice Felix senbleuth. With covered heads, each of the jurists placed his hands upon the ##ble and swore to maintain fidelity to the state of Israel and its laws, and ##t to swerve from justice, but to judge people properly.” The five justices are: ?she Smoira, Chief Justice; Simha Assaf; Itzhak Olshon; Menachem Dunkelblum; and ##hneur Zalman Cheshin.
Above the judges’ dais, in place of the British Royal Coat “of Arms, was a large Israeli flag. The spacious hall in which the ceremony was held was crowded with guests and some of the notables even sat in the prisoners’ dock.
Meanwhile, the atmosphere in Jerusalem becomes more tense as a result of the day-to-day shelling. Three people were killed and several wounded in today’s artillery duels, while three others died in last night’s and yesterday’s barrages. Two of yesterday’s dead were school children.
The Hebrew press has been demanding persistently that the U.N. either prevent the Arabs from violating the truce or permit the Israeli Army to take on the policing job. One report circulating here states that the Israeli Amy has presented the Arabs with an ultimatum to cease their shelling or face the consequences of direct Jewish action.
An Israeli spokesman, replying today to U.N. mediator Count Folke Bernadotte’s order to rebuild three Arab villages and readmit some 8,000 Arab refugees to these towns, declared that the U.N. originally gave the Israelis permission to take “police action” against the villages from which Jewish traffic on the Haifa-Tel Aviv road was being harassed by sniping and ambushes. The spokesman added that the Israeli Army is aware that recently armed Arab gangs have infiltrated the area, athwart the vital highway, and is prepared to take action against then if they reopen hostilities.
The same spokesman welcomed a statement of the president of the Egyptian Senate to the effect that the only alternative left for a solution of the Palestine problem is to enter into direct negotiations with the Jews.
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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.
