Jerusalem Grand Mufti and Palestine Moslem Opposition Leaders Still at Loggerheads: Shaukat Ali Maki

Shaukat Ali is making an eleventh hour effort to-day to reconcile the followers of the Grand Mufti and the opponents of the Grand Mufti, in order to establish a united front for the Moslem Congress which is due to open here to-morrow (Sunday) evening. Up to the present his efforts have not met with any success. The Grand Mufti has refused to accept as delegates about thirty members of the Opposition who have been proposed as delegates.

The Egyptian delegates are reported to have threatened to leave Jerusalem to-morrow if the two rival sections among the Palestine Moslems do not make peace between themselves.

Mahmoud Pasha, one of the leaders of the Egyptian Wafd Party, proposed that there should be a Moslem Congress held in Cairo. The Grand Mufti has invited him to Palestine in order to discuss the proposal.

Ex-King Ali, the eldest son of the late King Hussein, and his successor as King of the Hedjaz until the capture of Mecca by King Ibn Saud, and elder brother of King Feisal of Iraq and the Emir Abdullah of Transjordan, is in Jerusalem now, and has been invited to attend the Congress. He has replied that he would attend if there are others of his rank participating.

The opposition complains that the Mufti selected the organisers, the “Daily Telegraph” correspondent in Jerusalem writes, confirming the report of the dissension, and it refuses to participate unless a properly representative organising committee is created to draft the programme and issue the invitations. This demand the Mufti refuses to comply with, and so the opposition will not attend the congress.

Mr. Shaukat Ali, with whom I travelled from Egypt yesterday, he adds, hopes to reconcile the contending factions. There does not, however, appear to be any great expectation that he will succeed.