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Legal Action Planned to Regain Confiscated Explosives Destined for Palestine

January 13, 1948
See Original Daily Bulletin From This Date
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Legal action to regain the explosives bought from the war Assets Administration for legitimate shipment to Palestine will be taken by Leonard Weisman, the exporter who was authorized by a Haganah representative to buy the explosives, it was reported here today. The explosives were to have been stored until the government its embargo, imposed on Dec. 5, on arms shipments to the Middle East.

The New York Herald Tribune, in an editorial today said that the embargo placed by the State Department on all arms shipments to the Middle East "is simple but more than a little pharisaical solution." The paper points out that the Stats.

Apartment cannot overcome the fact that the Palestinian Arabs are getting not only ###ms, but armed men from the neighboring Arab states, that the British are not having access in maintaining order now and are about to evacuate; and the if Jewish Palestine is to achieve and maintain the independence which this country officially ad-###cates, its people will have to get arms from somewhere."Clearly, the question of arming or recognizing the Haganah seems in the first ##stance one for the United Nations Palestine Commission," the editorial says. "But the United States cannot simply wash its hands of a matter in which it is deeply in-####lved. Every one, so far, has shirked the question of security and defense for the proposed Jewish state, yet in the harsh world of today it is obviously the fundamental question in the whole Palestine problem; and if other nations will not themselves fight for the Jewish state, then they must clearly afford to it the means #### fighting for and defending itself."Dr. Emanuel Neumann, president of the Zionist Organization of American, addressing a dinner at the Hotel Waldorf Astoria which climaxed the Metropolitan Zionist ###und campaign for $500,000 to finance various ZOA projects, said that the present ###iolence and attacks by armed Arab brigands smuggled over the borders of Palestine can be stopped over night through resolute action on the part of the United Nations." To this end it would be highly desirable to have an international force accompany the U.S. commission when it arrives in Palestine, he declared."Given the opportunity, the Jews of Palestine are well able to defend themselves," ##r. Neumann continued. "They have the manpower but they must be furnished with arms and the right to use what arms they already have. Their armed forces must be recognized as legitimate armed forces. The United States Government which has played such #### vital role in bringing about the U.N. decision ought to play a comparable role in its implementation."

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