A plan for the settlement of the Palestine problem ?er an international trusteeship system was outlined today in the House of Lords by Lord Herbert Samuel, leader of the Liberal Percy and first High Commissioner for Palestine. He spoke during a debate on the government bill which provides for the ##mination of the British Mandate over Palestine on May 15. A second reading of the ##ll was adopted in principle following the debate.Lord Samuel suggested that the administration of Palestine should be transferred to the U.N. Trusteeship Council which would appoint a commission to administer the country, following which an Arab Council and a Jewish Council would be set up which would either be elected or imposed on the respective communities wherever they ?ght be resident, and not on a geographical basis.
JEWISH IMMIGRATION WOULD BE PERMITTED AS RECOMMENDED BY UNSCOP
Lord Samuel asserted that the first condition of any settlement must be the ##andonment of terrorism. The British Government must show a greater spirit of co-operation with the United Nations in the period of transition, he emphasized.Lord Salisbury, leader of the opposition, declared that he was shocked by ?e government’s “apparent frantic desire” to underline the fact that it was washing ?s hands entirely of Palestine. The British people, he said, was fed up with Palestine, “but we in Parliament are responsible people. We are members of the U.N. and cannot entirely absolve ourselves of responsibility which such membership involves.
“We shall no longer have any special responsibility in Palestine, but we ?all continue to have the same responsibility as other U.N. members. It is in the interests of general peace that chaos should be avoided in that country. Civil war ? Palestine might easily flare up into something very much wider,” he declared.
Lord Listowel, Minister of State for the Colonies, reiterated the government’s determination that British troops be withdrawn by August 1. “Nothing yet has happened or can happen in the future at Lake Success which will modify this time ?mit, “he said, adding that British troops would not be available after May 15 to support any policy to which the agreement of both Arabs and Jews had not been obtained.
The Archbishop of York, Dr. Cyril Garbett, said Britain had a right to appeal ? the United States to do everything in its power to see that a governor was appointed ?or Jerusalem and a force sent out–if necessary, a force of Americans–to save Jerusalem from destruction.
JTA has documented Jewish history in real-time for over a century. Keep our journalism strong by joining us in supporting independent, award-winning reporting.
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.
