News Brief

Most of the delegates attending the annual ##bor Party conference here were “appalled” by Foreign Minister Bevin’s remark yesterday that at the bottom of the Palestine problem was “a war between the Jews and ##ntiles,” Richard Crossman, leader of the Labor “rebel” MP’s, told the Jewish Tele#aphic Agency.Crossman, who described Bevin’s statement on Palestine as “a monumental piece oratorical technique,” said that the Foreign Minister had not answered the criticms of the government’s policy, nor had he said anything new. Crossman added that ## had introduced a motion shelving a pro-Zionist resolution in order to avoid its ?verwhelming defeat.

The motion, which was introduced by Naurice Rosette, Labor Zionist delegate–##ho refused to withdraw it despite pleas by party leaders–called for relaxation of immigration regulations in Palestine during the period of the United Nations investi?ation and a return to the former pro-Zionist policy of the Labor Party.

In a moving address, which seemed to be well received by the conference, Rosette said: “Let my people go (into Palestine) not as hunted criminals, but as free men.” ?e charged that it was “scandalous” that the liberated Jews are still in Germany, adding that their determination to leave that country was not “a sinister plot,” but ?erely an urge to go where they could be happy and free. He concluded by citing the Soviet Union’s new approach to the problem, and urged Britain to make a “statesmanlike gesture” by lifting the immigration bars.

Bevin, who discussed Palestine as part of a general foreign policy report, said that Britain could not pledge itself to accept any U.N. decision on Palestine, unless other nations also accept it. He said that Rosette had presented an “interesting picture,” and that he (Bevin) had nothing to say against Jewish accomplishments in Palestine, but the issue was more fundamental. He reiterated his previous charge that he could have settled the problem with British Jews, but most Zionist policy is run from New York and he could not deal with American nationals.

The Foreign Minister said there was nothing in the Mandate or the Balfour Declaration to deprive the Arabs of their right to the land or to give the Jews the right to immigrate without interference. He stated that presenting the problem to the U.N. was the only way to make America and Russia present their own proposals and not merely denounce Britain. Bevin added that no other country would have stood what Britain has stood in the last few years and repeated that if it was only a question of finding homes for refugees, the problem could be settled.

He said that he had been denounced as anti-Semitic and attacked for not accepting the recommendations of the Anglo-American Commission of Inquiry, but he declared, addressing himself to Crossman, who was a member of the commission, the U.S. had accepted only one point of the recommendation. He concluded with an appeal that the conference take no vote on Rosette’s resolution, saying that it would be better if that were done.