The arms search in the Jewish settlement of Doroth ended today, six days after British troops swooped down upon it and the nearby village of Rukhama, it was officially announced here. However, the hunt for weapons continues in Rukhama.
The original troops who entered the villages have been replaced by fresh units and the officer in charge of the operations has informed the inhabitants of Rukhama that “we won’t leave until all the arms here are found.” The situation in the village is getting tenser by the hour as relations between the troops and the settlers degenerate.
Both settlements have been damaged extensively during the searches and a number of buildings demolished. In one village the bakery was completely destroyed while in the other a clothing supply building was taken to pieces in the hunt. Excavating machines, capable of digging down eight feet, were used. The inhabitants have reported numerous thefts of personal belongings.
The military authorities today denied a report that 200 settlers in the villages have gone on a hunger strike in protest against the continued searches and accompanying destruction.
JEWISH BODIES INVESTIGATE DAMAGES IN BOTH SETTLEMENTS
The Jewish National Council and the Small Zionist Actions Committee yesterday dispatched a delegation to the two settlements to investigate the extent of the damage there, which newspapers here said included the blasting of cellars and the tearing up of bedding and clothes. Press photographers invited on the trip were not allowed to photograph any of the damage.
In her first press conference since assuming the acting directorship of the Jewish Agency political department, Goldie Meirson declared that the manner in which the searches at Doroth and Rukhama have been carried out is “most disturbing.” She charged that the hunt was “obviously aimed” at taking away arms meant for the defense of desert villages, and that the removal of these arms is an “invitation” to the Arabs to destroy Rukhama for a third time–the village was attacked and razed in 1929 and again in 1936.
She emphasized, however, “if Britain gives us tangible assurance that the Arabs will not attack, we will have no use for the arms.” The result of such searches and the attitude displayed by the government is a provocation to the Jewish community and cannot have a quieting effect upon it, she added.
Asked whether the Jewish Agency wanted peace and quiet in the country, she replied: “If peace and quiet means a ghetto Palestine, if it means that the Agency must say to the European survivors, we are not interested in you, if it means we must live as second-rate citizens–I do now know any Agency which wants such peace and quiet. We do not want the peace and quiet of the cemetery, and that is not why Britain obtained the Palestine Mandate,” she concluded.
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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.
