Shertok, in Closing Plea to U.N. Body, Asks Immediate Immigration; Urges Visit to DP’s

Concluding his testimony before the United Nations (##)ial Committee on Palestine today, Moshe Shertok, head of the political department (##)the Jewish Agency, appealed to the Committee for immediate emergency interim recommendations calling for removal of all bars and bans of the White Paper and large-scale admission of homeless Jews.

Shertok pointed out that the Committee will not make its report to the United Nations General Assembly for at least six weeks, and then more time will elapse untila decision is reached. Meanwhile, Europe’s homeless Jews are facing their third (##)war winter in camps. "We ask you," he said, "to make emergency recommendations (##)the Assembly that, pending its consideration and adjudication of the major problems, injures be taken for immediate alleviation of the situation."

"Please visit the Displaced Persons camps," Shertok pleaded. "It is their plight and the historic position of the Jewish people which made that plight possible (##) is the real subject of your investigation. Visit a few camps. Also visit at (##)t some of the Jewish settlements outside the camps where the future is just as (##)k."

Shertok said there are two fundamental events in modern Jewish history–the extermination in Europe and the renaissance in Palestine. "These were two poles which, between them, galvanized the Jewish national will into action. There cannot permanent stability in Palestine nor in the world, so far as the Jewish position (##)cts it, without satisfying the craving of the Jewish people. I tell you that just $650,000 Jews are accepted by the Arabs, so will the Jewish state eventually be (##)pted. Arab fears may, in the subjective sense, be genuine but they are nevertheless irrational."

REITERATES OPPOSITION TO BI-NATIONALISM AS UNWORKABLE

He attacked the practicability of any bi-nationalism based on parity of Jews {SPAN}(##){/SPAN} Arabs in Palestine, saying, "This presupposes two collective wills acting in {SPAN}(##){/SPAN}ty–a willingness to talk together–which does not exist. It would lead to a {SPAN}(##){/SPAN}te of permanent deadlock or the introduction of a third party. The issue before {SPAN}(##){/SPAN}s not to be met by a federal arrangement. We are against the conception of a {SPAN}(##){/SPAN}ral state, but we are for a federation of states. We do not come here to be {SPAN}(##){/SPAN}regated; we come to be integrated."

"We do not believe in being a component part of a state which would rule over (##) That would mean a continual clash of divergent tendencies which would pull the (##)te structure to pieces. The third party–an umpire–would have the final say. would be under constant pressure from both sides. A new committee would then have be appointed."

He said that he knew of no place in the world where there exists two equally (##)nced communities set against each other. Speaking slowly and deliberately, he (##): "Gentlemen, the question is not whether Jews and Arabs can live together in (##) framework of a state. They do live together. The question is whether they can (##)rate a state regime by pulling equal weight in its councils. The question is how (##)ake independence an instrument for development, not a stranglehold on development. (##)lemen, if you assign equal weight to dynamics and to statics, the statics will win(##)."

Summing up, he declared that the Palestine problem "is actually only a function of the Jewish problem. If there had been no Jewish problem, you would not have Palestine problem." He warned the committee that they "can"t solve the problem (##)ou disregard its roots in history. You will not solve it if you restrict it (##)resent-day Palestine."

Dr. Jorge Garcia Granados of Guatemala inquired about the charge in the Palestine Government’s memorandum that the Jewish Agency transgressed its terms of (##)rence. Shertok denied this, and, going into the history of the mandate, declared (##)memorandum was not an attack on the Jewish Agency but on the mandate.

E.E. Preminger, a member of the Central Committee of the Palestine Communist (##)n, an off-shoot of the Communist Party, called in his testimony for liquidation (##)he mandate, withdrawal of British troops, bases, police and administrative (##)ratus, international recognition of the independence of Palestine and recognition (##)the right of its peoples to national self-determination.