Declaring that “an indescribably serious situation exists in Palestine at this moment,” former Governor Herbert H. Lehman tonight told a meeting at the Hotel Pierre here of United Jewish Appeal communal leaders from Essex County, that “it is our primary responsibility to provide the means of protection for the 700,000 Jew in Palestine.
“The Arabs have organized themselves to defy and frustrate the will and decision of the United Nations,” Gov. Lehman asserted. “The Jews want peace, but the forces that have massed themselves for a concerted attack on the United Nations, have plunged them into war–a war which the Jews are without the arms with which to defend themselves.
“If the Jews of Palestine cannot defend themselves, pending the creation of an adequate U.N. force, the inevitable result will be the utter destruction of a brave people and the nullification of a sacred decision of the United Nations. It has become painfully clear that the time calls for action–action on the part of the U.N. to implement its decision–positive action on the part of American Jews to give that decision meaning,” Gov. Lehman said.
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