Slight Improvement Seen in Palestine Situation; 36 Murders Reported

In the past few days there has been a slight improvement in the Palestine situation, but there is no certainty that it will continue, Colonial Secretary Malcolm MacDonald reported to the House of Commons today in reply to a question.

Thirty-six murders and 44 wounding were reported from Palestine between May 3 and May 30, Mr. MacDonald said. The barbed-wire barricade along the frontier is being erected rapidly. A number of villages were occupied by police and troops on May 20 for protection of life and property.

Will Gallacher, Communist, remarked that the only solution of the Palestine problem was withdrawal of the partition plan and the establishment of a legislative council. Mr. MacDonald replied that the Palestine Partition Commission was inquiring into this.

Addressing a meeting sponsored by the British section of the Jewish Agency for Palestine, Prof. Selig Brodetsky, head of the Agency’s political department in London, last night warned against new plans to solve the Palestine problem based upon ignoring “the fundamental right of the Jewish people to Palestine.”

“We shall not accept any scheme as right unless it safeguards our future as a nation and enables the settling of such numbers of Jews as will solve the Jewish problem in Europe and other parts of the world and give us a sound foundation as a free and independent people,” Dr. Brodetsky said.

Dr. Ben-Zion Mossinsohn, representing the Palestine Jewish National Council, declared that Palestine’s Jewish community had been more consolidated in the past two years than in many years before the crisis. Dr. Alexander Goldstein said that in the face of persecution and closing frontiers, Palestine was the only hope for Jewish youth.