In striking contrast to the frigid reception accorded the members of the United Nations Special Committee on Palestine in the Arab towns which they visited during the past few days, tens of thousands of Jews turned out today to welcome the U.N. party when it visited Tel Aviv.
For the first time since their arrival in the country ten days ago, the committee members were greeted by streets lined with cheering, applauding crowds. Shouts of “welcome,” “hello,” and “good luck” in both English and Hebrew rose in thundering waves of sound as the motorcade passed through the city’s major thoroughfares, waved on by grinning Jewish policemen and paced by Jewish school children on foot and bicycles.
The reception dispelled the atmosphere of cool indifference which had hung over the committee since its first session in Palestine, June 16. As each delegate stepped out of his car in front of the city hall he was cheered. The effect on the committee members was noticeable. For the first time they were being made to feel at home and being greeted as representatives of the highest tribunal in the world.
They smiled and returned the greetings of the crowd which packed the square so tightly that it was almost impossible to move. One delegate remarked: “It is most touching to see the faith, hope and confidence in us shining from the faces of these people.”
IRGUNISTS HOIST ANTI-BRITISH BANNERS; U.N. GROUP VISITS INSTITUTIONS
As the party left the city hall, after being welcomed by Mayor Israel Rokach and the entire municipal council, the crowd outside spontaneously broke into singing–Hatikvah. The delegates stood at attention until the anthem was completed. Overhend in the square and elsewhere along the committee’s route to the center of the city Irgun banners and posters flapped from telegraph wires. The plac?rds read: “This is our country–Out with the British invaders.”
After the committee was welcomed by Mayor Israel Rokach and the municipal council it visited the harbor area and then split up into three groups to visit schools, orphanages, industrial exhibits and factories.
The Irgun announced today that it would call the three Jewish youths condemned to death on the committee’s first day of hearings in Palestine as “witnesses against British tyranny” when UNSCOP resumes public sessions next week. Simultaneously, an Irgun clandestine broadcast was extremely pessimistic of UNSCOP’s ability to save the three. The announcer said that the government is “waiting only until the committee leaves to carry out the sentences.”
It was reported that committee chairman Emil Sandstroem and U.N. Assistant Secretary-General Victor Hoo spent last night in Tel Aviv, incognito, contacting representatives of the dissident groups.
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