U.N. Security Council to Open Palestine Discussion Today; International Force in Balance

The United Nations Palestine Commission request for the dispatch of an international force to implement the U.N. partition decision in Palestine will be debated here tomorrow “by the 11-nation Security Council.

At least seven affirmative votes are required before the Council can reach a favorable decision, according to the group’s rules of procedure. Of the eleven nations represented on the Council, only six voted in favor of partition at the General Assembly last November, while four abstained and one opposed it. The favorable votes rare cast by the United States, Soviet Union, Ukraine, Canada, Belgium, and France. The abstainees were Britain, China, Argentina, and Colombia, while Syria voted in f the negative.

The question of whether the seven votes can be obtained was a matter of major speculation in U.N. circles today. Observers pointed out that if the Commission’s request is not approved, the matter may be referred to the major powers under the provisions of the U.N. Charter.

Interest also centered on Washington where U.S. delegate Warren Austin was meeting with Secretary of State George C. Marshall in a last-minute discussion of the American position on an international force. It is believed that the American position will be put forward early in the Security Council discussion. (In Washington a Stats Department spokesman, asked if the U.S. position has already been formulated, I replied that Sen. Austin will be ready when the Council discusses the matter.)

JEWISH AGENCY CHARGES BRITAIN AIDS ARABS F WEAKENS JEWS IN PALESTINE

The Jewish Agency yesterday submitted to the Council and the Commission a 12,000-word formal Indictment of British policy in Palestine, specifically charging. the British with strengthening the Arabs in their “war” on the Jews of Palestine and la opposing the U,N, partition decision, with weakening the defenses of the Jewish community and seriously threatening peace and security in the Middle East. This is the first time since the U.N. decision on partition that the Agency has made such a charge against the British Government.

Asserting that the Arabs are “powerfully encouraged” by the “atmosphere of tolerance and relative impunity in which they are able to operate,” the Agency stated that at the same time the “Jewish population of Palestine is refused permission openly and legally to organize its own defense.” The document added that under these circumstances the Jews “have come to recognize that only their own forces stand between them and annihilation,” But for the efforts of the Haganah, the memorandum insisted, “the world would have witnessed in Palestine a massacre of Jews by Arabs with the Mandatory Power remaining neutral and passive, or interfering belatedly and ineffectively.”

The memorandum also declared that whereas Colonial Secretary Arthur Creech-Jones gave the impression in Commons that large-scale infiltration of Palestine by Arabs from surrounding countries came as a surprise to the British, the Agency had given the Palestine Government advance warning of the arrival of a number of such units.

The document hit out strongly against British refusal to permit the early organization and arming of a Jewish militia, declaring that the Mandatory’s refusal ensures conditions in which the killing of Jews shall have free scope. Any delay in the preparatory steps necessary far the early formation of the militia is “extremely Perilous,” it added, pointing out that a “militia cannot be created overnight.”

The government’s policy of refusing to permit increased Jewish immigration after February 1, as recommended by the U.N. General Assembly, had raised the hopes of those seeking to nullify the U.N. partition, it argued.