The United Nations Truce Commission today called the Security Council that Jerusalem will continue to be a battlefield unless a large and powerful neutral army is sent to Palestine immediately.
The cable bore the signature of Thomas Wasson, U.S. Council-General in Jerusalem and a member of the U.N. Commission. It also suggested that the Security Council explore the possibility of clamping economic and military sanctions on the Arab League sates, as provided in Articles 41 and 42 of the U.N. Charter. Such drastic action has not yet been considered in the Council debate thus far and the present U.S. resolution calls only for limited steps under Article 39, which is preliminary to stronger Measures and even this proposal, however, seems unlikely to be adopted.
While the Council resumed its slow-moving debate, Count Folke Bernadotte, newly-appointed United Nations mediator for Palestine, telephoned Secretary-General ?brywre lie from Stockholm to confirm his acceptance of the post. Bernadotte will arrive in Paris Tuesday morning and will be joined there by Dr. Ralph J. Bunche, principal secretary of the defunct U.N. Palestine Commission. They will fly to Palestine together later in the week.
It vas also announced here today that Harold Evans, of Philadelphia, special Municipal Commissioner for Jerusalem, is leaving New York tomorrow for Palestine. Another secretariat team, headed by John Reedman, former economic adviser to the Palestine Commission, will leave for the Israel capital next Tuesday. All these moves are designed to strengthen the hands of the Truce Commission and the U.N. Mediator.
SUPPORTS SHERTOK’S DEMAND FOR U.N. MILITARY OBSERVERS
The Truce Commission’s message requested the Security Council to send a small party of competent military observers to Palestine immediately, as had been suggested yesterday by Moshe Shertok, Foreign Minister of Israel. It declared that the only alternatives to sending a strong neutral force into Jerusalem are “victory by one of the two sides or a stalemate. Both Arabs and Jews,” the Commission reported, “have expressed a desire for a ‘cease-fire’ and a truce on their own terms, which are unacceptable to the other side.”
Another cable from the U.K. Commission reported that the Arab Legion commander at Jerusalem had rejected the terms of a Jewish Agency trace proposal for the Old City. The Arab officer insisted upon complete Jewish capitulation.
The Council itself made no progress today. Andrei Gromyko, Soviet delegate, speaking at today’s session, attacked the British Government for pledging on the one hand that it would cease supplying the Arab Legion if the U.N. declared the Arab attacks illegal and on the other hand blocking in the Security Council any attempt to liable the Arab aggression as illegal.
This was “sheer casuistry,” Gromyko added, and was reminiscent of the British role at the League of Nations. King Abdullah was now in the limelight as a kind of hew “Middle Eastern Caesar,” Gromyko declared but it was obvious that his army could not march into Palestine without British consent. He also attacked the delegates of Belgium and China who are opposed to the unequivocal U.S. proposal to order a ceasefire, and stand-fast in Palestine under Article 39 of the Charter.
The Soviet delegate said no useful purpose would be served by “gazing into the crystal boll” to divine what the next step should be in the event that the Arab states fail to comply with the Security Council’s orders. He was sure that they “cannot disregard our decision.” Far is el Khoury of Syria, however, warned that the Arabs will not comply with such an order. The Arab states, he said, would never accept a Jewish in the Middle East.
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