The United States will support the suggestion of the United Nations Secretary General Trygve Lie that the U.N. General Assembly, which opens on Tuesday, set up a special 55-nation working committee to deal with the Palestine question, it was learned here today.
Eight American jurists today joined in a memorandum to the United Nations calling upon that body to implement the “creation in Palestine of an independent Jewish Commonwealth or State in control of its own immigration, land, development and fiscal policies,” and endorsing in principle the partition plan proposed by the seven-man majority of the United Nations Special Committee on Palestine.
Describing the UNSCOP majority report as representing “a statesmanlike and sincere effort to provide a workable compromise solution of the difficult and complex Palestine problem,” the authors of the brief point out that the majority proposal meets two of the fundamental requirements of a just solution–insurance against governmental or administrative obstacles to immediate and continuing large-scale Jewish immigration and the establishment of a Jewish self-governing Commonwealth in Palestine.
However, the group disapproves the territorial divisions suggested by the UNSCOP majority since the Jewish National Home would be confined “to less than one-eighth of the territory originally set aside for it.” Specifically, the jurists question the proposal to exclude the entire city of Jerusalem and western Galilee from the boundaries of the Jewish state.
The 107-page document, which interprets the legality of Jewish claims to Palestine and analyzes various proposals for the solution of the Palestine issue, is entitled “The Basic Equities of the Palestine Problem.” It bears the signatures of Simon H. Rifkind. chairman, judge of the U.S. District Court of New York; Jerome N. Frank, judge of the U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, Second Circuit; Stanley H. Fuld, judge of the Court of Appeals of the State of New York; Abraham Tulin, member of the New York Bar; Milton Handler, professor of law at Columbia University; Murray L. Gurfein, member of the New York Bar; Abe Fortas, former Under-secretary of the Interior, and Lawrence R. Eno, member of the New York Bar.
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