United Nations Inquiry Committee Establishes Contact with Jewish Underground Groups

The United Nations inquiry committee today established informal and unofficial contact with representatives of the two Jewish underground groups, the Irgun Zvai Leumi and the Stern Group.

The contact with the Jewish extremists was established while the committee was touring the Old City of Jerusalem. Two Jews, one speaking for the Irgun and the other representing the Sternists – both American citizens – met the U.N. delegates and chatted with them informally for some time. The majority of the committee knew beforehand that they would be met by spokesmen of the dissident Jewish groups.

Contact with the Arab Higher Committee was also established, through the secretariat of the fact-finding body, with a view to exploring the possibilities of the Arabs calling off their boycott of the probers. Nothing is known as yet as to the conditions advanced by the Higher Committee as its price for halting the boycott.

(The American Zionist Emergency Council today issued a statement charging that the boycott is “part of a carefully pre-arranged and premeditated tactical game, designed to maneuver the United Nations into regarding the Arab Higher Committee as a ‘wronged’ group, and thus create an advantageous position for the Arabs in the meeting of the General Assembly which is to take place in September.”

(The Council asserted that there is no divergence of tactics between the Higher Committee and the Arab League, which is not participating in the boycott. “The Arab League’s attitude should not be regarded as a sign of conflict between the two Arab bodies, but rather as the result of a joint understanding as to the strategy to be employed before the United Nations,” the Council said.)

INVESTIGATORS VISIT WAILING WALL AND OLD SYNAGOGUES

The members of the inquiry body today visited the Wailing Wall, the Great Synagogue known as The Hurvah, where they were welcomed by Chief Rabbi Isaac Herzog in behalf of the Ashkenazi community, and the Synagogue of Yohanan Ben Zaccai where they were welcomed by Chief Rabbi Benzion Uziel for the Sephardic community. They also visited the Mosque of Omar.

A reception was tendered the members of the committee by the High Commissioner tonight. Members of the Jewish Agency executive and government officials attended. The Arab Higher Committee was not invited to the reception allegedly because of the High Commissioner’s reluctance to embarrass its members.

The central committee of the Zionist-Revisionists today sent a memorandum to the Jewish Agency asking that one of its representatives be included in the delegation of the Agency which is to appear before the inquiry committee. This representative should have the right to state the Revisionists’ demands at the hearings, the memorandum stipulated.