President Roosevelt is reported to have informed the Arabs of Palestine that the future of the country will be determined not by Britain alone, but by the governments responsible for the establishment of a new post-war world order based on peace and justice. The President allegedly said that the status of Palestine will be decided after consultations with Jews and Arabs.
The statement is said to emphasize that the British Government, although holding the mandate for Palestine, cannot make any changes in the status of the country before a suitable time when the governments responsible for the establishment of a long-lasting peace will decide, in consultation with Jews and Arabs, on the future of Palestine.
The statement by President Roosevelt, it was reported, came in reply to an appeal cabled to him last month by the Palestine Arab Party. The reply was understood to have been handed today to the leaders of the party by Lowell C. Pinkerton, U.S. Consul General in Jerusalem.
(In Washington, neither the White House nor the State Department could confirm or deny today the report that President Roosevlt had sent such a message.)
In its appeal, the Palestine Arabs asked the President for his support of Arab demands that Jewish immigration be stopped and that Jews be barred from acquiring land. The appeal was the first ever made directly to Roosevelt by an Arab political group in Palestine.
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