Differences of opinion with regard to the “Palestine question” developed at the conference of “neutral” nations here today between the United Arab Republic on the one hand and India, Yugoslavia and Burma on the other, as draft resolutions were being considered in closed sessions.
India, Yugoslavia and Burma were reported today as opposing the suggestion by the United Arab Republic and other Arab delegations that the final resolution should include a denunciation of Israel. However, it is believed that they might agree to the inclusion in the resolution of a reference to Palestine as one of the numerous world problems, provided that the reference is made in terms more mild than that of the recent Casablanca conference resolution which denounced Israel as a “spearhead of Western imperialism.”
At the plenary session yesterday the new Premier of the Algerian Provisional Government, Benyoussef Ben Khedda, for the first time committed himself against Israel. He presented an analysis of “colonialist crimes,” and promised Algerian support to all countries and peoples fighting for independence, including “Palestine, where 1,000,000 Arabs were chased from their homes by imperialism.”
Prince Elhassan, personal representative of the ruler of Yemen, said the Palestine partition of 1948 was “a shrewd device of the colonialists to maintain their power.” He also called the “Palestinian” problem “the tragedy of the twentieth century and the shame of the contemporary world.”
He said that “this crime was perpetrated by the colonialists to attain their aims. This partition against justice is an international problem threatening world peace. The United Nations must take the responsibility for this problem and repair the fault against 1, 000, 000 people now living in tents without bread and destitute because their belongings are in the hands of usurpers for the benefit of imperialism.”
Guinea Foreign Minister Louis Lasana listed Palestine as one of the world’s “crucial contemporary problems.” He was the only non-Arab to mention Palestine in the conference.
A Cairo weekly was being circulated which contained a whole page on “Israel’s Attempted Spying” at the conference. The article asserted that eight Israeli spies, disguised as journalists, “infiltrated” themselves in hotels accommodating Arab delegates to spy and “disseminate dissent.”
JTA has documented Jewish history in real-time for over a century. Keep our journalism strong by joining us in supporting independent, award-winning reporting.
The Archive of the Jewish Telegraphic Agency includes articles published from 1923 to 2008. Archive stories reflect the journalistic standards and practices of the time they were published.
