A complete change in the personnel of the Transjordan cabinet was announced in the Arab press yesterday. It is regarded as significant that both the new premier and the new private secretary to the Emir are reported here as being favorable to the transaction involving the lease of the Emir’s estate in the eastern Jordan Valley to a Jewish company for Jewish settlement. Moreover it is claimed that the new private secretary to the Emir actually acted as mediator between the Jewish company and the Emir in the negotiation of the lease.
At the same time the agitation against Jewish settlement in Transjordan—Eastern Palestine—carried on by leading Arabs in Western Palestine is assuming a personal character, in that it is being directed against the Emir Abdullah himself. Thus yesterday’s Arab papers published here reported that the Emir had been stoned by bands of incited schoolboys at Es-Salt, as he was returning to Amman from Jerusalem. The Emir himself is described as having escaped injury, though the windows of his automobile were smashed. Five of the school boys were arrested and imprisoned, it was further reported.
On inquiry here, the Jewish Telegraphic Agency was informed by the Palestine Government that there was no truth in the report of the attack on the Emir.
The change in the personnel of the Transjordan cabinet follows the adjournment of the Transjordan Legislative Assembly on the day of its reopening announced for the beginning of this month. The Transjordan legislature, which had not met for about six months, was reported to have been called together in order to discuss the question of the lease of Transjordan land to Jews. The meeting did not, however, take place. It was then alleged by the opponents of the Emir that the adjournment was brought bout through insufficient attendance #wing to the absence of the Emir’s supporters who did not wish the debate to take place under circumstances in which several of the cabinet were hostile to the Emir’s land-lease policy.
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.
