Search JTA's historical archive dating back to 1923

Palestine Military Commander Orders Two More Jews to Hang; Commutes Sentence of Third

April 18, 1947
See Original Daily Bulletin From This Date
Advertisement

Lt. Gen. Gordon H.A. MacMillan, Palestine military commander, today confirmed the death sentences imposed on two Palestine Jews and commuted the sentence of a third to life imprisonment. Under amendments to the ##rgency Defense Regulations published yesterday there is no appeal from his ##cision.The condemned men are Moshe Barazani, 21, and Meir Feinstein, whose age the ##secution claims is 23. The third youth is Daniel Azulai. Barazani is a self-##fessed Sternist, who told the military court which convicted him that “you will ## frighten us with your gallows.” Feinstein’s mother insists that her son, a ##teran of the British Army, is only 17.Barazani was captured in Jerusalem during the imposition of martial law with hand grenade in his possession. The other two youths were charged with having participated in an attack on the Jerusalem central railroad station last October.

JEWISH PRISONERS GO ON HUNGER STRIKE IN PROTEST AGAINST EXECUTIONS

All Jewish prisoners in the Acre Prison went on a hunger strike yesterday {SPAN}##ning{/SPAN} following the execution at the jail of Dov Gruner and three other Palestine {SPAN}##vs,{/SPAN} it was learned today.

The curfew, in effect since the hangings, was lifted at 6 o’clock this morning in Tel Aviv and at 8 a.m. in Haifa. The daylight curfew was lifted in Jerusalem, out will remain in effect nightly between 6:30 p.m. and 5:30 a.m. A night curfew ## all roads continues. Tension remains high throughout the country and soldiers are manning all command and gun posts.

The tension is “almost unbearable,” a Jewish Agency spokesman declared at a press conference this morning. Expressing “profound shock” at the events of the last 48 hours, he said that the “secrecy with which the whole ‘operation’ was conducted, makes the ordinary citizen feel that the Palestine Government was trying to hide something.”

The execution came at a time when the terrorists were forfeiting public ##sympathy, he stated. “Now the terrorists have been presented with four martyrs,” the pointed out. Charging that the executions and the simultaneous issuance of ##mendments to the Emergency Defense Regulations, forbidding appeals from decisions for sentences of military courts or of the military commander, was timed most unfortunately, he emphasized that the country is confronted, in all probability, with another international inquiry.“It is clear,” he continued, “that the idea is to carry out such sentences before the committee arrives, or at any rate before an international forum enters upon

JEWISH CHAPLAIN TO PALESTINE PRISONS SUBMITS RESIGNATION AS PROTEST

Rabbi Jacob Goldman, formerly of Rochester, N.Y., today offered his resignation aplain to prisons in Palestine to Chief Rabbi Isaac Herzog as a protest against Goverment’s failure to inform him in advance of the execution of the four Irgun{SPAN}##{/SPAN} Rabbi Herzog refused to accept the resignation, stating: “The action of the {SPAN}##sh{/SPAN} authorities will be generally declared highly reprehensible. These four were deprived of the elementary rights of every human being in such tragic {SPAN}##stances–to have the comfort of his religious faith administered to him before thread of his life is snapped asunder.”{/SPAN}The Palestine censor today forbade the press or radio to carry comments on executions by Sen. Guy M. Gillette, president of the American League for a Palestine, and Rep. Joseph Clark Baldwin, administrative chairman of the political Action Committee for Palestine. The censor said the ban was “in the {SPAN}##rest{/SPAN} of public security.”

Recommended from JTA

Advertisement