Moshe Shortok, political chief of the Jewish fancy, today appealed to the British Government to join with the United States and the ?iet Union in supporting partition as a solution of the Palestine problem.
In an hour-and-a-half address to the United Nations Ad Hoc Committee on Palestine, the Agency spokesman assured the delegates of 57 nations that the Jews would ## permit a governmental vacuum to exist in Palestine in the event Britain refuses cooperate in enforcing a U.N. decision. Lauding the positions taken by the U.S. U.S.S.R., he expressed the opinion that the prospect of agreement between America Russia on the Palestine issue “is most encouraging” but that the prospect of British cooperation with them, “is still clouded by uncertainty, and evil forebodings are not been dispelled.”
Yesterday’s statement by British Colonial Secretary Arthur Creech-Jones may ?ay not have opened slightly a door which his former pronouncement particularly ?ed, Shertok said. Nonetheless, “the government of the United Kingdom,” he added, ## have a unique chance of helping to conclude honorably a chapter of history which ## initiated so nobly through the Balfour Declaration. A great deal of the bitter? of recent years will be forgotten if they take the chance.”
Dr. Chaim Weizmann, who is scheduled to speak tomorrow, is expected to make a ?lar appeal to Britain.
OUTLINES SACRIFICES FOR JEWS WHICH PARTITION ENTAILS
Shertok reiterated the statement of Dr. Abba Hillel Silver, chairman of the American section of the Agency, who told the Ad Hoc Committee early this month that Jews will give the partition plan “full consideration” although Jewish sacrifices ?lved in accepting this plan “cannot be exaggerated.” He enumerated these sacrifies follows:
“1. The Jews will have to give up one-half of a country on the regaining of whole of which the hopes and the prayers of countless generations have centered.
“2. It will be a blow to Jewish feelings and to the Jewish future if Jerusalem completely excluded from the Jewish state.
“3. Other areas and cities hallowed by sacred associations, districts with potential promise, whole clusters of Jewish settlements, have also been excluded the Jewish state in the proposed partition plan.”
Announcing that the Jewish Agency has definite proposals regarding the bounda? between the projected Jewish and Arab states, Shertok expressed the hope that the ?y will be given full opportunity “to present and defend its case” at such sub- committees as the Ad Hoc Committee may decide to appoint. He asserted that the earliest granting of independence to Palestine is now a “foregone conclusion,” not just a solution advocated by world opinion,
The Agency leader ridiculed Arab criticisms of the proposed economic union between the two states. He said that the Jews do not regard the economic union as assential to the well-being of the Jewish state. If the matter were left to the Jews alone, he insisted, they would not have proposed a compulsory economic union, ?ce this entails a heavy financial burden for the Jewish state and some curtailment ?its sovereignty. Instead they would have preferred a series of purely voluntary economic agreements between the states. If the Jews are ready to acquiesce to the proposed economic union, it is only because they are anxious to facilitate a solution of the Palestine problem, he declared.
DEMANDS IMMEDIATE U.N. ACTION TO INCREASE JEWISH IMMIGRATION TO PALESTINE
Emphasizing the “frightful urgency” of a U.N. provision for an immediate, substantial increase in Jewish immigration to Palestine, Shertok denied allegations that {SPAN}##{/SPAN} 30,000 Jews desire to quit Palestine for their native lands in Europe and are prevented by threats. “This story,” he said, “is a complete and utter falsehood. ?ther 30,000 nor 10,000 nor 3,000 nor 1,000 have registered to go back. It is a {SPAN}##{/SPAN} invention.”
Shertok also termed a “myth” the allegation that Arabs were rendered landless by Jewish land purchase. This, he said, has been disproved by official inquiries and it has not a shred of evidence in its support. In the Jewish state,” he declared, not only will the self-interest of the Arabs in not selling out completely operate at least as vigorously as before, but the Jewish authorities, because more directly responsible, will be even more scrupulous in the observance of their principles,” of not leaving Arabs landless as a result of purchases by Jews.
Good treatment of Arabs in the Jewish state, he pointed out, will be in the ?erests of the Jews themselves. “We shall be living in a glass house in the Jew? state, watched with sharp suspicion by our immediate neighbors and keenly observed ? many from afar,” he said. “We shall have our own hostages, so to speak, in countries near and far. We shall be most vitally interested in Arab prosperity so that ?y should not undermine our standards but rather be potentially good clients for industrial products. This is not merely our declared policy. It will be a matter direct self-interest for us to try and raise the living standard of the Arabs up our own level.”
Shertok also took issue with the Arab allegation that Jews do not employ Arabs. pointed out that for every single Jew employed in Arab economy there are 100 Arabs employed by Jews. Addressing himself to the Iraqi and Syrian delegates, who had charg? that Zionism is identical with Nazism, he declared that “it was not the Jews who before the war were invited to attend as honored guests the Nuremberg rallies, nor was ## who during the war were interned as allies of the Nazis.”
Shertok scoffed at the Arab attempt to differentiate between “Jews” and “Zionist,” declaring that there are very few militant anti-Zionists and pointing out that ? UNSCOP majority report had called forth “a remarkable manifestation of Jewish ?ty.” He also ridiculed Arab claims that the modern European Jews do not stem from Israel, but are descended from the Khazars.
The Palestine Arab Higher Committee refused to testify today because it was the Moslem Sabbath. Its spokesman will be heard tomorrow. Meanwhile, Lebanon introduced a resolution calling on all members of the U.N. to refrain themselves and to ?phibit their nationals from giving assistance to Jewish immigrants destined for Palestine.
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.
