The Foreign Office today refused to comment on the Palestine partition plan proposed yesterday by the Soviet Union. A spokesman referred, forever, to the Russian demand that Britain withdraw almost immediately, declaring that the government had already indicated its intention of evacuating Palestine. He ##ed significantly that “we have never tied ourselves to a precise timetable in this respect.”
Unofficial, but informed, quarters said that the Soviet plan would probably be more welcome to the government than the American proposals, since it would relieve Britain of responsibility for administering Palestine during the transition period preceding establishment of Jewish and Arab states. The Cabinet is slated to meet soon after Colonial Secretary Arthur Creech-Jones arrives here on Thursday from Lake Success.
It is reported that Richard Stubbs, the Palestine Government’s information officer, told a private meeting yesterday, under the chairmanship of Christopher Holme, his pro-Arab predecessor, that a Jewish state could not survive “for 24 hours.” He is alleged to have said it would collapse under the additional burden of security and administrative expenditures, particularly in view of the Arab boycott, and the antagenism between right and left in the Yishuv, which would make it impossible to set up a Jewish government able to assert its authority.
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.
