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Palestine Government Weakening Jewish Settlement Police by Barring Replagements

November 16, 1947
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The Palestine Government is sabotaging Jewish ##fense by refusing to allow replacements to fill vacancies in the ranks of the Jewish Settlement Police, according to a source connected with Jewish security agencies.

The JSP is the only legal defense body the Jews possess. The Government inpectors assess what they consider to be the minimum defense requirements of the ##arious Jewish settlements scattered throughout the country and on this basis author##ze each settlement to have so many police officers and so many licensed rifles. The ##ull complement of the JSP is 1,700. Following the normal seasonal resignations of the force as well as vacancies because of accidental death or illness, the JSP is ## ten percent below par, according to this informant.This fall the Government has forbidden the usual replacements on the ground that the Palestine problem is subject to the United Nations and nothing must be done to upset the status quo here. “This means,” the JTA informant said, “if a settlement that is entitled to six JSP officers, loses five of them in a road accident, may## or in an epidemic, the settlement’s authorized defense is down to one man and one ##ifle, and stays down.”

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