The United States delegation today submitted to the U.N. Security Council a resolution calling on that today to determine that the war in Palestine “constitutes a threat to the peace” within the meaning of the U.N. Charter and to order a new cease-fire. The introduction of the resolution, the third since the Council began considering the problem of Palestine, followed an oral report this morning by U.N. mediator Count Folke Bernadotte, who urged the Council to act firmly and quickly to halt the war.
In language far stronger than any previously used by the U.S. delegation, the resolution orders both sides to stop the fighting and sets a deadline for compliance no later than three days after its adoption by the Council. The cease-fire is to be of indefinite duration “until a peaceful adjustment of the future situation of Palestine is reached.”
The resolution provides that “failure by any of the governments or authorities concerned to comply would demonstrate the existence of a breach of the peace requiring immediate consideration by the Security Council “with a view to such further action under Chapter VII of the Charter.” (Chapter VII authorizes diplomatic, economic and military sanctions if necessary upon aggressor states.)
The resolution seeks, however, to reinstate the original truce resolution of May 29, which limited immigration of men of military age into Palestine and banned all shipments of arms and war materials into Israel. It also orders an unconditional cease-fire in Jerusalem within 24 hours and charges the mediator with responsibility for carrying out the city’s complete demilitarization.
ISRAELI DELEGATION OPPOSES FREEZING IMMIGRATION AND ARMS SHIPMENTS
The Israeli delegation tonight issued a statement taking issue with the section of the U.S. resolution which would freeze the immigration of men and women, of military age and would reinstate the world-wide arms embargo of the May 21 cease-fire accord, “The May 21 truce which was voluntarily accepted for four weeks is dead,” the statement said.
Earlier, the Provisional Government of Israel today summoned the Security Council to label Arab aggression a breach of world peace and to order an immediate end to the Palestine war. Until that happened, Israeli representative Eban said, in an address before the Council, the Jewish state could not listen to Arab proposals for a peace settlement.
He urged the Council to forget about new attempts at conciliation and of breathing life into a dead truce, “The only action consonant with the duty of the Security Council at this hour,” he declared, “Would be to determine an act of Arab aggression, arising out of the Arab decision to resume hostilities; and, as a provisional measure under Article 40 of the Charter, to order that aggression immediately and unconditionally to cease.” Now truce plans he said would only serve to restrict the Israeli forces who are defending the U.N. Charter against Arab attack.
Eban sharply attached Bernadotte’s suggestions for restricting Jewish immigration and for handing over Jerusalem and the Negev to Transjordan. “We insist that immigration into Israel is the business of Israel alone,” he said.
BRITISH SUPPORT U.S. RESOLUTION; BERNADOTTE ASKS SANCTIONS TO END WAR
During the latter part of tonight’s Council session British representative Sir Alexander Cadogan announced that his government would support the U.S. resolution, with one or two “verbal changes.” He stated that his “government feels that it is impossible for the Security Council to do less than is now proposed.” The verbal changes included referring to the “Jewish authorities in Palestine” rather than the “Provisional Government of Israel.”
After the U.S. resolution was submitted, Syrian delegate Faris el Khouri introduced a resolution referring the Palestine dispute to the International Court of Justice for a ruling on the legal status of the country after the termination of the Mandate, A similar resolution introduced at the last special Palestine session of the General Assembly was narrowly defeated.
In his oral report to the Council this morning, Bernadotte supplemented his written report which he submitted last night. He urged the Council to act firmly and quickly taking the strongest possible steps permitted by the U.N. Charter to halt the war. He suggested economic and diplomatic sanctions to begin with, and all-out military intervention at a later stage if either side refused to comply with a new Cease-fire order. In his oral statement, Bernadotte pointed the finger of accusation for the first time at the Arab state. During his cross examination by members of the Council, the mediator was confronted with a blunt question from Andrei Gromyko of the U.S.S.R. “who is guilty,” Gromyko asked, “for the renewal of hostilities in Palestine?”
Bernadotte replied: “I think the party which refused to prolong the truce has to take the responsibility for the fighting that has started.”
Bernadotte also disclosed that he does not regard himself as bound by the partition resolution of November 29 and that his suggestion for the demilitarization of Haifa and establishment of a free port there had been prompted by a request from the Governments of France, Britain and the U.S. In response to a question from Eban, Bernadotte declared that in ordering the wholesale detention of Jewish immigrants on Cyprus, the British acted on their own initiative.
“Thinking aloud” about the course the Council must take to secure peace in Palestine, he said the U.N. must make it plain that further fighting will not be tolerated. He suggested an unequivocal cease-fire order, emphasizing “I repeat, order.” The time for polite requests and suggestions was over, he indicated. The order to cease fire, Bernadotte added, must be backed by a firmly expressed, fully understood determination” to use military sanctions.
A delayed message received from the U.N. Truce Commission in Jerusalem today accused the Jewish forces there of attempting to seize all of Jerusalem. The message said that the Jews “boast” that they could conquer the city in less than two weeks and point to the Christian world’s indifference to the shelling of Jerusalem by the Arab Legion before the truce.
Truce Commission chairman, Jean Nieuwenhus, of Belgium, concluded that the Security Council must intervene immediately to stop the fighting in Jerusalem, because the “international character of the city” stipulated in the partition resolution seems to be “dangerously” threatened.
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.
