The presence of Prime Minister Winston Churchill in Washington was made the occasion today for an appeal to him to allow the creation of a Jewish Army in Palestine to fight with the United Nations.
The Committee for a Jewish Army today published an open letter to Mr. Churchill in the form of a three-quarter page advertisement in the New York Times and in other newspapers, citing the precarious position of the Allies in Libya and throughout the Middle East and urging the mobilization of “an army of modern Maccabees, two hundred thousand strong, on the shores of the Suez Canal at the side of the troops of the United Nations now there under British leadership.”
“We ask you, sir,” the letter states, “to grant the Jews of Palestine and stateless Jews the right to fight – and die, if need be – for democracy under the walls of Jerusalem.” The letter is signed by Pierre van Paassen, national chairman of the committee.
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