Former Senator Guy M. Gillette of Iowa today announced his acceptance of the presidency of the American League for a Free Palestine and the post of chief political adviser to the Hebrew Committee of National Liberation.
Declaring that he considers the "so-called Jewish problem not as a Jewish or a Hebrew question, but as an urgent problem of the United Nations and of the decent portion of mankind," Gillette urged that the Allied Control Commission in Europe recognize the "Hebrew national status" and permit "stateless or Axis Jews" to decide their own status as Hebrew nationals, or stateless, or nationals of Germany, Rumania or Hungary. He also recommended:
1. Freeing of all Jews from Axis concentration camps.
2. Extension of UNRRA relief operations to the Balkan countries where, he charged hundreds of thousands of Jews in Rumania and Hungary, particularly, are starving and have not yet received any UNRRA aid.
3. Addition of Jewish representatives to the United Nations War Crimes Commission.
4. Consideration by the Reparations Commission now meeting in Moscow of the "claims and rights" of surviving Jews, and inclusion of compensation for the losses of the Jewish people.
Gillette said that every Jew in Europe should be authorized "to apply to the nearest British consulate and receive his first papers of Palestinian citizenship." He also suggested the creation of an Anglo-American-Russian committee with adequate powers to effect the speediest repatriation of all such applicants to Palestine. These steps, Gillette asserted, are "essential for the commencement of a solution of the entire problem." Annulment by the new British Government of "discriminatory laws against Jews in Palestine" was likewise demanded by Gillette.
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.
