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State Department May Suspend Passports of Americans Serving with Haganah

January 23, 1948
See Original Daily Bulletin From This Date
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The passports of the G.I. and other American students now in Palestine and participating in armed activities there, may be temporarily withdrawn and their citizenship suspended during such service, it is reliably learned here.

The State Department declares that no instructions have been sent to the American Consulate General in Jerusalem to take up the passports, and that no passports have actually been withdrawn. However, power to do this, a Department spokesman pointed out, is automatically within the discretion of the Consul, in accordance with a long-standing rule which provides that United States citizens shall not participate in armed activities in another country and that the passports of the doing so are to be taken up during the period of their activity.

An American consular office is to be opened in Haifa, JTA learns on good authority, to expedite the departure of American citizens who wish to leave Palestine because of the current strife.

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