The United Nations Special Committee on Palestine (##)ay completed its work in Palestine by hearing John S. Grauel, American Protestant later from Worcester, Mass., who arrived on the refugee ship Exodus with 4,500 visalees Jews, and then headed for Beirut in a 22-car motorcade where it will probably begin taking testimony from the representatives of the neighboring Arab states tomorrow.
Accompanying UNSCOP were all correspondents accredited to it, including Theodor Backer, Jewish Telegraphic Agency correspondent. However, Gerold Frank, special Jewish Telegraphic Agency correspondent who accompanied the committee since it departed from the United States and for the seven weeks it spent in the Holy Land, was deterred. Despite repeated intervention by U.N. personnel and delegates the Lebanese consulate refused to grant Frank a visa.
SPECIAL JTA CORRESPONDENT WITH UNSCOP BARRED AS "DANGEROUS"
It is understood that when one member of the committee pressed the consul general for a reason for the action, he was told that Frank was "a dangerous man" because a pro-Zionist interview which he obtained from a Maronite (Catholic) Archbishop the Lebanese capital last year when he accompanied the Anglo-American inquiry committee had caused "great repercussions" in the Arab world.
Grauel, whose identity documents and Palestine visa were confiscated by the British in Haifa, spent more than an hour furnishing the delegates with details of the British boarding operation on the Exodus. The delegates, who displayed great interest in the entire story, were particularly anxious to learn whether the violence the operation was "necessary." Grauel answered that it was unnecessary, pointing out that over 30 blockade runners had arrived off Palestine and had been boarded and their passengers transshipped without such an attack.
The minister added that there were no weapons aboard the vessel and that three (##)ns which had been found aboard several days before the battle had been confiscated and thrown overboard. Turning to UNSCOP Chairman Emil Sandstroem, Grauel said:
"Sir, I saw you aboard the ship looking about. I want to tell you that when your back was turned the British carried a stretcher by with a boy on it. That isn’t a wounded boy, but a dead boy with a blanket rolled down from his face to make it appear that he was not dead but unconscious."
Speaking of his visits to DP camps, the minister told the committee that about (##) percent of the displaced Jews desire to come to Palestine and some wish to come to America.
WEIZMANN SUBMITS STATEMENT ATTACKING FEDERALIZATION, UPHOLDING PARTITION
Dr. Chaim Weizmann today submitted a written answer to a question from Guatemalan delegate Dr. Jorge Garcia Granados as to why partition was more acceptable to him as a solution of the Palestine problem than federalization or cantonization. The question was posed July 8 when the aged Zionist leader testified before UNSCOP.
He declared that federalization would not do away with foreign control in Palestine, nor would it establish Jewish equality or independence, nor would it create an atmosphere of finality wherein the Jews and Arabs would be freed of their fear of domination by each other. On the other hand, he stated partition would permit the realization of these conditions.
Yesterday, at a closed session, Sir Henry L. Gurney, Palestine Chief Secretary, appeared together with a number of government department heads. At the same time the Government submitted a memorandum in answer to a charge by David Ben Gurion that Britain had not fulfilled its obligations under the Mandate.
The document accused the Jews of assuming the right of force to gain a political objective, asserting that, "supported by an organized campaign of lawlessness, murder and sabotage," they have attempted to gain statehood and free Jewish immigration. It also charged Zionists with "concealing the truth" and "gross self-deception."
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.
