Friday, October 5, 1945
THE JEWISH NEWS
Truman Denies FDR Made
Zion Pledge to Ibn-Saud
Sen. Brewster Charges President With Following 'British
Line'; Ibn Saud Admits Jews Had Improved Palestine
But Threatens Violence if More Immigrate
• WASHINGTON (JPS)—President Truman, replying to a ques-
tion at a press conference here, gave the lie to assertions by Arab
League Secretary Abdul Rahman Azzam Bey, that the late President
Roosevelt gave his pledge to Ibn Saud that he would support Arab
demands regarding Palestine. •
Asked whether President Roosevelt had given such a pledge,
* *'President Truman flatly replied, "no," adding that he had looked
carefully through the records of the conferences between the late
President and Ibn Saud and there is .nothing contained there to in-
• dicate that Roosevelt had made such commitment.
(Ann Cottrell, New York Herald Tribune Washington corres-
pondent, reports that government officials confirmed that Mr. Roose-
velt held several off-the-record conversations with Ibn Saud, and
that they spoke. in French without an interpreter. Constantine
Browh, Washington Star columnist, maintains that Roosevelt made
such a pledge and that "minutes of the conversation are being kept
a top secret in the files of the state Department.")
.
Charges Truman Follows British Line
Truman admitted that he is not in favor of an outright Jewish
State in Palestine at an informal White House Meeting with Senators
Brewster of Maine and Magnuson of Washington and former Senator
Gillette, Drew Pearson, Washington columnist, reports.
Senator Brewster engaged in a bitter argument with the Presi-
dent and told him:
"You are following the British line Roosevelt fell for. The
British who arranged for Roosevelt to see Ibn Saud who swore there
would be bloodshed if Palestine was given to the Jews. Meanwhile,
the British were giving Ibn Saud rifles with which he could stir
up bloodshed."
Ibn Saud Admits Jews Improved Palestine
NEW YORK (JPS)—King Ibn Saud of Saudi Arabia, admitted
that Jewish settlers in Palestine "have done much to improve the
country agriculturally," but "has sworn to take violent action against
Jews and any other members of the United Nations supporting
them" should large-scale Jewish immigration to Palestine be per-
mitted, an unidentified U. S. official reported here, according to
an Associated Press dispatch.
The informant said Ibn Saud disclaimed that he was anti-Jew-
ish and promised no trouble between Jews and Arabs if the status
of Palestine remains unchanged.
Rep, Wickersham
Urges Return of
Displaced Jews
/ Head of U. S. Delegation to
Palestine Asks 'Less
Agitation' on Issue
WASHINGTON (JTA) — Rep.
Victor Wickersham of Oklahoma,
who has just returned from a
visit to Palestine as the head of
an 11-man Congressional delega-
tion, told the Jewish Telegraphic
Agency that he would recom-
mend to the House of Represent-
ati-ves the ieturn to their former
homes of such Jews as could be
returned from the displaced per-
sons camps in Europe.
For those who cannot be re-
turned to their homes, Rep. Wick-
ersham will urge immigration to
the U. • S. and other countries
which are members of the United
Nations. Only as a last alterna-
tive will he propose the sending
of such Jews to Palestine, which
he believes should be placed
under an international trustee-
ship.
"My group," he said, "feels
that Palestine should be an in-
ternational religious center avail-
able to all religions. I don't think
Jews should be sent without the
full approval of the people in
Palestine, Arabs and Jews."
Urging "less agitation" on the
Palestine issue in the U. S., Rep.
Wickersham said: "It is not the
Jews of the U. S. who want to
go to Palestine. If the Jews of
the U. S. did not subsidize those
who want to proceed to Pales-
tine, they would be returning to
their countries, whence they
came. 'If more Jews are sent, I
fear there will be trouble with
the, Arabs."
Asked if he favored removing
immigration restrictions in the
U. S. in order to accommodate
displaced Jews now in Germany,
Wickersham said: "Yes, . if the
other United Nations will take
their proportion."
. *
20 Pct. of 140,000 Jews
Survived in Netherlands
AMSTERDAM, (JTA) —
Twenty-five thousand Dutch Jews
already have registered with the
Jewish Registration Office here,
and information concerning an-
other 8,000 is expected to be ob-
tained shortly. Latest figures in-
dicate that 107,000 Jews are sent
to death camps by the Nazis, -and
only about 20 per cent of the
Netherland's pre war Jewish pop-
ulation of 140,00 have survived.
-
Page- Three
Weekly Review of the News of the World
(Compiled From Cables. of Independent Jewish Press Service)
AMERICA
Assailing the rumored decision of the British
Labor Government to continue the White Paper
restrictions in Palestine, Louis Lipsky, de-
clared that "it is amazing that the first item
on the program of the new Labor Government
in England -- should involve the betrayal of
British promises, against which betrayal the
Labor Party itself took so courageous a stand
before election."
William B. Herlands, former Commissioner
.dr Investigation in the LaGuardia administra-
tion, has assumed active direction of New
York City's 1945 campaign for the American
Fund for Palestinian Institutions; central fund-
raising body in this country for 69 educational,
cultural and social welfare.' institutions in
Palestine, whose annual operating budgets total
$1,700,000, toward which the American Fund's
contra for next year is set at $550,000, of
which the New York share is $350,000.
An investigation and possible • ousting of Dr.
George N. Shuster, president of Hunter College,
for alleged pro-Nazi sympathies, was- urged on
the Board of Higher Education, of New York,
by the Regional Actions Coinmittees of Pro-
testant magazine. Dr. Shuster recently went to
Germany as a member of a delegation from the
War Department to interrogate Nazi leaders on
social, political and economic aspects of Ger-
many under the Hitler regime.
The building of a national synagogue in
Washington was proposed by Congressman Sol
Bloom of New York in a speech during the
Yom Kippur services at the Adas Israel Con-
gregation in Washington.
The Citizens' Protective League of New York,
an alleged Nazi •front organization, filed suit
in District Court to prevent deportation to
Q-ermany of 140 other German nationals and
known Nazi sympathizers.
Only about 100 Jewish doctors out of the
pre-war total of 3,700 are now living in Poland,
according to a cable report which the New
York office of the American OSE Committee,
organization for child care, health, and hygiene
has just received from TOZ, its affiliate in
Poland.
OVERSEAS
.A unit of the Jewish Brigade stationed in
Holland has taken over guard at Walcheren
Island where Nazi PWs are interned.
Nine thousand "semi-homeleSs and un-
wanted" Jews now in Berlin, who a short
time ago suffered because they are Jews, are
now suffering the fate of being treated as
conquered Germans, the Rev. I. Levy, S.C.F.,
reports in an article from Berlin.
A special delegation from the Amsterdam
diamond bourse will soon visit England, Am-
erica and Palestine to persuade Jewish refugees
there, who were formerly connected with
Holland's diamond industry, to return to the
Netherlands to resume their trade.
Of 20,000 surviving Dutch Jews, half were
concentration camp inmates and the rest were
in hiding for years. In addition, there are now
in Holland, 5000 Jews, so-called "strangers"
from eastern and central Europe.
General Dwight D. Eisenhower, in an order
to the personnel of displaced perso,ns camps in
the American zone of occupation, called for
"top priority on all facilities necessary for the
psychological as well as physical requirements
of stateless and displaced persons," and said
that the German population must be made
responsible for the care of these people .
British military police are investigating com-
plaints, from Jewish witnesses at the Belsen
War Crimes trial, that Poles in the camp had
threatened them with death if they testified
on Polish assistance to the Nazis in anti-Jewish
atrocities at the camp.
Uneasiness and tension is mounting among
soldiers of the Jewish Brigade, now billeted
throughout Holland and Belgium as their job
of occupation here nears its end. They do not
know whether they will be kept in Belgium,
when Allied forces are withdrawn from the
Netherlands, or moved into Germany as part
of the occupation forces, or returned to the
Middle East. The uncertainty is causing much
concern among our soldiers and poses a knotty
growing
psychological problem which is
steadily.
(See also Page 18)
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