Hecht and Beigin
Exposed by
Biron and Levin
—Page 2
VOLUME 11—NO. 21
American Capita!
Aids Zion's
Economy.
• • •
THE
1Pti
A Weekly Review 11:1' I
of Jewish Events
2114 Penobscot Bldg., Detroit 26, Michigan, August 8, 1947
Julius Lev Describes
Work, Aims of PEC
—Page 12
34_— 22 $3.00 Per. Year; Single Copy, 10c
Mob Fury It Mounting in Zion,
Britain; 60 Leaders Under Arrest
Special Cable to The Jewish News
UN Group 40 Test
Mrs' Urge for Zion
GENEVA, (JTA)—A ten-man sub-committee of the United
Nations Special Committee on Palestine began an eight-day tour
of Jewish DP camps in the American and British zones of Austria
and Germany.
The committee is visiting selected assembly centers for Jew-
ish DPs in Germany and Austria with a view of estimate and
report to the Special Committee on the attitudes of the inmates
regarding resettlement, repatriation or immigration to Palestine.
The group travels by American military plane, visiting Munich,
Vienna and Berlin, in that order.
It was learned that each committee member is guided in his work
by a questionnaire. Among the queries listed are: "How did you become
a DP?" "Would you like to return to your country of origin?" If the
answer is "Yes," the next question is "Why haven't you done so al-
ready?" If the reply is "No," the refugee will be asked, "Why not?"
Other questions include: "Do you want to immigrate to Palestine?"
"Have you any other wishes regarding immigration?" "Had you al-
1.
ready applied for immigration to Palestine before the war?" "Would
you like to enter another country, if allowed?"
(Reuter's reported that the main task of the sub-committee will
be "to discover whether pressure to emigrate to Palestine originates
in the DP camps themselves or is the result of outside propaganda.")
Heading the sub-committee is John D. L. Hood of Australia. The
other members are Dr. George Granados, of Guatemala; Prof. Enrique
Fabregat, of Uruguay, and the alternates of Sweden, India, Czecho-
slovakia, Canada, Iran, The Netherlands, and Yugoslavia.
At a press conference, UNSCOP Chairman Emil Sandstrom de-
clared that "what we have seen in Palestine urges upon us the need
for a speedy solution."
He outlined a three-stage working plan to be used by the body
in drafting its report. Firstly, it will conduct a discussion of the histor-
ical and factual background of the problem. Secondly. the delegates
will attempt to analyze a possible solution. Finally, UNSCOP will out-
. line the implementation of its proposed solution.
U. S. Statement Awaits UN Session
WASHINGTON, (JTA)—The U. S. Government will not state its
policy on Palestine until the United Nations General Assembly takes up
the Palestine problem at its September session, Secretary of State
George C. Marshall reiterated today.
The statement was made in a communication addressed to Rep.
Jacob K. Javits, Republican of New York, who with 29 other members
of Congress had asked Marshall for clarification of the views of the
U. S. Government on Palestine.
Rep. Javits criticized the State Department's "neutral" reply. "This
is the time for action, not neutrality," he said. "When the Committee
has already made its recommendations, a statement of policy by the
United States will hardly improve an unsatisfactory solution."
The "undeclared war" in Palestine has extended. into such an
uncontrollable fury that violence, murders, bombings and pogroms by
Britons upon Jewish communities are increasing by leaps and bounds.
A Jewish Telegraphic Agency cable from Jerusalem to The Jewish News, late
Tuesday, revealed that more than 60 Jewish leaders were placed under arrest and
that the Revisionist party was banned.
The cable also revealed that a bomb blasted the Jerusalem Labor Department
building Tuesday afternoon. Three policemen were killed and scores wounded.
Among the arrested Jewish leaders are:
Mayor Israel Rokach of Tel Aviv, Mayor Oved Ben-Ami of Nathanya,
Abraham Krinitzkt, president of the Council of Ramat Gan, and a number of
Revisionist leaders, including the following: Aizik Remba, editor of Hamash-
kif; Arieh Altman, head of the Revisionist party who was a Hebrew teacher in
Detroit about 20 years ago; Wolfgang von Weis', who was arrested together
with Jewish Agency leaders a year ago and became the center of world-wide
attention as a result of his hunger strike; Arieh Prosek, head of the Revisionist
labor department; Dr. Moshe Cohen, member of the Tel Aviv municipality;
Ahron Bader, member of the Revisionist Central Committee; Dr. Abraham
Weinshal of Haifa, and the entire local council of the Revisionist settlement
Ramat Tiomkin.
All arrests were made at dawn Tuesday. The Brith Trumpeldor property was
outlawed and made liable to seizure.
An official communique said that the arrests are part of a government cam-
paign against the terrorists, implying that there is a connection between the dis-
sidents and the right wing groups of the Yishuv. Commenting on the outlawing of
Brith Trumpeldor, the communique said that the High Commissioner is satisfied that
it is a recruiting ground for dissidents.
All of the arrested leaders were taken to Latrun Detention Camp "B," direct-
ly opposite the Latrun prison where Jewish Agency leaders were held last year.
British soldiers continued their private war on the Jewish population of
Rishon LeZion. A police jeep raced through the city's streets, opened fire on
several people at a soft drink stand and mortally wounded Herbert Rabinovicy,
32. The body of a Jew who was shot was found near the Lydda airport.
Haganah has issued a warning to British authorities that unless the soldiers who
murdered the five Tel Aviv Jews are punished, it will take matters in its own
hands.
Meanwhile a Palcor cable from Port de Bouc, France, reveals that the three
British deportation ships with the 'Exodus' passengers have been refueled, ready
to tak off for an unknown destination. Only 76 of the 4,550 passengers disembarked.
While the Jewish Agency declared that its resolution against the dissidents
means not mere words but immediate action, Richard Crossman, Labor MP, made
the demand in London that Haganah should desist from organizing visaless im-
migrants and should instead divert its energies to eradicating terrorists.
Anti-Semitic riots in England, which have tesulted in the smashing of many
Jewish shops, the desecration of synagogues and the burning of Jewish-owned
factories, in the main are being ignored by the British press.
Official Zionist Policy in Current Situation
Dr. Abba H. Silver Challenges British Lawlessness
NEW YORK.—"The lawlessness of the unsanctioned
British policy aimed at defeating the clear purpose of
the Mandate and the Balfour Declaration have led to
violence, resentment, punishment, reprisal and counter
reprisal, to the creation of a Jewish underground move-
ment which Jewish authorities are unable to control,
and to hooliganism of the British troops which the
Government seems unable to controL"
This is the attitude of the Am-
erican Zionist Emergency Council
which speaks for all major Zion-
ist parties in this country and
whose chairman is Dr. Abba
Bile! Silver. In his declaration,
Dr. Silver states:
"The two British sergeants who
had been kidnapped by the Irgun
and hanged after three con-
demned Irgunists had been hang-
ed by the British were innocent
of any crime. The Irgun was not
vested by the Jewish community
in Palestine with any authority
to judge , sentence or execute
men.
Dr. Silver
"Upon learning of the execution of Sgt. Martin, a
- member of his family in Coventry, England, told re-
porters, We do blame the Government. They should
have waited. Surely they know how desperate these
people are and they could have waited until our lads
were safe before executing those terrorists.'
'Why did the British Government not wait? What
was the frantic rush to hang these three Irgunists? The
UN Special Committee on Palestine had officially re-
quested a delay.
"For over a year now, so-called illegal immigrants
who arrived off the shore of. Palestine were trans-
. shipped by the Mandatory government to Cyprus. This
was a bitter enough disappointment to the helpless
refugees' and to the Jews of Palestine. Thirty-two such
boat-loads of refugees had thus-been sent to Cyprus.
Why was this policy suddenly changed during the meet-
ing of the United NationsCommittee in Palestine? Why
were the refugees on 'Exodus 1947'-4500 men, women
and children—forced to return to Europe?
Palestine
"Was all this calculated to insure calm in Palestine
during the period of the inquiry of the UN Commit-
tee? Or was it a stupid act bordering on provocation,
on the part of a government which does not seem to be
interested in attaining peace and tranquillity in that
country?
•
•
•
"The British Colonial Secretary, Arthur Creech-Jones,
expressed in the House of Commons his feeling of
`horror and revulsion' at the slaying of the two British
sergeants. But he could not find it in his heart to ex-
press sorrow for the slaying of the three men aboard
the Exodus and the wounding of 50. Mr. Jones knows,
perhaps better than most people, that the restrictions
on Jewish immigration into Palestine are without
basis in international law, are British-made, contrary
to the Mandate, and that they have been condemned
by the League of Nations, by Britain's foremost states-
men, and by his own Labor Party. _
"Knowing all this, Mr. Jones declared in the House
of Commons that the two soldiers whom the Irgun
executed were, 'discharging a service in fulfillment of
gations.' Explaining why the passen-
international obli
gers of the 'Exodus 1947' were forcibly returned to
Europe, he also referred to the fact that Britain, 'must
carry out her international obligations.'
"What international obligations, Mr. Jones? What
international body approved the British White
Paper of 1939? What international body authorized
the setting-up of a police state in Palestine to en-
force that policy through wholesale deportations,
mass arrests, the screening ofentire populations,
endless curfews, martial law, and the imposition
of death sentences by a military court in peacetime
for acts which would call for no such punishment
in any civilized country?
"Within the last few days, following the execution
of the two soldiers, British troops shot up the village
of Pardess Hanna. Riding in armored cars in Tel-Aviv,
British soldiers fired upon a bus full of people, all of
them innocent of any crime. Five were killed and 15
were wounded. Then followed a night of terror in
Tel-Aviv.
"These acts were undoubtedly irresponsible acts of
reprisal, just as were the acts of the Irgunists. Is the
British Government prepared to assume responsibility
for these crimes, as it would wish the Jewish com-
munity to assume responsibility for the misdeeds of
the Irgunists?
"Where will all this end? The British Government
is maintaining today over 100,000 troops in Palestine,
at a time when it is forced to consider withdrawing its
troops from Germany, Italy and Greece, because it
is short of funds, because it is short of manpower to
run its industry at home. These 100,000 troops main-
tained at high cost, have not brought peace to the Holy
Land. They have brought war. The British Navy is
now waging war upon helpless women and children.
British forces are being used by Mr. Bevin to impose
a blind and blundering policy upon Palestine which he
knows cannot be enforced. That policy must be quick-
ly abandoned, before anarchy sweeps over the Holy
Land.
"The British Government can make a major contribu-
tion to the pacification of Palestine if it will abandon
the Exodus practice of forcibly returning Jewish refu-
gees to Europe and if it will refrain from similar acts
of provocation. The Irgun had observed an 'armistice'
all through the period of the inquiry of the UN Com-
mittee until the Palestine Government pronounced the
sentence of death upon its men, a sentence which
might well have been delayed if reason and political
judgment had prevailed. The Haganah has not only
maintained law and order, but it fought in every way
short of provoking civil war, to curb the activities of
the dissident Jewish groups. It could not, and cannot,
however, stand idly by -in the face of acts such as the
Government's piratical attack upon the Exodus and the
intensified campaign against Jewish immigration."
ip
•
The Zionist Organization of America, in a statement
denouncing the execution of the two British sergeants
by the Irgun Zvai Leumi, declared, "We are shocked
and horrified. The perpetrators must be bereft of their
senses. The Zionist movement has repeatedly con-
demned the shedding of innocent blood as an instru-
ment of political warfare."
The statement added, "We condemn the Irgun for
this foul deed as we condemn the British Government
for the reign of terror it has instituted in Palestine."