PALESTINE: No Peace

Upon thy walls, 0 Jerusalem, I have appointed watchmen, all the day and all the night: they shall never hold their peace.

At 2 p.m. each day (except Saturdays) Isaiah’s words issued forth from a mobile Palestine “resistance” radio. Last week Jerusalem had no peace. Armored cars raced up its hills, troops armed to the teeth patrolled its narrow streets, days & nights were loud with the rumble of mili tary convoys.

The weeks of waiting on London and Washington had ended at last in a joint policy pronouncement. Its principal points: 1) the U.S. for the first time will join with Britain in a Committee of Inquiry to review the Palestine problem; 2) the Committee will prepare a “permanent solution” (probably trusteeship under the United Nations Organization) for submission to UNO; 3) Palestine as the Jewish homeland will not be considered as the only possible solution for the problem of Jewish suffering.

Majority or Minority. To anxious Arabs and Jews this development held important corollaries which Britain’s Foreign Secretary Ernest Bevin candidly underlined in London. Said he: “We never undertook to establish a Jewish state [in Palestine], but we did undertake to establish a Jewish home, and that we must fulfill.” Bevin had taken his stand on a literal interpretation of the 1917 Balfour Declaration (“The establishment in Palestine of a national home for the Jewish people . . .”). Said an Arab spokesman in Cairo: “We are happy, but we can’t afford to show it.”

The National Council of Palestine Jews promptly proclaimed a general strike; rabbis ordered rams’ horns to be blown for a day of prayer and fasting. In Tel Aviv, angry protest meetings flared into open riots. Bands of youths with smoking torches set fire to Government offices, damaged stores, stoned buildings. In the center of the all-Jewish city Zionists fought a pitched battle with police, who retreated to avoid bloodshed. Five Jews were killed and 56 injured; 23 police and soldiers were wounded, mostly with homemade hand grenades.

Faced with critical decisions, the Arab League Council prepared to meet in Cairo this week, the Zionist Organization executive council in Jerusalem the following week. Three British divisions were standing by.

Three sets of watchmen were on the walls.