PALESTINE: Night in Jerusalem

Residents of Jerusalem’s King David Hotel, strolling onto the terrace for a breath of night air and a final look at the moonlight-flooded city, heard night-jarring sounds. From a brightly lighted second-story window came angry voices. Curious newsmen stood listening to name-calling, the sound of face-slapping, of furniture being upset.

In that room, all week long, the Arab League’s trouble shooter, little, egg-shaped Djamil Mardam Bey, his tufty white hair mussed and his horn-rimmed glasses damp with perspiration, had held conferences with representatives of the Arabs’ six parties, trying to form a committee to direct Arab political activities. The delegates had marched up the marble stairs with backs straight and with eyes flashing. They had scuttled down muttering expletives.

The more moderate Palestine Arab Party was satisfied with British action stopping Jewish immigration. The extremist Independence Arab Party favored immediate action against the Jews. In desperation, Mardam called in Iraq’s Nuri Pasha, an old hand at settling Arab disputes. At week’s end, negotiations broke down again.

The Jews, too, needed a unifying hand. They were split up in some 20 factions, and a struggle for leadership was developing inside the Jewish Agency Executive. One group, headed by the Hagana underground, championed armed defiance of the anti-immigration rules. They held that Jewish chances were already lost, believed that only the martyrdom of thousands would win the world sympathy they needed.

Another group, headed by fiery Ben Gurion’s “Mapai” party, advocated a civil-disobedience campaign. The entire Palestine economy is dependent upon Jewish industry; Jewish income taxes pay much of the Government’s expenses. If these suddenly stopped, perhaps the Jews could drive home their points.

Despite such fraternal strife among Arab and Jewish leaders, the peoples themselves still mingled in Jerusalem, a common holy place, on terms of surprising amity. They felt that, even if the current crisis exploded in civil war, Jew and Arab would continue to live together in Palestine for a long time.