Russ to Support Palestine Plan

Claims Delegate · Slavs, Britain Removed from Speakers’ List

Associated Press

Russ to Support Palestine Plan — Reno Gazette-Journal, 13 October 1947 — Reno Gazette-Journal · Reno, Nevada · 13 October 1947

Transcribed from the clipping

“Russ to Support Palestine Plan · Claims Delegate · Slavs, Britain Removed from Speakers’ List LAKE SUCCESS, Oct. 13. (AP) — A leading non-Russian delegate in the Soviet bloc and an Arab spokesman said today that Russia was ready to support the proposed partition of Palestine into separate Jewish and Arab countries.

A United Nations secretariat source said, meanwhile, that Yugoslavia and British had scratched themselves from the speakers’ list for today in the 57-member Palestine committee of the United Nations assembly.

POLICY STATEMENT This would place the Russian policy statement first for delivery in the Palestine committee when it convenes. The speakers’ list had called for statements from Yugoslavia, Britain, Russia, Haiti, Afghanistan and Saudi Arabia.

The Slav source said the Soviet Union had concluded that partition was the only fair and workable solution in view of current strife between the Arabs and Jews. The Slav delegate, who declined to be quoted by name, said his information on the Russian position had come from ‘the highest authoritative level.’

A similar report on Russian intentions was given by a member of an Arab delegation. The Arab spokesman said that while Russia would support partition her endorsement would not be as strong as that of the United States. The U. S. statement was made last Saturday.

SOVIETS SILENT The Russians themselves remained silent as Semen K. Tsarapkin, Soviet Palestine expert, prepared to deliver the open policy speech for the Soviet union. It was recalled, however, that Soviet Deputy Foreign Minister Andrei A.

Gromyko told the assembly’s extraordinary Palestine session last spring that Russia thought partition would be the best solution in the event Jewish-Arab cooperation could not be obtained to carry out creation of a bi-national country.

Troops Camp Near Palestine Border JERUSALEM, Oct. 13 (AP) — Jewish sources reported well-equipped Syrian troops encamped today near the Palestine border opposite an area of Jewish agricultural settlements, but there was no confirmation from British officials or other quarters.

One British spokesman said, however, that if the report was true, the Syrian troop movement probably was ‘the first step on the part of the Arab states to show they will fill the vacuum and take over the Holy Land when the British move out.’

CONSULATE BOMBED The United States consulate in Jerusalem was slightly damaged by a bomb which was tossed over the compound wall and exploded in the garden. Two women employes in the consulate mail room were slightly injured. Observers were inclined to attribute the bombing to an attempted reprisal for the U.

S. decision to support partition of Palestine into separate Jewish and Arab countries which was announced Saturday in the United Nations special Palestine committee. Police and military officers worked on the theory that a woman threw the bomb.

They expressed belief that she had concealed the explosion under her clothing while walking a footpath, bordered by barbed wire, at the end of the street.

MUFTI IN LEBANON (London newspapers reported today that the exiled mufti of Jerusalem, Haj Amin El Husseini, had visited a point in Lebanon near Palestine’s northwestern border after attending the meeting in Beirut where the Arab league council announced adoption of concrete plans for ‘military measures for the Arab defense of Palestine.’) (A British foreign office spokesman said the mufti would be arrested immediately if he attempted to enter the Holy Land while Britain retains her mandate there.)

The British, who govern Palestine under a league of nations mandate, have announced that they will withdraw from the Holy Land if the United Nations fails to find a solution to the problem acceptable to both Arabs and Jews.

WILL MOVE TROOPS The Arab league, meeting in Beirut, announced last week that it had agreed to cordon off what it described as ‘terrorist organizations and Zionist forces’ in Palestine by moving troops from the Arab countries up to the Holy Land’s frontiers.

(A Beirut dispatch quoted a civil attache of the Lebanese war ministry as saying that two companies of Lebanese troops were moved near the Syrian-Palestine frontier Thursday for maneuvers.)”

Context added by this archive

Nevada’s first appearance in this archive, and it lands on the day the Soviet position on partition became public. The Jaffa daily Filastin answered it on its own front page the next morning, in a line an American news agency translated for readers in Louisiana two days later.

The second story on the page carries the Arab League agreeing to cordon off what it called terrorist organizations and Zionist forces — the word, in 1947, pointing the other way.

Cite this item

"Russ to Support Palestine Plan," Reno Gazette-Journal, 13 October 1947. Covering Palestine archive, CP-1947-044. https://coveringpalestine.org/archive/cp-1947-044