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Evening Star · 25 June 1948

CP-1948-098

Israel and the Extremists

Israel and the Extremists — Evening Star, 25 June 1948
Evening Star · 25 June 1948

Transcribed from the clipping

“The Israeli government has acted with commendable and reassuring firmness in preventing Irgun Zvai Leumi from landing a shipload of arms in the vicinity of Tel Aviv. Leaders of Irgun, an underground organization of Jewish terrorists which has broken with the government and caused a grave internal crisis leading to the resignation of two cabinet members, have threatened to retaliate in a way that conceivably could lead to civil war in the new state, but at the moment they seem to be checked. In effect, if the Israeli government had permitted the landing, it would have been guilty of violating its truce with the Arabs. As evidence of its good faith, however, it did not hesitate to send its troops against the Irgun force in a shooting engagement that has left several individuals dead on both sides… Every friend of the new Jewish state must hope that such a war will be avoided or that it can be brought to a speedy finish by the Israeli government, with the Irgunists, the Stern gang and other Jewish terrorists decisively and permanently shattered. The fact that these terrorists may have the power to stage a coup is one of the reasons why the United States has extended only provisional recognition to the Israeli regime. If that regime is overthrown, then our attitude toward the whole idea of a partitioned Palestine is likely to undergo a fundamental change… It is more than probable that the United States and other free countries would refuse to recognize that state if the extremists—suspected of pro-Soviet aims—should succeed in taking it over. Their ascendancy in Palestine could mean the end of all Zionist aspirations.”

Context added by this archive

An unsigned editorial, six weeks after the state was declared, using “Jewish terrorists” twice in its own voice, with no quotation marks and nobody to attribute it to. The paper is on the government’s side against them, and calls the government a regime.

Cite this item

"Israel and the Extremists," Evening Star, 25 June 1948. Covering Palestine archive, CP-1948-098. https://coveringpalestine.org/archive/cp-1948-098

Elsewhere in the archive

This record is part of Covering Palestine, an archive of American and Anglophone newspaper clippings about Palestinians, 1812 to 2022. Researched and assembled by Maria Robles.

The clipping belongs to the newspaper that printed it, or to the wire service that supplied the copy. It is reproduced here for research, criticism and commentary.

Something wrong here, or something you know about this clipping? The archive is still being built and corrections are wanted: maria@rozumstudio.com, quoting CP-1948-098.

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