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Arizona Daily Star · 9 May 1948

CP-1948-106

Jaffa Plum for Jews as Soon As Britain’s Troops Pull Out

Largest Arab City in Palestine Now Completely Surrounded by Jewish Forces; Royal Irish Fusilier Guard Will Leave Saturday

By Daniel De Luce, Jaffa, Palestine

Jaffa Plum for Jews as Soon As Britain’s Troops Pull Out — Arizona Daily Star, 9 May 1948
Arizona Daily Star · 9 May 1948

Transcribed from the clipping

“JAFFA, Palestine, May 8.—(AP)—Jaffa, the largest Arab city in Palestine a few days ago, now is a forsaken hostage of the Jewish state. If it were not for British tanks and artillery—all due to leave next Saturday—a corporal’s guard of Jews could march through Jaffa today without firing a shot. Sandbagged Arab gunposts are deserted. Less than 100 Arab civilians are to be seen dazedly wandering in the streets. They are the hungry, impoverished remnants of a population which numbered 90,000 until two weeks ago… Six warehouses protected by the fusiliers are jammed with everything from Australian butter and English chocolate to American electric refrigerators and German symphonic records. Where looters have broken in cases of food lay spilled in insane waste, their contents trampled into the dirty pavement. Jaffa’s remaining inhabitants, who now scarcely exceed 2,000, are on the verge of starvation. At the French hospital on Jaffa hill Catholic sisters are caring for the sick, wounded and orphans. Nowhere else in the city is there any public relief for victims of the undeclared war. ‘The French nuns have been the only people with guts enough to stay and carry on,’ the fusiliers officer declared.”

Photograph caption

“Arab boys admire tank—Two Arab youngsters question British soldiers about a 28-ton Cromwell tank, a road block in Jerusalem. The station is one of many set up by British to protect neutrals during Arab-Jewish warfare in the Holy Land.”

Context added by this archive

The fourth headline for the same dispatch, and the only one that calls a city of ninety thousand people a plum. The subheadings are “Great Arab Exodus,” “Riches in Warehouses” and “Pawn in Negotiations.”

Cite this item

"Jaffa Plum for Jews as Soon As Britain’s Troops Pull Out," Arizona Daily Star, 9 May 1948. Covering Palestine archive, CP-1948-106. https://coveringpalestine.org/archive/cp-1948-106

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-1948-106.

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