Arabs Grab 41 Yankees Off Ship

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Transcribed from the clipping

Haifa, Israel, May 20 (U.P.).—Lebanon has seized 41 Americans, three Canadians and 25 other male passengers from the American steamship Marine Carp as “Zionists of military age,” it was disclosed today. All 69 were sent to a concentration camp.

The men were seized in the harbor of Beirut, Lebanon, at pistol point yesterday when the Marine Carp touched there on its way to Haifa, down the coast, the ship’s crew said today on arrival here. Young Men Seized. The Jewish Government announced at Tel Aviv that it would protest strongly against “the blatant infringement of international law” by Arab Lebanon.

Informants on the Marine Carp said young men whose passports showed their destination to be Palestine were ordered to one side and told to collect their belongings and go ashore. Police ignored the vigorous protests of Capt. H. E. Snow of New York City, master of the ship, and other officers.

Some of those ordered ashore tried to resist, informants said, but were confronted with pointed pistols. Calls Them Zionists. They said that the men seized were mostly young and that the Lebanese suspected they were all going to fight in the Jewish cause.

The Lebanese Government issued the following communication: “The Marine Carp arrived at Beirut, yesterday carrying 69 Zionists of military age of different nationalities and who were joining Zionist groups in Palestine to disturb the peace of the Holy Land.

“As these endanger the security of the armies that intervened in Palestine to restore peace and order, the Lebanese military brought them ashore, finding arms and radio transmitting sets in their possession, and they were consequently put in concentration.”

Only Students Aboard, Jews Say Americans for Hagana said yesterday the only Jews it knew about aboard the Marine Carp were Palestinian students returning to their homes after study in the U. S.

American Export Lines, operator of the 12,420-ton ship, said it carried 265 passengers when it sailed from here May 4, with 120 booked for Haifa and the rest for Piraeus, Greece; Beirut, and Alexandria, Egypt.

How this transcription was made

Read from the scan at 5x to 9x; the folio was read with the contrast stretched. The date and the newspaper are printed on the page: “DAILY NEWS, FRIDAY, MAY 21, 1948”, with the page number C3 at the right-hand end, and 21 May 1948 was a Friday. No city is printed, so New York rests on the page’s own content rather than on a masthead. A CAUTION FOR ANYONE SEARCHING ON THE WORD PALESTINIAN: on this page it means Jews. The caption calls the young men “Palestinian students”, and the story explains them — “the only Jews it knew about aboard the Marine Carp were Palestinian students returning to their homes after study in the U. S.” In May 1948 American copy used Palestinian of anyone from Palestine, and here it is used of Jews exclusively. Two figures in the excerpt were corrected against a first reading made at page scale and then checked at 7.9x: the ship is 12,420 tons, not 10,420, and 120 passengers were booked for Haifa, not 129. The photographer’s name in the credit line above the caption will not resolve at 16x — six or seven letters beginning Tre — and has been left unread rather than guessed. “Americans for Hagana” with one h, “the following communication” where a communiqué is meant, and “put in concentration” are all as printed.

Cite this clipping

"Arabs Grab 41 Yankees Off Ship," Daily News, 21 May 1948, p. C3. Covering Palestine archive, CP-1948-160. https://coveringpalestine.org/archive/cp-1948-160