Edwardsville Intelligencer · 21 June 1967

CP-1967-028

Jews Most Trouble For Occupation Chief

On West Bank

By James Feron, (c) 1967 New York Times, Jerusalem

Transcribed from the clipping

“‘We’re in King Hussein’s office,’ the Israeli military governor said. ‘Just six days ago the King was sitting in it. It’s hard to believe.’ Brig. Gen. Chaim Herzog, military governor of the West Bank, or occupied Jordan, is a 48-year-old rabbi’s son with a touch of brogue and a sense of humor. His job is to direct, from an office in former Jordanian Jerusalem, the restoration of order in the occupied area. ‘But do you know what my biggest problem is?’ he asks. ‘It’s the Jews. They want to go to the Wailing Wall and they want to see their old homes and they want this back and that back. It’s very difficult.’ From his window on one of the main streets he can see Israeli soldiers checking passes as Arabs and Israelis arrive with a spectrum of problems. The Arab shops across the street remain tightly shuttered… Herzog said that his advice to Israeli governors in Arab towns, now that the fighting is over, is ‘use plenty of common sense and plenty of Arab labor. We don’t want separate Israeli administrations.’ ‘The Jordanians have been amazed at our approach. The former governor, Anwar El Katib, told me he was flabbergasted. They expected the conquest to be something quite different.’ The result, he said, is that while many Jordanians fled, many have also returned. The flight across the Jordan River continues, he said, but the majority have remained and ‘we hope they will soon open their shops’… ‘In any case, we don’t want the United Nations in here,’ he said. ‘My view is that the U.N. has been a divisive force, not a unifying one. They’ve become a vested interest here. I’d like to work without them.’ He said Israeli instructions were broadcast on expanded Arab transmissions, were contained in bill posters and were announced over megaphones after curfew, which begins at 3 p.m. in cities and 6 p.m. in the country… Israeli soldiers remain on duty throughout Jersualem and other cities… Sunday was the last day to turn in weapons. ‘Then we will have to find them house to house,’ he said. Jerusalem continues to shake with the rumble of unexploded shells being touched off by demolition experts… Bulldozers have cleared a huge plaza in front of the Wailing Wall, Judaism’s holiest site, and tomorrow tens of thousands of Israelis made their first pilgrimage there this week.”

Context added by this archive

The military governor of the West Bank interviewed in King Hussein’s office sixteen days after the war, in a small Illinois daily. He calls the territory occupied Jordan, calls the war the conquest, says the Jews are his biggest problem, and describes the curfew, the house-to-house weapons search and the bulldozers clearing the plaza at the Wailing Wall. The Arab quarter cleared for that plaza is not mentioned. “Jersualem” is the paper’s.

Cite this item

"Jews Most Trouble For Occupation Chief," Edwardsville Intelligencer, 21 June 1967. Covering Palestine archive, CP-1967-028. https://coveringpalestine.org/archive/cp-1967-028

Elsewhere in the archive

• A Solution for Palestinians?Toronto Star · 7 June 1967 · the same year
• Refugee Crisis Forming On Jordan’s West BankCourier-Journal · 13 June 1967 · the same year
• The Endlessly Embattled Land Of PalestineCalgary Herald · 14 June 1967 · the same year