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ARABS WILL FIGHT
NEW PLAN
Palestine Has a
Grim Outlook
'NO PARTITION'
"The Age" Special Correspondent in Palestine
. and A.A.P.,
Arabs will fight the Jews and the British
security forces just as soon as their organisa-'
tion is perfected. This is the immediate re
action of the Arabs on learning the boundaries
of the new Arab and Jewish States proposed
by the United Nations special commission on
Palestine.
Moderate Arab workers in Jaffa and Haifa,
who recently tended to oppose the Arab Higher
Committee's- decision to fight: any. form of par-,
tition, are now considered aimos.t certain , to ..-
join the illegal. Arab army, .because they are
incorporated within the JeWish State;"
Haifa, the most important' town
and port in the Holy Land, had
an Arab majority until recently,
but the- 1947 statistics give 96,000
Arabs and 119,000 Jew? in the
Haifa district. -
' The second port of Jaffa' is al
most entirely an Arab town.
Arabs praise Mr. John Hood,
Australian, . delegate on
U.N.S C.O.P., for refusing to, sup
port the -plan, which not only
puts into Jewish- hands the entire
citrus-growing area, half of which
is owned by Arabs, but which in
cludes within the -Jewish State
the Irak Petroleum / Company pipe
line terminal and consolidated re
fineries. The I.P.C. alone em
ploys nearly 10,000 Arabs in
Haifa.
... The Jews have received more
than many, dared to hope for, so-
all that the moderates demand
to-day is that the recommenda
tions be carried out speedily.
, .- British officials in Palestine
seem doubtful whether the British
Government will be willing to ac
cept a -recommendation which will
bring its relations with all Arab
States to breaking point.
Jew Migration
New York despatches state that
the reaction of several Jewish
leaders to the U.N.S.C.O.P. plan
varied from strong endorsement
and cautious favor to, questioning
whether ! the l recommendations
vxiice s Adequate' and 'ffeevi of, -pit-
fails. ' '-v. vr-ti1?!. ("T '
Paris el'-Khburi, of Syria, who:
speaks for the Arab League, -in
most United Nations affairs, ob
jected , emphatically to the -pro
posals, declaring that the Arab
League firmly opposed' any kind
of partition of the Holy- Land.
He added that the Arab stand
on tlie minority rpport recom
mendation for a Federal Palestine
was that the end of Jewish immi
gration would have to be linked
with the. plan.
The Secretary-General of the
Arab. League (Abdul /Rahman Az-
znm. Pasha) saw the majority pro
posal was absolutely impractical,
and he did not . think The General
Assembly of U.N., to which it was
being presented, would take it.
The majority . report recom
mends the partition of Palestine,
with an economic union. It sug
gests that Britain should -carry on
the administration of Palestine
under the auspices of the U.N.,
while the Arab and Jewish States
gG through a two-year transition
period, electing constituent as
semblies and preparing to sign a
treaty of economic union. ,
The Jewish Agency during this
period should be responsible for
organising the Immigration of
150,000 Jews at a uniform monthly
rate. > Sixty thousand Jews should
be admitted annually if the tran
sition period lasts beyond two
years.
The majority report plan for
boundaries of the States excludes
the City of Jerusalem. The pro
posed Jewish State Includes East
ern Galilee, the Esdraelon Plain,
most of the coastal plain, and
the whole of Beersheba sub-dis
trict, including the Negeb.
The proposed Arab State com-
prises .Western Galilee, the hill
country of - Samaria and Judea;
excluding Jerusalem, and. the
southern coastal plain to the
Egyptian frontier. ;
The.' proposal for Jerusalem is
that the U.N. Trusteeship Coun
cil: appoint an impartial, governor,
empowered to make decisions on
the basis of the status quo in
cases of disputes between dif
ferent .communities. Jerusalem
should be Included in the eco
nomic union.
Mutual Surprise
. A .('Daily Telegraph" dispatch
'from Jerusalem says the proposal
that roughly 62 per cent, of Pales
tine should become a Jewish State
astounded JCws and Arabs alike.
British circles' are bewildered by
what .they describe as the Com
mission's lack of understanding. i
. See Editorial Page 2.
$