New Violence Answers U.N. Palestine Plea, NY Herald Tribune, Apr. 19, 1948.

By Kenneth Bilby By Cable to the Herald Tribune Copyright. 1948. New York Herald Tribune Inc.

JERUSALEM, April 18.-The appeal from the United Nations Security Council for a truce in Palestine was brushed aside today as a series of violent struggles wracked the Holy Land from Jerusalem to the sea.

The utter disdain with which the appeal has been greeted was shown by the reception accorded to a renewed plea for peace from Lieutenant General Sir Alan Gordon Cunningham. British High Commissioner for Palestine. His plea amounted to a brief and rather lukewarm endorsement of the security Council’s appeal. It was delayed about two hours in publication because of bomb threats which had emptied the British public information office.

As it was published in mimeograph form, a series of explosions and exchanges of small-arms fire in the near-by Yemen Moshe quarter provided a quick reply. The explosions were caused by Jewish demolition of two Arab houses only a stone’s throw from the public information office. Arabs in an adjoining quarter of Jerusalem answered with a mortar barrage and the British finally ended the affray by firing three six-pounder artillery shells which shook the central sector of the Holy City.

Arabs Attack Village

Three miles north of Jerusalem, the Arab Judean Army, now commanded by Emil Ghory, launched an attack at 3 p. m. on the Jewish village of Nevc Yaakov. An isolated Jewish settlement occupied solely by troops of Haganah, the Jewish militia, it was subjected to severe mortar fire and then stormed by Arab infantry.

Arab sources asserted that the village, an important strategic point of the Jerusalem-Ramallah highway, had been captured and fifty Jews killed. To celebrate, Arab soldiers in Jerusalem, including members of the Trans-Jordan Arab Legion, fired their rifles skyward. Officials of the Jewish Agency maintained that the Arab attack had been repulsed and that the Haganah garrison, believed to number about 200 men, retained control.

There were numerous other reports of struggles between roving bands of Jews and Arabs, of trucks highjack and of minor vendettas. Jerusalem itself shook last night under the heaviest exchange of rifle and mortar fire in two weeks.
Briton’s Peace Plea

Collectively, the widespread violence provided a reply to the British High Commissioner and the Security Council. Sir Alan, who for some time has been trying fruitlessly to negotiate a truce, compressed his appeal into one paragraph, which read-

“The High Commissioner desires to bring to the notice of all people in Palestine the terms of the resolution passed by the Security Council. His Excellency appeals to all groups and individuals desirous of peace to use their influence to the utmost to secure the acceptance of this resolution.”

The remainder of the statement was a quotation in full of the Security Council resolution. There were no specific recommendations as to how the truce request might be implemented.

The Jewish Agency announced that it has lodged an official protest with the High Commissioner because of the British Army’s failure last week to protect a Jewish convoy in the Sheik Jarrah section of Jerusalem. The convoy, containing ten motor trucks, was proceeding to Hadassah Hospital and the Hebrew University on Mount Scopus when Arab riflemen ambushed it and killed seventy-seven Jews, including a number of doctors, professors and hospital patients.

A Jewish Agency official charged that British soldiers at the time were occupying an outpost only a hundred yards from the scene of the ambush. He said the soldiers made no effort to halt the “brutal slaughter.”

The same official charged that the Arab armies were failing to respect Jewish holy places. He said the cities in Palestine most revered by Jews had all been scenes of battles initiated by the Arabs.

Arabs Seize Jewish Village

JERUSALEM, April 18 (AP).-British and Arab reports said to night that troops of the Trans-Jordan Arab Legion had occupied the Jewish settlement of Neve Yaacov. Official Jewish sources denied it.

A British military source said the Arabs entered the settlement behind an artillery and machinegun barrage, and captured twenty Jewish armored cars. Haganah was believed to be preparing a counter-attack, the source added.

The Arab news agency, at Jerusalem, quoted an Arab Legion spokesman as saying Arab forces occupied the settlement because “one of our soldiers was killed while passing there last week,” Women and children were removed from the settlement in January and Haganah forces took over. Snipers have been hitting Arab traffic from a vantage point on a slight rise and from a concrete watch tower.

The Arab spokesman said fifty Jews were killed. A Haganah source said one Jew was killed and eight wounded and two Arabs and one British officer of the Legion were killed. Haganah said four Arab Legion cars took part in the attack. The British officer died when one overturned.

The Arab Legion is the force of King Abullah of Trans-Jordan. It is commanded by British officers and more than half of its estimated 20,000-man strength is now on loan to the British for police duty in the Holy Land. Last night, Arab military sources at Cairo said King Abdullah had dispatched Legion forces from Trans-Jordan to fight for the Arabs in Palestine.

Haganah declared its forces had killed fourteen Arabs in an attack on Tiberias, on the shore of the Lake of Galilee, in northern Palestine.

Attlee Refuses Arms for Jews

LONDON, April 18 (AP).-Prime Minister Attlee has turned down a proposal for the British to legalize and help arm the Jewish Haganah force in Palestine, it was disclosed today. He said the British do not see that it would be conducive to peace either to recognize “this independent and purely Jewish force” or to furnish offensive weapons for either Jew or Arab.

He took this stand in an exchange of letters with Professor S. Brodetsky, president of the board of deputies of British Jews. The letters were made public at a board meeting today.