New Zion Plan Faces Battle: Jews May Set Up Hebrew Republic, Associated Press, NY Post, Mar. 21, 1948.

Jerusalem, Mar. 20 (AP)-Palestine’s Jews may proclaim a Hebrew republic as an answer to United States a abandonment of partition, an informed Jewish source said Saturday.

Then, “it will be up to the United Nations to recognize it, ignore it or suppress it,” the informant said.

Jewish leaders are meeting in Tel Aviv. A framework for a Jewish government already exists, it is a 32-member provisional council established several weeks ago by the Jewish Agency and the Jewish National Council (Vaad Leumi). Haganah, the Jewish militia, says it can take and hold Jewish sovereignty in predominantly Jewish areas of the Holy Land.

Both Arabs and Jews turned thumbs down on the U. S. proposal of trusteeship for Palestine. Both said they would fight on, and Jewish-Arab warfare continued. A Jew and an Arab were killed in the Jerusalem area. The toll of death since partition first was voted by the United Nations now is almost 1,900.

Arabs hailed the American abandonment of partition. secretary-general Abdel Rahman Azzam Pasha of the Arab League said “justice always prevails. We always wanted peace, but PM afraid the Zionists will lose their heads. They will fight. If the Jews fight, we will accept the challenge.”

He added Arabs would agree to a short trusteeship, “but if they’re going to shelve independence for Palestine indefinitely, then we will never agree to that.”

He said it is possible to reach agreement with the Jews. “It is the foreign interference in the Palestine question which has brought bad relations.”

In the Holy Land itself Arab officialdom is largely silent. Leaders are saying privately they would accept trusteeship if the trust power were the Arab League.

Another authoritative Jewish source said a temporary draft constitution now being written for a transitory Jewish state would continue to be based on the partition recommendation.

Jews lashed at Arab strongpoint meanwhile in the Jerusalem suburb of Katamon. Two explosions and a tattoo of gunfire were heard.

The military committee of the Arab army, the political committee of the seven-nation Arab League and the Palestine Arab higher committee all were in Belrut, Lebanon, for meetings yesterday, believed to be putting final touches on an all-out war plan.

A reliable informant said a big shipment of Czechoslovak rifles and machine guns for the Arab army reached a Lebanese port yesterday.