By April 23, 2008 Read More →

Britain Aloof to Recognition Plea by Israel, NY Herald Tribune, May 20, 1948.

Moshe ShertokClick here to view the original article.

By Don Cook From the Herald Tribune Bureau Copyright, 1948, New York Herald Tribune Inc.

LONDON, May 19.-The British Foreign Office received today from Moshe Shertok, Israel’s Foreign Minister, an official request for formal governmental recognition of the new state.

Beyond announcing that the telegram had been received, the British continued to maintain official aloofness on this question, as well as on the more explosive issue of armed intervention in Palestine by the British-officered Trans-Jordan Arab Legion.

Applying legalistic interpretations to both problems, the Foreign Office has managed without trouble to find a way to do nothing in either case. As for recognition, it states you cannot recognize a government until you know the territory-that is to say, the boundaries-which it is governing.

Granted this premise, it is easy to move a step further and say that the Arab Legion has not been found to have acted illegally because no borders for the State of Israel have been fixed and no government recognized.

The Foreign Office leaves the impression today that it probably could not do anything about the Arab Legion’s operations even if it wanted to, although it certainly does not seem to want to. With the force are forty British officers-ten recruited privately by King Abdullah of Trans-Jordan, and thirty assigned to the Legion by the British Army.

The Foreign Office asserts they are in King Abdullah’s service under the recently concluded Anglo-Trans-Jordan treaty, and Britain sees no reason to go back on its treaty obligations to give financial aid and to supply arms.

On both questions it appears unlikely that Britain will budge until prodded by force of circumstances in Palestine or the faint possibility of a lead from the United Nations. If, for example the Jews successfully fight the Arabs to a stalemate along some potential boundary of the State of Israel, then the British may move of their own volition. But as was shown by non-intervention in Spain, non-intervention is far from neutrality.

Recognized by 3 More Nations

Three more countries-Czechoslovakia, Yugoslavia and Nicaragua-announced recognition of Israel yesterday, bringing the total to eight, the other five being the United States, the Soviet Union, Guatemala, Uruguay and Poland.

At Paris, the French Cabinet authorized Foreign Minister Georges Bidault to give de facto recognition to the new Jewish state any time he felt the step should be taken.

Jewish Agency Arranges Air-Mail Link to Israel

A special air-mall service to Israel via chartered planes was announced here yesterday by the Jewish Agency for Palestine. The agency described the arrangement as an interim service, to be available until normal postal routes to the new Jewish state are open.

The service will be handled by Palestine Emergency Deliveries, Inc.. and will operate at least one and perhaps three planes a week from La Guardia Field. The agency said the planes would also carry passengers. Landing point will be Tel Aviv.

The rates for the new service will be 25 cents a half ounce in addition to the regular United States air-mail charge of 25 cents a half ounce. The mail will be canceled at the headquarters of the Palestine Emergency Deliveries, Inc., and letters should be sent enclosed in another envelope which contains the service fee to the organization’s offices at 16 East Sixty-sixth Street.

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