British to Form an Arab-Jewish Police Force, NY Herald Tribune, Jan. 22, 1948.

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By Fitzhugh Turner By Wireless to the Herald Tribune Copyright, 1948, New York Herald Tribune Inc.

JERUSALEM, Jan. 21.-The withdrawing British mandate government announced today a decision to organize an Arab-Jewish police force of 600 men in Jerusalem, to help British constables police the city and presumably to form the nucleus of a temporary constabulary when the British have gone.

Law enforcement in Jewish Tel Aviv already has been turned over to Jewish police there, and in Arab Jaffa to Arab police. The government said these municipal forces “have proved a success.”

The Jerusalem force will consist of 300 Arabs and 300 Jews, a government spokesman said. They will carry police arms. Arab police will operate in Arab areas and Jewish officers in Jewish areas.

Meanwhile a party of British police officials arrived from London to recruit British members of the Palestine police force for jobs in British or Colonial police and prisons departments. More than 3,000 British constables serve in the Palestine police, and while many are expected to leave the country, the mandate government hopes some at least will find jobs with international constabularies under the United Nations if and when opportunity offers.

Except for another Arab attack on the Yehiam colony in western Galilee early this morning, the country’s principal violence occurred in Jerusalem. Yehiam residents, who had fought off a concerted Arab onslaught yesterday, took mortar fire from an Arab band for about an hour today. Two were injured slightly, and the Arabs, when they withdrew, left a khaki-clad body behind. British troops moved in shortly after the attack started.

In Jerusalem this afternoon, according to a government report, a fight started in the Mea Shearim quarter where poor families live. During the disturbance Jews at a roadblock fired on an Arab family evacuating its furniture, killing two Arabs and wounding two. A twelve-year-old Arab boy was missing and two other Arab boys were rescued by police.

In Katamon, a quarter formerly occupied by leading Arab and Jewish families, Jews attacked two houses in the morning, severely damaging both buildings. Four women in one of the houses left hurriedly before the attack and were unhurt. The houses, both owned by absentee British officials, were demolished, Jewish sources said, because they occupy high ground and Jews feared they might be used by Arabs to fire on the main Jewish sections of the city.