U.N. Efforts for Partition Promised by Trygve Lie, United Press, San Francisco Chronicle, Jan. 9, 1948.

Returning and Redemption

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LAKE SUCCESS, N. Y., Jan. 9 (U.P.)—The United Nations Palestine Commission, meeting for the first time, heard an official prediction today that U. N. will use “every necessary power” to enforce the partition of Palestine into Arab and Jewish States.

U. N. Secretary General Trygve Lie, in opening the fateful session, told the commission that the Security Council will do all that is necessary to see that the Holy Land is partitioned.

The Security Council has authority to order economic sanctions, or mobilize an international army.

The five-nation Palestine Commission is charged with administering Palestine’s partition. It will assume responsibility in the Holy Land when the British end their mandate there on May 15, or earlier.

The commission then must set up Arab and Jewish governments in the new States, form militia to keep local law and order, and establish courts. There is a general feeling that this can not be done by the commission unless it is backed by force.

The Palestine Commission, after electing Karel Lisicky of Czechoslovakia, invited Great Britain, the Jewish Agency and the Arab Higher Committee to attach representatives to the commission.

But Isa Nakhleh, American representative of the Arab Higher Committee, promptly told a reporter that Arabs would boycott the commission, as well as all other negotiations regarding partition.

The Arab spokesman also issued a press release asking a U. S. investigation of all organizations collecting money for “Communist, criminal and terrorist groups in Palestine.” He thanked the Federal Bureau of Investigation and local police officers for seizing large caches of explosives in New Jersey.