Returning and Redemption
Click here to view the original article. Click here to view a PowerPoint presentation of the San Francisco Chronicle, May 22, 1948.
By the United Press
LAKE SUCCESS, May 21-Syria warned the United Nations today the Arabs would refuse to comply with the United States plan for ordering a halt in the Palestine war if it is finally adopted by the Security Council.
The Arab warning came at the end of a hectic day in which the Council, divided and bickering, received from its truce commission in Jerusalem a blunt request for a strong neutral armed force to save the Holy City from the ravages of an all-out war.
An even blunter demand was made on the Council by Soviet Delegate Gromyko who stated the U. N. must stop the war in Palestine immediately. He demanded the Council accept the U. S. proposal which would order Arabs and Jews to stop fighting within 36 hours, under pain of possible punitive measures ranging from an economic blockade to use of military force.
‘PROMISE IN ADVANCE’
But Syrian Delegate Faris El Khouri told the Council the Arabs would disobey the cease-fire order unless they were promised in advance that the Jews would not be allowed to keep their week-old state of Israel.
“Does the United States resolution mean,” asked El Khoury, “that the Arabs should stop fighting so that the partition plan may be implemented and the Jewish state organized? If that is what is meant, it is futile, because that will not stop the fighting.”
“I tell you again and again,” said the Syrian delegate, “that any order…issued in that blunt fashion and without giving any satisfaction or any assurance of what is to be done afterward, will not be complied with.”
The three-nation commission warned the Council by cable there was no hope of negotiating a truce unless outside troops arrive to back it up.
The urgent cablegram asked the Council to invoke the strongest clause of the U. N. Charter-the provisions for quelling aggression by armed intervention.
TENTATIVE SUPPORT
It was reported that the United States, after persuading Belgium to reverse its position, had tentatively lined up the seven votes needed to put over its proposal. Russia and the Soviet Ukraine were other U. S. supporters.
This left the resolution hanging on one question- Would Britain or China, both flatly opposed, use their veto to block it?
The question was left unanswered when Council President Alexander Parodi suddenly decided to adjourn the Palestine debate until tomorrow.
The U. N. did speed its arrangements, however, to send into the Middle East maelstrom two more bare-headed negotiators.
Count Folke Bernadotte, head of the Swedish Red Cross and a nephew of King Gustav of Sweden, formally accepted by transatlantic telephone from Stockholm the post of U. N. mediator. He will leave immediately for Palestine. He talked with U. N. secretary-general Trygve Lie.
Lie assigned one of the top men in the U. N. secretariat-Dr. Ralph Bunche of the United States-to accompany Bernadotte to the Holy Land and serve as chief U. N. representative during the attempt to negotiate an Arab-Jewish settlement.
QUAKER MAYOR
(Associated Press reported Harold Evans of Philadelphia, who accepted a U. N. offer to administer the Holy City as a neutral mayor until a solution is reached, said in Philadelphia he will attempt reconciliation in the Middle East.
Egyptians May Already Have Met Arab Legion; New Area Is BombardedBy the United Press
Egypt’s army has struck within five miles of Jerusalem from the south while Jews are battling the Arab Legionnaires who entered the city from the north, it was announced Friday night by the Egyptian government.
A communique of the National Defense Ministry at Cairo disclosed a lightning 40-mile advance from Beersheba which took advance patrols of the Egyptian army, strongest in the Middle East, to the edge of Bethlehem less than five miles south of Jerusalem.
A light mobile striking force took Hebron, 18 miles south of Jerusalem, in its stride and sent its patrols on to face Bethlehem, the communique said.
It was believed the Egyptians already had effected contact in the Bethlehem area with King Abdullah’s Arab Legion.
(According to Associated Press, a high Arab official estimated this week that 8000 Jews are fighting in Jerusalem’s old and new cities. This is just a fraction of the Jews’ total strength in Palestine. The Jewish army Haganah is said to have more than 50,000 front-line troops. Irgun Zval Leumi and the Stern gang have others.
(Outside Jerusalem, the Jews are deployed widely for defense of areas allotted to them in the United Nations partition plan. A high Jewish officer said in Tel Aviv tonight the Jews hold all these areas and in some places have pushed beyond them.)
Egypt’s advance to the environs of Jerusalem was the most dramatic of the week-old Arab-Jewish war. It was indicated Arab capture of all Jerusalem might be near. A Trans Jordan communique claimed Friday that Arab Legion units already were conducting “mopping up operations” in the old city.
NEW AREA ATTACKED
Egypt’s communique followed closely upon the one from Amman, disclosing that the legion artillery, east and north of Jerusalem, had started a bombardment of the Holy City’s southern suburbs.
The communque, which mentioned that the southern suburbs of Talpiyot and Meqor Hayim were the chief targets, indicated a distinct extension of the legion’s operations from the battle which has raged for four days in the old city area of Jerusalem.
It appeared the legion might be preparing to clear the section south of the walled city.
The bombarded suburbs are mid-way between Jerusalem proper and Bethlehem, so that the patrols of the Egyptian army were apparently within sound of the Arab Legion’s guns.
(Despite Egyptian claims of a 40-mile advance from Beersheba to Bethlehem, a high officer of Israel’s army said the Egyptians had not even occupied Beersheba.
BEERSHEBA DISPUTE
(Associated Press reported the officer denied Arab statements that the Arab Legion and Egyptian forces had linked at Beersheba in Southern Palestine and said the legion was there but the Egyptians were not.
(He added that Jewish troops are holding virtually unbroken the boundaries of the Jewish state provided in the United Nations partition scheme. In several places the Jews are operating beyond the boundaries he said.)