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U.S. Zionists Pledge Support to Palestine Jews In, Carrying out Partition Decision

March 22, 1948
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A pledge of “utmost support” of whatever action the Jewish community of Palestine may take in implementing the U.N. partition decision ?as voiced here today at an emergency meeting of the Administrative Council of the Zionists Organization of America. The meeting also adopted a resolution expressing horror” at the prospect of the use of force against the Jews of Palestine “implicit” on the trusteeship proposal.

Dr. Abha Hillel Silver, chairman of the American section of the Jewish Agency, told the meeting that “if trusteeship is anything like the White Paper, the American Government will be forced into a position of fighting the Jews in Palestine.”

Declaring that Secretary of State Marshall’s statement last night that a Temporary trusteeship is necessary after Britain’s surrender of the Palestine Man-?ate on May 15 “leaves much to be desired as to fact and accuracy ” Dr. Silver charged that from the very first day of the Big Four meetings on Palestine the United States intended “to scuttle partition, reopen the whole issue and maneuver for a ?new meeting of the General Assembly at which an international trusteeship would be proposed by the U.S.” He add d: “To represent the United States as the champion of partition at the Security Council is fantastic”

If trusteeship is established, Dr, Silver said, “I prophesy that Great Britain will be there alone or with one or two countries. No matter what uniforms are worn–American, Chinese or French–the Jews will fight immigration barriers.

“The oil interests organized a systematic campaign to persuade the American Government to alter its position on the Palestine partition plan,” he stated. “President Truman became a convert to the idea that partition had to be done away with. The plan, as it was evolved, was presented to the American people in the light that partition was a threat to international peace. Oil imperialism is hiding itself beneath the American flag. Ail of this was part of a plan to make the Zionist movement abhorrent in the eyes of the American people and linked with Communism.”

Dr. Emanuel Neumann, ZOA national president, declared that “it is not yet too late for President Truman to shake him-self loose from this conspiracy fostered by oil profiteers,” adding that “millions of American citizens will call the Administration to account for its acts of omission and commission. Responsible opinion from coast to coast expresses resentment and bewilderment at these latest gyrations of the State Department,” he said.

Dr. Israel Goldstein, chairman of the United Palestine. Appeal, asserted the U.S. proposal, far from solving the Palestine problem, will only aggravate it. It will require more force to enforce a U.S. trusteeship over Palestine than it would have required implementing partition.” Rabbi Irving Miller chairman of the Administrative Council charged the Truman administration with duplicity and with overt moves to undermine and destroy the authority of the United Nations. Daniel Frisch, ZOA Vice-president, expressed the belief that the Jewish state would be established on schedule despite the reversal of the U.S. traditional position on Palestine.

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