Pronouncements on Palestine
There is very little sign in the statements on Palestine made by the American and Russian delegates at Lake Success during the past week of any will to face the realities of the situation. Mr. Herschel Johnson suggested that the British mandate should end and the life of separate Jewish and Arab States begin on July 1st, 1948, the British remaining responsible for keeping order until that date. Thus he ignored the plain fact that the Arabs will not accept parti-
lion as a solution, the plain British statement that we will only implement a solution acceptable to both sides, and the recommenda- tion of the United Nations Special Committee that Palestine should be governed during an interim period of two years by an authority responsible to the United Nations. He also ignored his own previous suggestion that a voluntary force might be recruited by the United Nations to perform police duties. In fact, he ignored pretty well everything except the unwillingness of his own Government to send troops to Palestine to help implement the policy which it advocates. He even assumed, in defiance of all probability, that the danger of violence between Jews and Arabs is so small that the presence of a United Nations advisory and supervisory commission would be sufficient to ensure a peaceful change-over. The Russian proposal that the British should leave by January 1st, 1948, and that partition should then be implemented by the Security Council through a commission of all its members, showed a little more willingness to take a positive line, but it contained the usual gratuitous insult to British motives in Palestine and a very ominous suggestion that the Soviet Government would have to be satisfied that the govern- ments set up were democratic, according to the peculiar Russian definition. So far the British Government has shown no intention of modifying its firm intention to withdraw from Palestine unless an acceptable solution is found by the United Nations. That is the one fixed point in the Palestine question. Logically the Govern- ment's next step should be to announce the date for withdrawal and the steps by which that withdrawal will be accomplished.
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