WHILE the Anglo-American Inquiry Commi­ttee’s report on Palestine was criticised by Jewish leaders as “limited” and condemned by Arab spokesmen as “an outrage”, the Palestine Government in an official communiqué issued in Jerusalem … said that the British Government had not yet determined their attitude towards the recommendations of the Committee.

The report on Palestine has whipped Arab feeling into outraged indignation, won the lukewarm approval of the Jews and left Britain with the sole responsibility for keeping peace in a situation which may now be even more explosive than before.

Recommendations of the Committee have been immediately and uncompromisingly denounced in a statement issued by the Arab Office in London as “nothing short of an outrage on the natural rights and legitimate aspirations of the Arabs”. They will “inaugurate a new era of bitterness, conflict and instability and the Arabs will not be bound by them”.

The Jewish Agency for Palestine, while pledging co-operation with the Committee’s proposal to rush admission of 100,000 Jewish immigrants to Palestine, declared this left “untouched” the central problem of stateless Jews.

In Washington, the diplomatic representative of one of the Arab nations … expressed the belief that the report would have serious repercussions “among Arab nations”.

Published in Dawn, May 2nd, 2021