96 Days to Go

Without U.N. swords to back the plan which the General Assembly had penned, Palestine partition would fail. Last week the harassed U.N. Palestine Commission publicly acknowledged that steely fact.

Since the Assembly approved partition Nov. 29, not one major step had been taken to realize the plan. Washington, whose backing had helped win U.N. approval for partition, was now reluctant to support it (see NATIONAL AFFAIRS). The Arabs, who have stridently defied the U.N. plan ever since it was voted, last week repeated a familiar boast. Said the Arab Higher Committee for Palestine (which speaks for the ex-Mufti of Jerusalem) : Palestine Arabs will "never submit or yield to any power going to Palestine to enforce partition."

Unsatisfactory. British troops still stood guard on the streets and rooftops of the Holy Land (though last week the first troops, some 300, were withdrawn). But the U.N. commission was not getting much British cooperation. In a series of messages which emasculated the commission's already feeble powers, Britain had refused:

P: To open up a port for Jewish immigration, beginning Feb. 1, as U.N. had recommended.

P: To permit organization of a Jewish militia to defend the new Jewish state.

P: To welcome the commission to Palestine before May 1, only a fortnight before it is supposed to assume responsibility for administering partition.

The commission talked back. Britain's warning that commissioners could not be protected if they came before May 1, it said, was "not satisfactory." Chairman Karel Lisicky, of Czechoslovakia, was considerably more explicit: "Britain is responsible for law and order so long as the mandatory regime is there. If we come in before May 15 [when the mandate ends], they are directly responsible for our safety."

Unseasonable. "We have no ambition to be either heroes or martyrs for the United Nations," added Lisicky. The commission appealed to the Security Council to provide an armed force. (The Security Council, as such, has no armed force to provide.) Finally, one day last week, with only 96 more to Partition Day, the Security Council began discussions. There was no saying how long discussions would take. In Damascus, Arabs hinted that they would strike while U.N. was still talking, and along Palestine's coastal plain, Jewish citrus exporters saw confirming activity: Arab growers were unseasonably shipping out oranges of a type which will not ripen until April.

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