,

the Communist Party of
Nations Special Committee on Palestine (UNSCOP).

‘AVING visited to many parts of Palestine, you must
have seen the huge police

lages and towns, security ,
Wire and dragon teeth, tanks and armored cars racing over

Toads and streets, one mili

tary camp

HIS article is condensed from an address delivered
; by Dr. Erlich, a member

of the central committee of
Palestine, before the United

fortresses dominating vil-
zones in the cities, barbed

close to another,

atmed soldiers and policemen everywhere, Though you have

been accommodated by the gov-
other ut in the Kadima flats and
€r out of the way places, you
Will have felt the tension, the

‘nsecurity and instability reign-

~ Moy,

— Starteg

38 in the country; you will

Ve seen the expression of ha-

With which the people, Jews

oe Arabs, look upon the tanks

thro ads of soldiers rumbling
*OUBh the streets.

at should know that during
Proven nth Much has been im-

“ved for your benefit. This
CA building has been re-
a from the security zone.
subj ‘Ong months Jerusalem was
fews 1° to intermittent cur-
mon, a martial law. For long
the Soldiers have not shown
™, “°Straint they now assume.

® intensity of oppression has

Uctuateg, There were periods

oe °Pen terror and there were

hai When some illusions of
©m were created.

More ce
Periogs
OP

free,

than that: there were
when the main weight
PPression was directed
the Arab population and
x When the main weight
agains Ae ssion was directed
St the Jews—so that the
munity should appear
Privileged’, In this ae
©n of oppressive measures
of dig roited as an instrument
de and rule.

Periogs
0

other
ag et com
di

oppression has
Rtn a the increase.
the Sehaehald published by
tenance. €nt on the main-
an, Cf ‘law and order’—it
With less than £P400,000

*SIDAY, SEPTEMBER 12, 1917

(£P is Palestine pounds) annu-
ally, reaching £P five million in
1944-45 and this year, it will be
about £P seven million, about
30 percent of the total budget.
Yet these figures do not include
expenditures for the army.

! e statement the gov-
rate ee amned that the ‘se-
curity’ budget has made it im-
possible to provide adequately
for education, health and social

services.
e.

EN the Communist Party

appeared before the Anglo-
American Committee of Inquiry
in 1946, we stated that there
were then in Palestine one po-
liceman or soldier for every 18
inhabitants, a figure that has
since been widely quoted abroad.
In the meantime the figure has
been reduced to less than 13
inhabitants for every policeman
and soldier. :

You have heard the &rgument
of the government, This huge
army is deemed necessary to de-
fend the so-called law and order
and to protect one community
against the other. This is a tra-
ditional and well worn out im-
perialist argument that cannot
be taken seriously by anybody.

Even the government survey
submitted to you says: “Since
the British occupation, there
have been but few intervals
when the problem of internal se-
curity has not been a major pre-
occupation of the administration
of Palestine,"—that means inse-

curity came to Palestine with
the British occupation and has
become the main feature of the
life of the country for the past
380 years.

You will have observed that
the police and army are not
guarding the buildings of Arab
or Jewish leaders, or the houses
of leaders, of these communities,
but their own strongholds and
military and civil establishments

_ of the Britigh authorities. In

Transjordan where there are no
Jews or Arabs to protect from
each other, you will nevertheless
find a large British army and
military bases.

All this proves that the British
are not here to safeguard law
and order or to protect Jews
and Arabs from the so-called
‘threat’ of mutual attacks. If the
army and police are not needed
to protect one people from the
other, what are they really
needed for?

Their only task is to maintain
and strengthen their strategic
bases, directed against the forces
of peace and the freedom of
Palestine, in the Middle East
and in the world at large.

RMY and police action against
the people of Palestine are
based on a system of dictatorial
laws issued by the British gov-
ernment. This system of oppres-

‘sion is “being carried out on the

strength of the so-called Emer-
gency (Defense) Regulations of
1945, which have lately been
amended so as to deprive the
population of the last remnants
of liberty.

It is a pity that the bulky
survey and supplement submit-
ted to you by the government
do not contain the text of these
regulations. The reason is not
far to seek. According to the
‘laws’ of Palestine, there is no
personal freedom, freedom of
conscience, speech, press or as-
sembly. Any person. may be
placed under police supervision,
banished, detained or deported
from the country. _

The description’ of the Emer-
gency Regulations of 1945 should

not lead to the impression that,

kefore that date colonial oppres-
sion in Palestine was mild.

There were long years, cul-
minating in 1941, when terror
was exerted against the progres-
sive forces of the country and
especially against the Commun-
ist Party of Palestine. Commun-
ists were arrested, several hun-
dred deported and the remainder
detained in the prisons of Pales-
tins. a

During those years, the import
of progressive lit€rature or any
books or periodicals regarded by
the authorities as left-wing, was
prohibited.

The government regards the
police as a panacea which can
cure all difficulties it encounters.
To quote an example: last win-
ter a severe drought affected
Beersheba district and the peo-
ple cried for help—the govern-
ment did help—it appointed a
few hundred temporary | con-
stables as, a measure against
unemployment.

In spite of a flood of laws and
orders, law and order do not
prevail. Security measures have

reached their peak and security

has vanished completely.
e

; rs soldier who was stationed
in Palestine during the anti-
fascist war was friendly towards
the people and the people were
friendly towards him.

Today, soldiers stationed in
Palestine are systematically
trained in the spirit of racism
and the spirit of an army of
cccupation in enemy territory.
They have been fed on _ the
poison of anti-Semitism.

General Barker, the former of-
ficer - commanding, ' instructed
his soldiers in a secret order:
“Strike the Jew in the sole place
where he feels it, in his pocket.”

It is a strange understatement
when Ben Gurion told you that
“it was a matter of surprise that
the unofficial assaults were so
few.” There were only too many,
and they comprise murder, rape
and pillage.

Let us start with murder.

On April 8, 1947, Moshe Cohen,
a Jerusalem merchant, 43 years
of age, was shot dead by an
army patrol on his way home.

Ester Tobi was shot dead while

waiting at a bus station. Aboud
Mizrahi was shot dead on his
way home accompanied by his
Gaughter. Kati Shalom, a four-
year-old girl, was shot dead
while standing on the balcony.

During the disturbances of
1936-39 a British constable was
injured. Thereupon a British pa-
trol picked three youngsters at
random in the nearest village,
Gilat et Harithiya, and murdered
them in the village yard.

There was a night in Tel-Aviv
—the inhabitants call it the
Night of Horror—the night of
March 8, 1947, when soldiers
fired with machine guns from
armored cars, killing four and
injuring 15. There were days of
pogroms committed by the sol-
diery in Tel-Aviv and Nathanya.

It is a somber picture but the
knowledge of these facts in es-
sential to understand the gravity
of our situation and of the crim-
inal nature of the activities of
the army and the police appara-
tus in Palestine. Until today, the
British government which has
confessed to the failure of the
mandate, has not confessed to
the crimes committed in our
country.

JX THE British government's
policy of divide and rule, the
army plays an important part.
Jews and Arabs in uniform are
Fut in action for objectives and
in areas and quarters where this
in itself must contribute to na-
tional hatred. The Transjordan
Frontier Guards, for example,
were employed against the Jew-
ish settlement of Kfar Giladi in
a way that placed the respon-
sibility not on the British of-
ficers but on the Arab soldiers.

In the spring of 1946 when the
Anglo-American Committee of
Inquiry was here, the facts were
already so obvious that the com-
mittee was compelled to state
that Palestine was an armed
camp and to admit that even
from the viewpoint of the bud-
get, Palestine had become a po-
lice state. Today the situation
is still worse than a year ago.

To sum up: whatever political
proposals your committee recom-
mends, they should clearly and
unequivocally include the de-
mand for the evacuation of Brit-
ish armed forces from Palestine.
This is the common demand of

the Jewish and Arab masses of
Palestine.

The evacuation of British

troops from Palestine is impera-

tive for the peace and develop-
ment of the country. It is one
of the most important and most
urgent steps to be taken to free
the inhabitants of this country
from the instrument of colonial
cppression, and to make Pales-
tine independent.

, ¢

Evacuation of- British troops
from Palestine is imperative for
the peaceful development of the
Middle East. The police state
built up in Palestine is also a
threat to neighboring countries.

For the sake of peace in this
country and the Middle East; for
the sake of its free development
and democratic cooperation be-

‘tween the peoples, for the sake

of the maintenance of interna-
tional peace and Security, Pales-
tine must be freed and cease

to serve as a military camp for
an imperialist army.

In the name of the wide mas-
Ses of both peoples of this coun-
try, we appeal to you and
through you to the United Na-
tions, who have in their Charter,
reaffirmed their faith in tunda-
mental human rights, in the dig-
nity and worth of thé human
person, in the equal rights of
men and women and of nations,
large and small, to direct the
British government to withdraw
its troops—to. quit Palestine,

PACIFIC TRIBUNE—PAGE ll

é