United Nations Omens

Final Partition Vote Shows Up Extent of Arab Immoral Influence

The session ot the United Nations has produced some sinister and some hopeful omens. Among the hopeful ones is the determination of a majority of the nations to face the issue of Palestine squarely and do justice. This is despite the fact that the claimant, the Hebrew people, lacking statehood, is not a member of the United Nations, and cannot give concessions in oil or barter votes.

Both Russia and the United States set new moral standards in taking a joint firm stand in fanor of ignoring any special advantage to either in exploitation of the Arabian situation. Their joint position on the Palestine question is a major victory for the peace of the world, overshadowing even the Palestinian problem as such.

But the record of the final vote in the plenary session of the General Assembly is clearly of the greatest significance. It shows unmistakably which of the nations either by abstention or by voting against the partition plan, have decided to disregard the recommendations of the investigating commission and the Palestine Committee.

The British declaration, in refraining from any action toward implementing ‘what is not acceptable for both the Jews and the Arabs’ is in direct contravention of the declarations of their Conservative and Labor Parties, and of the international obligations of their government.

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In the plenary session, not merely a majority but a two-thirds vote, not counting the abstentions, is required to make the Assembly’s action decisive.

In the Palestine situation this has acted to give the Arabs and those nations anxious to curry favor with them an enormous, wholly disproportionate power... and one which the British have continually exploited for their own ends, which have been obviously to block any United Nations solution if possible.

The Hebrew people of Europe were decimated before our eyes. The perpetrators of this crime proved this defenseless minority could be maltreated, even burned in ovens, without retribution being meted out to the culprits. The Arabs quickly learned the lesson and instigated pogroms in Iraq, Egypt, and Algiers, in which thousands were killed; the guilty ones were not called to Justice.

Consequently, the act of a majority of nations on behalf of a cause they deem just, disregarding selfish interests, is an auspicious sign, a good omen. On the other hand, the attempt to seduce the members of the United Nations to side with the strong, with those in a position to reciprocate, and not with the just, is a threat to the very foundations of the Assembly of the nations of the world.

Only recently, in pursuance of this policy, the Arab members of the United Nations abstained from voting on questions in which the USSR was concerned, not because of any conviction in the matter, but because of the principle of “do ut des.”

Even in the commission investigating the Palestinian problem, the Moslem members (from Iran and India) from the very beginning sided with the Arabs. In the United States such bias on the part of a judge in favor of his coreligionists would be regarded as a vicious thing. The overt selling of votes and favors by the Arab bloc is an act which, if permitted to continue, will make of the United Nations a court of Sodom.

The Arab bloc has six votes: Iraq, Syria, Lebanon, Saudi Arabia, Yeman, and Egypt. Until oil was discovered in Arabia, the Egytians regarded it as an insult to be called Arabs; they considered themselves as belonging to the Egyptian nation and race.

And why are there five Arab nations besides Egypt? The members of the Arab League act as if they were one nation, and actually they are one. Before Versailles there was no independent Arab land; all these countries formed a part of the Asiatic province of Turkey. Then Hussein, the sheriff of Mecca, became King of Hejaz; one of his sons was crowned in Iraq, and another in Trans-Jordan which was severed from the area covered by the Balfour Declaration. The creation of the state of Trans-Jordan already constituted a partition of Palestine, made with the alleged intent to leave the entire Cis-Jordan as the Jewish National Home.

If Ibn Saud, who expelled Hussein from the Hejaz, should divide his kingdom among his 30 sons, 29 additional Arab hations would be created, each with a vote in the United Nations, since each would be independent and “freedom-loving.”

Is the United Nations to be a mere collection of potentates who increase the number of nations by dividing their kingdoms?

In violation of the very principle on which the United Nations was created, the members of the Arab League proclaim that they will make war if the United Nations reaches a decision on Palestine contrary to their desires. Let us look at the potency of their threat.

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The truth of the matter is that the Arab states have millitary value only to the extent that they receive American and British or Russian arms. The Hebrew population of Palestine, which played such a decisive role when the scales were evenly balanced at Alamein, could easily defend itself aganist the Arab nations if it had comparable equipment. The backwardness of the Arab people makes them poor contenders in modern warfare.

The Iraqi are some 3,500,000 poverty-ridden, malaria-and-trachoma-stricken, illiterate peasants, paying up to 300 percent yearly interest on the eternal loans from the effendis, and this is a country which, in historical, pre-Arab times, provided a plentiful living for 50,000,000 people. The empire of the Ibn Saud has no parliament, no elections; the criminal code provides barbaric punishments, such as cutting off arms, often for petty offenses. In the entire kingdom there is but one newspaper, owned by the gevernment, with a circulation of 200.