Word: jewish
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Dates: during 1940-1949
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...typical incident: early in 1947 a group of American, British and other journalists were crossing the border from Transjordan into Palestine. British sentries stopped them, demanded passports and press credentials-and the religion of each correspondent. Polk stated flatly that he had no religion. He was not Jewish, nor was he an atheist; he simply regarded the question as insulting to the concept of a free press. He refused, as a matter of principle, to dignify it with an answer. They finally, and very reluctantly, had to let him through...
...General, Abdul Rahman Azzam Pasha. "The trouble is that some people expect spectacular results right away, but it isn't that kind of a fight. It is a guerrilla war where there are no front lines and no decisive battles." Later, Azzam suggested setting up a small token Jewish state, like Vatican City, to serve as a symbol of unity for Jews. "Anything that is good for 500 million Catholics,"* said Azzam, "would be good enough for 12 million Jews...
...still scattered and sporadic. On the Arab side, Egyptians (in the southern desert) and Syrians and Iraqis (in Galilee) were most active. Abdullah's Arab Legion, the only force likely to cause Israel serious trouble, had done little but engage in an artillery and mortar duel with Jewish forces in Jerusalem. In a night attack the Jews won Lydda Airport, biggest in Palestine. Later they captured, after surprisingly feeble Arab resistance, the towns of Lydda and Ramleh, and threatened Arab positions blocking the lifeline road to Jerusalem. Abdullah's Arab Legion had not yet launched a major attack...
...Syria's Faris el Khoury in reply, "are ready to be killed by your atomic bombs." Khoury and everyone else knew that it would not come to that. But the U.S. and Britain (if it continued to arm Arab states) might easily drift into fighting each other by Jewish and Arab proxies: Or, if Britain joined the U.S. in sanctions against the Arabs, the last chance of winning Arab friendship for the Western powers might be lost. The sole winner, in either case, would be Russia...
Bernadotte put out his first long-term peace feelers to Jews and Arabs. The gist of his "suggestions": reshuffling of U.N.'s crazy-quilt boundaries, so as to favor Israel in the north, Arabs in the south; merger of the Arab areas with Transjordan; unlimited Jewish immigration for two years; an economic union of the two states. Neither Arab nor Jew accepted these first proposals. But neither did they reject them outright, and Bernadotte was ready to follow up with more suggestions. Said he: "I will carry on with the discussions as long as may prove necessary and fruitful...