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Show WEEKLY NEWS ANALYSIS Palestine Jews Proclaim FJew State ; Of Israel, Attacked by Arab firmies; U.S. Victim of Etesian Propaganda By Bill Schoentgen, WNU Staff Writer (EDITOR'S NOTE: When opinion are expressed in these columns, they are those of Western Newspaper Union's newi nn.lysts nd not necessarily of this newspaper.) FARM PLAN: Truman's To shore up his sinking political prestige in his campaign for re-nomination, re-nomination, President Truman proposed pro-posed to congress a four-point farm program which he claimed is "essential" "es-sential" to a productive, prosperous agriculture in the U. S. Burden of his message ware these recommendations: 1A permanent system of "Cexi- ble price supports for agricultural agricul-tural commodities." 2 "Full support to the continu-" continu-" ance and expansion of our program pro-gram of soil conservation." 3 Legislation by congress to "continue and strengthen programs pro-grams to assure adequate eonsump-1 tion of agricultural products." 4 "We need to consider other - means for assisting farmers to meet their special problems. For example, we must support and protect pro-tect farm cooperatives. We must continue to work toward a sound system of crop insurance." There was nothing very startling about the proposals, and they carried car-ried the unmistakable ring of a campaign year bid for the farmers' favorable attention. ITALY: Vox Pop Luigi Einaudi, 74, a banker, is to be president of the Italian republic for the next seven years. He was elected at a joint session of both houses of parliament on the fourth ballot after the Communists, Com-munists, who had Impulse to Zion Arnold Toynbee, British historian, his-torian, types the Jews as a fossilized fos-silized remnant of an extinct civilization. He meant that because of their single-minded, faultless devotion to the religion of Moses and their strict adherence to ancestral customs, the Jews, descending through history as a compact group, have retained most of the original characteristics which marked them when first they emerged as part of the Syriac civilization thousands of years before Christ. They are recognized today as being in but not of the societies in which they appear on every portion of the globe. They almost al-most invariably form a minority group, and as such they have been targets for endless persecution. persecu-tion. Socially, world Jewry has been of two minds concerning the most desirable end it could achieve for itself. Those two conflicting trains of thought are represented by the "Zionists'.' and the "dispersionists." The dispersionists have advocated advo-cated that Jews should mingle freely with whatever people they have chosen to live among and gradually be assimilated by that people. Zionists, of course, favor establishment of a national homeland an indestructible ideal ever since Moses led the exodus to Canaan. Since the war, with Nazi attempts at-tempts to obliterate German Jews completely and subsequent displacement of millions of European Eu-ropean Jews, zionism has been given a tremendous impetus. That impulse to Zion has been distilled into what the world has come to know as the "Palestine problem." More recently it crystallized even further in the actual establishment of a Jewish state called Israel in Palestine, Pales-tine, ancient homeland of the pre-Christian era Jews. WINDFALL: Propaganda In Ambassador Walter Bedell Smith's formal and completely routine rou-tine statement to Soviet Foreign Minister V. M. Molotov, the Russians Rus-sians thought they had a propaganda propa-ganda bonanza. It was cleverly done. Smith's otherwise tough statement, which simply repeated the basic U. S. foreign policy with regard to Russia, Rus-sia, . contained one sentence that Moscow took as a loophole: "As far as the United States is concerned, the door is always wide open for full discussion and the- composing of our differences." Molotov seized upon that sentence and the announcement was broadcast broad-cast to the world that Russia accepted ac-cepted the American "offer" to negotiate. ne-gotiate. It looked like a propaganda victory vic-tory of major proportions for the Soviets. Briefly, it put them in the position of being able to point with pride to their manifest willingness to settle the bitter differences which have kept the world unnerved for so long. If the U. S. refused to talk, that would be fine with the Russians who would capitalize on that fact wtih a vengeance. If a peace conference con-ference did develop as a result of the original trick, the old and familiar fa-miliar Soviet obstructionist tactics would be brought into play to do the usual job of sabotage. That was about the way it stacked up to the high officials in Washington. Both President Truman Tru-man and Secretary of State George Marshal made it clear that there would be no conference, that there was no logical basis for one and that such a conference could not possibly succeed at this time because be-cause neither the U. S. nor Russia had altered or modified its position in any way. In addition to the propaganda value of the Russian move, it might also have been calculated to throw some sand into the gears of the incipient U. S. defense program. If the Soviets, suddenly assum- t I been supporting Enrico de Nicola, threw their votes to him. On three previous ballots none of the presidential presi-dential prospects had been able to command the re-auired re-auired maioritv because of the Communist bloc. An opponent of communism, Einaudi also was a foe of Mussolini's Musso-lini's brand of fascism. He is an internationally known writer on public finance and economic history. his-tory. Einaudi's first task as president of the republic was to designate a premier and instruct him to form a cabinet. There was no doubt that he would name Alcide de Gas-peri, Gas-peri, premier of the provisional government, to continue in that capacity on a permanent basis. I 1 ISRAEL: In Palestine Events moved with the swiftness of time itself in the Holy Land. Ritualizing the expiration of Great Britain's 30-year mandate rule over Palestine, Sir Alan Cunningham, Cun-ningham, British high commissioner, commission-er, hauled down his personal flag in Jerusalem and flew to Haifa where he boarded a cruiser. That was that. Britannia no longer lon-ger ruled the Palestinians. Then the Jews, who had been denied a legally partitioned state, proclaimed the existence of a new, If the Soviets, suddenly assuming assum-ing a peaceful mien, were able to hypnotize the American people into feeling falsely secure, congressman election year might be coerced into wasting a lot of time in preparing such items of the defense program as the 70-group air force bill and the draft bill. That wasted time could, in the light of possible future fu-ture events, turn out to be incalculably incalcu-lably precious. Sequel Second episode of the affair of the Russian peace overture was a Stalin-to-Wallace pass that went over the head of the TJ. S. government. govern-ment. The Russian premier took advantage ad-vantage of an "open letter" which Henry Wallace had addressed to him demanding an open showdown between the two nations. Wallace's proposals, as summarized by Stalin, included: 1. General reduction of armaments arma-ments and prohibition of atomic weapons. 2. Conclusion of peace treaties with Germany and Japan. 3. Evacuation of troops from China and Korea. 4. Eespect for the sovereignty of individual countries and noninterference non-interference in their domestic affairs. af-fairs. . 5. World development of International Inter-national trade. "I don't know whether the United States government approves Mr. Wallace's program ..." Stalin said, making it starkly clear that he was talking, not to the government, govern-ment, but to the American people. He applauded the Wallace letter as "the most important document of recent times," and declared, "As far as the government of the USSR is concerned, it considers that Mr. Wallace's program could serve as a good and fruitful basis for an agreement." Apparently a Russian attempt to bring about a showdown in the East-West struggle before an audience au-dience of world public opinion, Stalin's Stal-in's bombshell statement renewed the question of whether the new Soviet tactics are merely propaganda propa-ganda or a genuine effort for peace. Either way the U. S. was in a difficult position. If the Russian appeal is taken at face value it cuts the ground from under the tough American cold war strategy. If it is propaganda it undoubtedly will serve to put the U. S. in a bad light. JERUSALEM . . . Jew or Arab? . . . independent republic in Palestine which was to be called Israel. Before Israel was 20 minutes old it had received formal diplomatic recognition from the United States, first nation to extend such recognition. DISPLACED: Bill Pending Although the desperate problem of Europe's displaced persons has not been attracting much headline attention lately, congress has been busy working out legislation to admit ad-mit quotas of DPs into the U. S. Latest report was that an informal in-formal poll showed that a majority of the senate would vote for a bill to admit 200,000 displaced persons into this country during the next two years. The actual bill being considered by the senate judiciary committee sets the figure at 100,000 DP immigrants immi-grants for the next two years, but several senators have introduced amendments to raise that total to 200,000 and to remove some restrictions restric-tions imposed by the committee. One senate source said the poll indicated that at least 55 senators were ready to vote for the less restrictive re-strictive version. The house judiciary judi-ciary committee already has approved ap-proved a similar measure to admit 200,000 DPs in the next two years. ATOM RACE: Official Governments of the world never have been farther from outlawing the use of atomic weapons. In fact, the atomic armament race is just settling down to a long, straightaway straight-away dash. It is a contest involving astronomical astron-omical costs, with horrible disaster if not ultimate destruction possibly lurking just beyond the horizon. So far the U. S. is well in the lead, as indicated by the recent announcement of the development and successful testing of three new atomic weapons which are said to supersede the original atom bombi in destructive power. The United Nations atomic energy ener-gy commission made the race official offi-cial when, after two years of fruitless fruit-less effort to work out some kind of international atomic control, It finally voted to suspend negotiations. negotia-tions. Other developments followed swiftly to prove that the U. S. is deadly serious about developing a powerful and diversified atomic arsenal: David E. Lilienthal, chairman of the atomic energy commission, reported re-ported that the "present stage of the commission's tests of atomic weapons is concluded." President Truman then authorized author-ized the commission to take "steps ... at once for further development de-velopment based on Information gained from the tests." What Russia was doing about atomic weapons remained pretty much of a mystery, at least as far as the American public was concerned. con-cerned. It was an accepted fact that the Russians knew how to make an atom bomb. Whether they had the industrial facilities to do so still remained a matter of considerable consid-erable conjecture. And while Israel was yet only hours old it was already at war. The newborn state was invaded from the north by regular army forces of Lebanon iind Syria and from the south by Egyptian troops. It was shelled from the east by Trans-Jordan's Arab Legion and bombed and machine-gunned from the air by Arab planes. Haganah, the principal Jewish fighting force, rushed troops, seasoned sea-soned by months of guerrilla warfare, war-fare, to all fronts and the fighting settled down to the pattern with which every adult in the world has become familiar. During the initial furor, Israel's provisional council of state managed man-aged to find time to elect Dr. Chaim Weizmann, a scientist and elder statesman of Zionism, first president of the nation. Most momentous news connected with establishment of Israel was the agonizingly prompt U. S. diplomatic diplo-matic recognition of the state. CRISIS: Supersonic There is a "crisis" developing in military aviation, says Cmdr. Lynn S. Beats Jr., navy doctor, because it is not yet known how to keep human beings healthy when they fly faster than sound. Main trouble is from vertical vibration vi-bration the up-and-down motion that comes as a plane reaches the speed of sound. This vibration is so fast that it equals five to six times the pull of gravitation. |