You Do It, Johnny

More than 20,000 British troops in maroon berets clamped a cordon around Tel-Aviv, flower of Zionism, while patrol boats sealed the harbor. The all-Jewish population of 200,000 was put tinder a 22-hour curfew. Then the troops moved in with tanks and armored cars, and searched every house, every person for evidence of terrorist activity. In Tel-Aviv hospitals, army doctors X-rayed plaster casts to make sure their wearers were not faking.

First big find was an underground trove in a locked room beneath the Great Synagogue, largest in Palestine. Watched by Tel-Aviv's Jewish mayor, this cache yielded counterfeiting equipment and $800,000 in forged bonds; a radio transmitter; weapons and ammunition, mixed up with bedding and religious literature. Elsewhere the searchers found homemade bombs, grenades, Bangalore torpedoes, and military training manuals.

"Contempt & Loathing." In Jerusalem, where the final death toll in the terrorist-wrecked King David Hotel had reached 91, barbed-wire barricades bristled in the streets. Lieut. General Sir Evelyn Barker had issued instructions to British troops to boycott Jewish homes and stores: "Without the support, actual or passive, of the Jewish public, the terrorist gangs . . . would soon be unearthed, and in this measure the Jews in the country are accomplices and bear a share of the guilt. I am determined that they shall. . . be made aware of the contempt and loathing with which we regard their conduct. . . . The troops . . . will be punishing the Jews in a way the race dislikes. . . by striking at their pocketbooks. . . ."

This was rank anti-Semitism--not police work. In London, Deputy Prime Minister Herbert Morrison said that, while the general's order was justified, his language was not.

"The Old Basket." In the House of Commons, Morrison defended the "federation" plan under which Palestine would be divided into three zones (TIME, Aug. 5). However, if the U.S. would not concur, His Majesty's Government would have to "reconsider." Winston Churchill put it more bluntly. If the U.S. would not concur, he said, then Britain should dump the matter into the U.S.'s lap and get out of the country. That would effectively answer those who think that Britain is hanging on to Palestine as a military base in lieu of Egypt.

A Laborite backbencher commented on Churchill thus: "The old basket--he's a scoundrel of the deepest dye, but by God, he's put his finger on a few things in this debate." There was also a good deal of approval for Churchill's remarks in the British press. It was noteworthy that no hurrahs at all were forthcoming from the Zionists; their silence contradicted vociferous but unofficial demands that Britain "quit Palestine." They know that if Britain got out of Palestine the Arabs would be on Zion's neck.

In Washington the "federation" plan was voted down in a stormy Cabinet session at which Henry Wallace led the opposition. The Cabinet action was a serious rebuff to Secretary Byrnes who had approved the plan. Byrnes's acquiescence may have been influenced by the recent U.S. refusal to give Britain any military help. The U.S. Cabinet's attitude toward Britain seemed to be: "You do it, Johnny--but do it in a nice way, and don't ask us how."

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