"Another Twelve Months"

Fifteen months ago Foreign Minister Ernest Bevin was full of pith and vinegar. In the House of Commons his strong voice rasped: "I will stake my political future on solving this [the Palestine] problem." Last week, sick & tired and with a voice that was little more than a heavy sigh, Ernie Bevin told the House that he had failed.

Defense. His decision to dump the problem into the lap of the United Nations (TIME, Feb. 24) was not the only measure of the failure. He would propose no solution to the U.N. He had no new policy to offer for peace in Palestine pending the U.N.'s action (it will not take the case until September; a decision may be more than a year away). And he would make no promise of an increase in Jewish immigration to the Holy Land (now 1,500 a month), the sorest point of all with Zionists.*

Winston Churchill asked why the Palestine case had not been referred to the U.N. a year ago. Weary Bevin replied: "After 2,000 years of conflict, another twelve months will not be considered a long delay."

Next day at a Laborite caucus, Bevin faced sharper questions from his own party critics. He told what a Laborite described as a "sob story": had he been able to deal solely with British Jewry, a solution could have been found long ago, but the dangerous influence of American Jewry had been at work and robbed him of any chance of success. Buck-toothed Konni Zilliacus, pro-Soviet Laborite, tossed a charge of "playing power politics," accused Bevin of letting the strategic Iraq-Palestine pipeline /- stand in the way of any solution. Reported one M.P.: "Ernie in his most naive way threw up his hands and said, 'We never thought of the pipeline. It never entered our discussion. All we were concerned about was to come to a solution.' "

Offense. In Palestine, the Jewish Irgun Zvai Leumi ("Liberation Army") thought about the pipeline, blasted it apart in two places. That was a signal for renewed terror; four British soldiers were wounded in other incidents. Palestinians and Britons feared that they were in for another twelve months of bitterness and tension until U.N. acted.

*At Annapolis, when British Ambassador Lord Inverchapel rose to address Maryland's House of Delegates as its guest, six Jewish legislators walked out in protest.

/- For news of another Middle Eastern pipeline, see BUSINESS.

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