Lonely Pilgrims

In the green foothills of Mt. Hermon, lying along the Banias stream (one of the three sources of the Jordan), a sliver of Palestine is wedged between the boundaries of Syria and Lebanon. There the hills are speckled vith the orchards and fields of Jewish settlements, and their fisheries line the river. Last week 1,000 Arabs came out of Syria and Lebanon, swooped from the surrounding heights, for 3 1/2 hours besieged the Jewish settlements of Dan and Kfar Szold, wrecked irrigation installations, and withdrew across the border only when British Lancers opened fire on them with mortars and artillery. It was the first large-scale organized raid into Palestine from neighboring Arab states.

Next day, organized Arab bands of about 100 each struck again, at Jewish settlements along the coast below Jaffa and at Ramat Rachel, only three miles from Jerusalem. Again British forces intervened and drove off the attackers. At week's end, Jews blew up the "Bridge of Jacob's Daughters" over the River Jordan to cut one of the main Arab invasion routes into northern Palestine.

The growing scale of armed conflict pointed up more sharply than ever the danger of war in Palestine when the U.N. takes over full responsibility next May.

However, the U.S., which would probably have to take the initiative, had not yet made any recommendation for an international force. The U.S. was worried by reports that Russia had planted agents and gunmen among the Jews trying to migrate to Palestine from Russian satellites in eastern Europe. Those reports made the U.S. all the more reluctant to suggest any U.N. police force which would include Russian troops.

The chairman of the five-nation U.N. Palestine Commission, Czechoslovakia's big, bespectacled Karel Lisicky, said disconsolately to his four colleagues, "Nobody can expect miracles from five lonely pilgrims who at this moment have nothing but the U.N. flag, and perhaps this gavel as well, as all their means for enforcing [the partition] resolution."

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