Embers

U.N.'s Palestine Mediator Count Folke Bernadotte was grave but pleased. In Cairo he announced to assembled newsmen that both Jews and Arabs had accepted his plan for a four-week truce in Palestine. At one point Bernadotte humbly said: "If we hadn't got help from God Almighty . . ." He looked up and saw some cynical smiles among his listeners. Bernadotte screwed his monocle more firmly into his right eye, continued: "Without His help, we wouldn't be sitting here."

Unreal Morning. That night in Jerusalem was the noisiest since Partition Day. Arab Legion artillery and mortar shells crashed into the Jewish quarters of the new town, kicked up clouds of white smoke and dust. Red tracers streaked across the domed roofs of the Old City. At dawn the Jews sent one last burst into the Arab positions. A shell exploded on the balcony of an Arab hospital, killing an attendant. As he was carried out of the ward, head hanging limply, a nurse whimpered: "He is dead. Did you see him die? He would have lived if the truce had started half an hour sooner."

At 8 o'clock, the truce deadline, a siren wailed through the Jewish quarters. The drumfire noises of war faded to scattered shots, then died out completely. An unreal quiet gripped Jerusalem. It was the same throughout most of Palestine.

Not all the firing stopped. Both Jews and Arabs quickly charged truce violations as one side or the other tried to stake out claims in the no-man's-lands between front lines. Each side would be entitled to stand fast on what it held for the month of peace--if it lasted that long. The most important pre-truce drive was an unsuccessful Israeli effort to reopen the road from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem. Anticipating failure, the Jews had hacked a primitive trail through the hills south of the main road. There mule trains, jeeps, and slogging men kept a trickle of supplies flowing into Jerusalem. A Jewish commander called it "our Burma Road."

Uneasy Month. One of Bernadotte's first problems would be to decide whether this thin capillary justified Jewish claims that they should now be allowed to supply Jerusalem unhindered by the Arabs. Another pressing problem: how many Jews of military age should be allowed to enter Palestine? There would be many other problems for Bernadotte. To assist in policing the truce terms, the U.S. sent 21 officers to work with him, ordered planes and ships to patrol the coastline and Arab frontiers.

At Lake Success Russia's Andrei Gromyko angrily insisted that Russia, too, be allowed to send truce officers. That was the last thing U.N. wanted. But how could

Russia be denied a share in the truce enforcement? The answer accepted by Bernadotte: restrict inspection officers and patrol craft to the three powers (France, Belgium and the U.S.) represented on the U.N. Truce Commission.

This week Bernadotte left for the Greek island of Rhodes to begin the second and most difficult part of his job--to arrange a long-term settlement between Jews and Arabs. He left behind a sputtering Palestine. The Jewish terrorist organization Irgun Zvai Leumi accused the Israeli government, in accepting the truce, of "submitting to shame rather than continuing the struggle." The implied threat to break the truce brought a sharp statement from Israel's Prime Minister David Ben-Gurion: "The Government will not suffer any attempt to be made by anyone in our midst to break the truce . . . Anyone who attempts to break the discipline of the state at this hour will be considered an enemy of Israel."

The possibility of extending a month's uneasy truce into permanent peace now depended on the willingness of both sides to give a little ground at Rhodes. But Israelis said that they would never consider any solution that did not recognize Israel's sovereignty; Arabs were still flatly refusing to acknowledge even the existence of the Jewish state. Said Transjordan's King Abdullah: "There is in Palestine a fire which must be extinguished. The Western states wish to bury this fire under embers which might rekindle and again burst into flame."

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