UNITED NATIONS: Faltering Steps

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With three weeks to go before the British mandate expires, U.N. was frantically seeking for a workable plan for Palestine. The Security Council appointed a truce commission to try to persuade Arabs and Jews to stop their war. That was almost certainly a futile gesture. Nevertheless, the consular representatives of the U.S., France and Belgium (named as the commission) held a meeting in Jerusalem against a background of gunfire.

Other faltering U.N. steps were more promising. The General Assembly told the Trusteeship Council to plan "suitable protective measures" for Jerusalem. The U.S. delegation hoped that a security system for that city might be expanded to embrace all of Palestine. And for the first time, Britain wavered from its nobody-loves-my-dogged position that all British troops would leave by August; if the U.S. would provide its share of troops to enforce a truce, London seemed at least willing to think about leaving some Tommies to help out. Britons added, tongue in cheek, that the U.S. share might have to be commensurate with the U.S. position in the world.

To the Russians, at least, it appeared likely that U.N.'s Assembly would create a trusteeship—on paper—and hand the problem to U.N.'s underworked Trusteeship Council: the Russians suddenly decided to take their seat on that Council, after boycotting it for 13 months.

But all U.N.'s embryonic plans were based on hopes of a voluntary truce in Palestine. No settlement would work if it had to be imposed by force. In Palestine last week, force was the only word.