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would not be able to make this trip to the land God has chosen for
His own. But, just before we came, the UN sent its Secretary-
General Dag Hammarskjold over here to get a "Cease-Fire," and
armistice. While he did not succeed in achieving any permanent
solution or peace, he did get a temporary "'Cease-fire." So we
were able to come on along.
As our plane stopped 30 minutes at Amman airport, enroute
from Cairo to Baghdad, we saw Mr. Hammarskjold's UN plane at the
airport, and I took a few movie-shots of it.
Yet even this morning, as Mr. Hammarskjold is now back at
UN headquarters in New York, the 3-column main page 1 headline of
the morning paper here in Jewish Jerusalem shouts "CONCERN OVER NEW
VIOLENCE"---lists Jordan, Egyptian attacks. THE TROUBLE IS FAR
FROM OVER! And I have just learned there was machine-gun fire
heard in this hotel last night, tho we all slept thru it, and have
not yet learned who shot what.
Here, in few words, is the basis of it:
The Saudi-Arabians are the original fanatical anti-Jewish
group. In 1945, and until the new nation "Israel" was set up in
1948, their Sheik, Hafiz Wahba, was in charge of Palestine affairs
for the Arab nations. I know the Sheik well. I spent an hour with
him at San Francisco, during the United Nations Conference in 1945,
and then reported in The PLAIN TRUTH the Arab position in regard to
Jewish aspirations in Palestine.
In few words, it was this: Although the Jews claim
Palestine as their original ancient home-land, Sheik Hafiz Wahba
points out that this was all around 2,000 years ago. Palestine, he
said, has been the home of the Arabs for thirteen long centuries.
They built their famous "Dome of the Rock." usually known in
America as the Mosque of Omar on the site of the Temple in
Jerusalem in the 7th century, A.D. The Sheik pointed out to me
that America once was the home of the Indians, and that our people
have lived there only some 300 years, and our nation is less than
200 years old. And he asked me if we would feel it right that we
now get out and give it back to the Indians, because their fore-
fathers occupied most of America over 300 years ago? Palestine, he
said, belongs to the Arabs. It has been their home for 1,300
years. Jerusalem is THEIR religious home, and their Mosque is
there today, instead of any Jewish temple. If the Jews need a
national home, let them go somewhere else. Why drive the Arabs out
of their own homes in their own land. That is the Arab viewpoint,
and they will fight with fanaticism to exterminate the Jews from
here.
The Sheik invited Mrs. Armstrong and me to a Royal
Reception in London in 1947, to be presented to the then Crown
Prince Emir, who now is King Saud of Arabia. While we were in
Cairo, two weeks ago, the Sheik came to our hotel with his wife and
three daughters, whom he introduced to us, and talked for more than
two hours with me, while Madam Hafiz Wahba chatted for more than an
hour with Mrs. Armstrong. God may have reasons for keeping us in
close personal acquaintance with the Arab's chief diplomat in this