The United Nations Conciliation Commission this afternoon approved its first “working paper” covering a general settlement of the Israeli-Arab dispute, which was submitted by Claude De Boissanger, the French delegate and new Commission chairman.
The document proposed that first there should be an exchange of views on the frontiers. It also laid down certain broad and general principles on which it recommended that discussions on the refugee resettlement problem be based. The Israeli delegation accepted the “working paper” and undertook to give the Commission members a detailed reply at the earliest possible moment. However, because of the known Arab opposition to a discussion of the frontiers at the outset, the Commission postponed till Wednesday the meeting scheduled for tomorrow.
Meanwhile, the difference between the Transjordan views on refugee settlement, and those of the other Arab states, have again raised the question whether the Arab nations will be In a position at all to meet the Conciliation Commission as one body, The Commission has now informed the Arab delegations that they must soon makes up their minds, or the United Nations group will insist on meeting the Arab states separately, as hitherto.
The Transjordan delegates strongly objected to a proposal from U.N. sources that Egypt turn over to Israel the Gaza coastal strip and its Arab and refugee population, estimated at 150,000 persons. Transjordan has advanced a claim to the title to this region. Egypt proposes to shift Palestinian refugees from various parts of the country to Gaza.
The Transjordanians also objected to the support given by the otter Arab delegations to a project for internationalizing Jerusalem. They informed the other Arab–and the Commission–that King Abdullah has a claim to the whole of Jerusalem.
ETHRIDGE RESIGNING AS U.S. MEMBER OF U.N. BODY; ISRAELIS REGRET DECISION
The Commission meeting which approved the working paper was chaired by De Boissanger. Its session took place under the shadow of the decision of its former chairman, American member Mark Ethridge, to resign by May 25.
Ehtridge told correspondents today that the appointment of his partner, Barry Bingham, as Economic Cooperation Administration representative for France made it imperative for him to return to his newspaper, the Louisville Courier Journal. He took the Commission post for only two months, at the request of the State Department. By the end of May he will have served four months, he said.
Ethridge’s decision will be regretted by the Israeli delegation. Although the American has driven the Israelis further than any other member of the Commission to accept a more conciliatory policy toward the Arab refugees, the Israelis expressed the view today that Ethridge was the heart and soul of the Commission and that without him the U.N. body would lose both weight and dynamics.
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