Without commenting directly on the progress report which the U.N. Palestine Conciliation Commission submitted this week to the Security Council, the Israeli delegation today made public its views on the developments at the Arab-Jewish negotiations taking place in Lausanne under the auspices of the Commission.
The statement of the Israeli delegation, issued in New York through the Israeli Office of Information, emphasized that the U.N. General Assembly’s resolution of Dec. 11 contained four basic principles. “We must ask what the attitude of Israel and the Arab states respectively has been to each of these,” the statement says, adding:
“1. The main recommendation of the Assembly is its call to the governments concerned ‘to seek agreement by negotiations with a view to the final settlement of all questions outstanding between them.’ This injunction is imperative and unconditional. Israel has ceaselessly offered to comply with it. The Arab states have refused.
“2. The Assembly’s resolution expressed the interest of the United Nations in the protection of the Holy Places and for United Nations control of Jerusalem, with a view to their protection. Israel has made proposals for an international regime concerned exclusively with the protection of the Holy Places. This proposal has received much favorable comment in the General Assembly itself, and has formed the subject of a questionnaire by the Conciliation Commission, to which Israel has replied. The Arab states have made no proposals at all. The Arab Government in occupation of the Holy Places has given no undertakings in respect of them, and actually denies” Christian and Jews access to some of them. The Arab states have not replied to the Commission’s questionnaire.
ISRAEL SAYS ARABS “OFFERED TO DO NOTHING” ON REFUGEE PROBLEM
“3. The Assembly laid down as fin integral part of its call for a peace settlement certain principles relating to the repatriation of refugees and the rights of those who do not return. The proposals submitted by Israel at Lausanne satisfy these principles and provide for a fair and just contribution to a solution of this problem. Israel has also agreed to meet the Commission’s request with respect to the reuniting of families, compensation for land abandoned and the unfreezing of Arab bank assets. On the other hand, the Arab states which have the sole responsibility for creating this tragic problem by their reckless invasion, have so far offered to do nothing whatever to assist its solution.
“4. The Commission itself is instructed in the Assembly’s resolution ‘to establish contact between the parties themselves.’ In the seven months of its existence it has unfortunately not succeeded in fulfilling that task. It should, however, be made perfectly clear that this failure has been caused by Arab and not Jewish refusal to negotiate a total peace settlement.
“5. The only constructive procedural suggestions for rescuing the Lausanne talks from failure are these put forward by the Israel delegation–and some of those have been accepted in party by the Conciliation Commission. An objective review of the record will clearly show that Israel has constantly striven for peace and has made many proposals to achieve it, while the Arab delegations have adamantly refused to discuss it,” the statement concluded.
(At Lake Success, Israeli U.N. delegate Aubrey S. Eban today met with U.N. radiator Dr. Ralph J. Bunche on the Israel-Syrian armistice negotiations.)
The Archive of the Jewish Telegraphic Agency includes articles published from 1923 to 2008. Archive stories reflect the journalistic standards and practices of the time they were published.
