Israel has reached agreement with the Palestine Conciliation Commission to make a first payment of 1,000,000 pounds sterling on the blocked Arab accounts. The 12th progress report of the Commission announced this today.
In order to make this payment in the most equitable manner possible it was decided that the smallest accounts would receive first priority. Since most of the blocked Arab accounts do not exceed 100 pounds, the P.C.C. report said that this “would allow the release of the great majority of the accounts within two months of the date of the beginning of the banking operation.”
The Israeli Government is now discussing with Barclay’s Bank Ltd, in London-which agreed to act as agent for all the Israeli banks in this transaction–the technical details of releasing the blocked accounts. These technical details are complicated as the accounts have to be confirmed, the depositors found and identified, before payment can be made. It is anticipated that the Ottoman Bank will also participate in this operation.
Israel is making this first payment on the Arab accounts without any reciprocal undertaking by the Arab Governments in releasing blocked Israeli accounts or in lifting economic embargoes. A member of the Israeli delegation said today that “there are absolutely no strings attached to this agreement.” The agreement was reached after a long series of discussions between the Palestine Conciliation Commission and Israel, represented by Gideon Rapahel.
They were started in May of this year when Eli Palmer, American representative on the Commission, approached the permanent representative of Israel, Abba Eban, on the matter. In an aide memoir delivered in reply, Mr. Eban expressed the willingness of the Israel Government to discuss measures for the gradual release of blocked accounts of the Arab refugees.
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.
