Lloyd Says Britain Seeks Arab-israel Meeting on Disputes

The British Government is doing its best to bring Arabs and Israelis together for the resolution of their disputes, Selwyn Lloyd, Minister of State, declared in the House of Commons today. He complained that “the more that is said in public, the more difficult it is to get the two sides together.”

Mr. Lloyd had been asked by Eric Johnson, a Conservative M. P., whether the government would not try to persuade the Jordan Government to make full use of the United Nations machinery to settle its dispute with Israel. He replied that “it would be a very good thing if both sides made full use of existing machinery.”

Herbert Morrison, Labor Party leader who recently returned from a visit to Israel, told the minister that Israel was most anxious to sit down with the Arabs, especially Jordan, to settle their dispute. He asked the Government spokesman whether in view of the fact that hostilities had been brought to an end partly at Britain’s request and at the request of the United Nations, there was not an obligation on Britain to persuade the Arabs to sit down at a roundtable and settle the dispute.

(In New York, Israeli delegate to the United Nations, Abba S. Eban, conferred Saturday with members of the United States delegation on the possibility of a meeting of the Security Council this month to resume consideration of the Israel-Jordan dispute. Jordan addressed the Council before withdrawing its complaint against Israel but Israel was given no opportunity to reply.)

DENIES ANGLO-AMERICAN PROPOSALS CALL FOR BENNIKE REPLACEMENT

The flurry of questions in the House on the Palestine problem was precipitated by reports that Britain and the United States, in identical notes to Israel, had proposed a major reorganization of the truce machinery in Palestine.

Mr. Lloyd reiterated a denial made earlier in the day by the Foreign Office that these proposals had included the replacement of Maj. Gen. Vagn Bennike of Denmark as head of the U.N. truce organization.

The Foreign Office, in commenting on reports of the proposals to Israel, stressed that no major reorganization was involved, only minor measures to improve the truce supervision arrangements. It was announced that France had been consulted on the suggestions made to Premier Moshe Sharett of Israel and would be associated with some of these proposals.

The Anglo-American proposals were submitted to Premier Sharett in Jerusalem on Sunday and were reportedly submitted to Jordan earlier. According to the British spokesmen today, no “substantive response” has been received to these proposals.