A detailed program for solution of the Palestine Arab refugee problem through a 10-year program involving expenditures of $400,000,000 was advanced today by the Institute for Mediterranean Affairs. The plan was drawn up by a panel of 17 political scientists, economists and businessmen, working under the aegis of the Institute.
The plan proposes establishment of a “United Nations Repatriation and Resettlement Authority” patterned after the Mixed Armistice Commission, but responsible to the General Assembly and charged with the task of repatriation and resettlement of the Arab refugee. The authority (RRA) would receive its funds from Israel and the Arab States, from other members of the United Nations and from Arab States’ oil revenues.
Refugees who could prove residence in what is now Israel prior to 1948 would be given the option of settlement in one of four areas of Palestine where they would be provided with “satisfactory housing and a farm or other means of livelihood” and, if settling in Israel, would have all the rights and obligations of citizenship.
Under the program, “all Palestine Arab refugees, and all Jews who left Arab states since 1948, should be paid full compensation for all property left behind, ” regardless of where they should decide to settle.
Israel would be given safeguards under the plan against possible subversive actions by the repatriated Arab refugees and would be given an additional safeguard by the obligation it would impose on both Israel and Arab States to carry out “faithfully” the provisions in the Arab-Israel armistice agreements barring acts of aggression.
The program proposes that the RRA “should plan the repatriation and resettlement” in several phases, the first phase taking no more than three years from the time the RRA is established, during which time 200,000 of the refugees would be settled. The remainder of the program is to take seven years longer. The entire $400, 000, 000 cost is to be paid to the RRA during the ten-year period in installments.
The program provides that “all of these proposals should be considered only as inseparable parts of an integral solution of the total problem. ” Pointing out that the “integral solution is, of course, subject to discussion and modification, ” the panel insists, however, that “the plan as a whole” must be adopted, and not merely portions of the plan.
J. David Stern, retired publisher, is chairman of the executive committee of the Institute For Mediterranean Affairs; Richard R. Salzmann, executive vice chairman, and Peter Bergson, Prof. Nasrollan Fatemi, Prof. Allan Nevins, Prof. Fowler Harper and Prof. Abba P. Lerner are among the members of the board.
Prof. Lerner was chairman of the panel which prepared the plan and Samuel Merlin, the Institute’s coordinator of research, was the panel’s rapporteur-general. All the panel members are affiliated with the Institute.
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