The United States Senate Foreign Relations Committee staff, in a study report on the Middle East made public yesterday, called the Arab refugee situation the major obstacle to peace in the area and urged Israel and the Arab states to make concessions for its solution. The study was announced by Chairman J. W. Fulbright, Arkansas Democrat, who recently returned from a visit to Israel, Jordan and the United Arab Republic.
Asserting that Soviet influence in the Middle East has been declining steadily, the staff experts said they believed some steps toward an Arab-Israel settlement might now be possible. They suggested, as a first step, that the United Nations Palestine Conciliation Commission submit a new report on the refugee problem.
In the proposed exchange of concessions, the report said, Israel would have to make the greatest diplomatic concession by acceptance of the principle of repatriation or compensation to the Arab refugees. The Arab countries would have to make the “greatest practical” concession by acceptance of the principle that all Arab refugees who would choose not to return to Israel–which the study said would be “all but a small proportion”–could be integrated into the societies of the Arab countries.
The study noted that “as the Israelis themselves so often suggest, the Moslem refugees would be disinclined to return to a land transformed by the predominance of its Jewish culture and Jewish Government.” In publishing the study report, Sen. Fulbright said it did not necessarily reflect the views of any members of the Senate committee, He said it was the last of 15 studies on foreign policy prepared as background for committee members.
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.
