Arab-jewish Peace Talk at Lausanne Show No Signs of Progress As 40th Day Reached

With the U.N.-sponsored Lausanne peace conference reaching its 40th day this Sunday, it is admitted here that no important progress has been made in the direction of a permanent solution of the Palestine situation.

The Conciliation Commission itself considers haste to be the worst enemy of peace-making. Claude de Boissanger, the French chairman, said today that September is far too close a target for the expectation of peace. Only an interim report will be available for the September session of the U.N. General Assembly. In his view, the Commission itself and the parties on both sides should prepare to continue the Lausanne talks until November–and beyond, if necessary.

This is the more extreme view on the Commission. The United States representative do not share it altogether. Mark Ethridge, U.S. member of the Commission, wants to avoid the tactical error committed by the late Count Folke Bernadotte when, as Palestine mediator, he drafted his own recommendations without waiting for the parties concerned to request them.

The American attitude is, therefore, to exhaust all the alternatives and wait for the Israelis and Arabs to ask for positive conciliation proposals by the Commission. Ethridge had hoped that this stage might be reached before he leaves Lausanne within a few days. There is no longer any prospect of that.

These arguments for “peace by exhaustion” would have more point if there were more evidence that the Arab delegations are empowered to make peace, it is argued here. However, only a few days ago Abdel Moneim Bey, head of the Egyptian delegation, declared categorically that he had neither the authority nor the intention of concluding peace with Israel on behalf of Egypt.

The Arabs had come to settle the refugee question, he said. They have signed, together with Israel, the protocol of May 12 which clearly gave priority to the discussion of questions relating to refugees while speculating that following this, the frontier questions should also be considered. The Arab states now take their stand on this protocol and on the partition boundaries of Israel, Everything else they refuse to discuss.

As against that the Israeli representatives submitted proposals oh the so-called “Gaza Plan” in full detail to the commission. The Egyptian delegate said yesterday that he would not discuss this, and added that Egypt was not a party to the Gaza Plan. He conceded that for the moment he has no intention of leaving Lausanne.