For the first time in its existence, the Arab League is circulating among its members a memorandum proposing that Arabs and Israelis sit down together, at a conference under United Nations chairmanship, to discuss the Arab refugee problem.
Today’s Arab newspapers, received here, report this development freely. According to these reports, the League is considering the possibility that the United States delegation at the United Nations will propose joint Israeli-Arab talks on the refugee issue at the next session of the UN General Assembly. The talks will be proposed for drafting a plan to care for refugees after the expiration in July, 1960, of the mandate of the United Nations Relief and Works. Agency for Palestine Refugees.
Not only does the League memorandum propose that Arabs and Israelis confer–a step heretofore considered “treason” by die-hard Arabs hostile to Israel. The memorandum also mentions the possibility that in the Arab-Israel talks, consideration be given to possible resettlement of Arab refugees in lands other than Israel, Until now, Arab spokesmen have insisted only on complete “repatriation” of all refugees, which would mean flooding Israel with hundreds of thousands of hostile Arab refugees. Now repatriation, compensation by Israel to refugees, and resettlement, are being considered together.
One other innovation in the memorandum is the fact that it admits the possibility that not only would Israel compensate Arab refugees, but Arab states would compensate Jewish refugees who left Arab lands for settlement in Israel.
All of these possibilities for settlement of the refugee problem were included last year in an overall plan proposed in New York by the American Institute for Middle Eastern Affairs. The League memorandum is based primarily on that plan as a possible solution to the refugee problem.
Meanwhile, it became known here that the Arab League is preparing a “black register for tightening the anti-Israel boycott. The register will contain the names, and in many
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