The Arab News Agency at Beirut is circulating reports that Israel will shortly launch a “peace offensive” among the Arab states, dispatches from the Lebanese capital today stated. The news agency reports assert that Israel’s top “Arab experts” have been assigned to contact Egypt, Lebanon, Syria and the other Arab nations.
At the same time, reports from Cairo assert that France is taking an active part in attempting to make peace between Israel and Egypt. These reports say that French officials are attempting to persuade King Farouk, who is vacationing on the Riviera, to begin direct peace talks with the Jewish state on the basis of mutual recognition of the existing boundaries of both countries.
The same reports maintain that the French Foreign Office has promised to influence Syria and Lebanon to approve Egypt’s actions along such lines. This is seen as a French move to rebuild a bloc of Arab states in the Near East in opposition to the British-dominated Hashemite bloc. France is said to have promised the Arab states that it would support the internationalization of Jerusalem at the forthcoming U.N. General Assembly session.
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