France, which has long been urging the United Nations to establish an effective international regime in Jerusalem, is prepared to back a ten-year international trusteeship for the city when the Assembly’s Political Committee begins work on the Palestine question, it was learned today from sources close to the French Foreign Office.
At the end of the ten years, Jerusalem inhabitants would decide the city’s political future by a plebiscite, according to the plan. It is known that the French Government favors implementation of the draft statute for Jerusalem prepared last year by the Trusteeship Council.
The Israeli mission here is employing the present lull in the Palestine situation to discuss its position on the Bernadotte proposals with other delegations in Paris. The future of Jerusalem and the Negev are the central points of the talks. The Jews are circulating a map showing exactly where Bernadotte’s Faluj line would run, cutting off from Israel the Jewish settlements in the Negev and the pipeline supplying them with water as well as the Dead Sea chemical works.
This graphic demonstration of the sacrifice the Bernadotte proposals would exact of the Jewish state is believed likely to influence some of the middle powers in the direction of drawing the Negev line further south in order to maintain the Jewish settlements within Israel.
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