General Assembly to Consider British Plan Tuesday; Big Five to Appoint Commissioners

A plenary session of the General Assembly will consider the watered-down British resolution on Palestine Tuesday, it was reported here today.

The resolution, which was finally passed by the Assembly’s Political Committee yesterday by a vote of 25-21, with nine abstentions, provides for a three-nation conciliation commission appointed by the Big Five. The last point was contained in a Canadian amendment passed over the bitter opposition of the U.S.S.R., which pointed out that the other four members of the Big Five had supported the Angle-American resolution throughout and could not be expected to be impartial in choosing the three-member commission. John D.L. Hood of Australia supported the Soviet position in this matter, as did the Polish delegate.

A Soviet resolution calling for the withdrawal of all foreign troops from Palestine was defeated. A Syrian proposal to refer to the Palestine situation to the International Court of Justice was again voted down.

In its final form the British resolution, which failed to muster the support of two-thirds of the delegates which it must have to pass in the General Assembly, provides for the following major points:

1. The conciliation commission shall “take steps to assist the governments and authorities concerned to achieve a final solution of all questions outstanding between them.”

2. The Jerusalem area shall be internationalized, with the commission instructed to report on a plan for such a regime to the next session of the General Assembly. The Jerusalem area shall be demilitarized.

3. The Arab refugees shall be assisted in returning to their homes and the commission is to oversee compensation payments to them for losses incurred, whether they return to Palestine or not.