Israel Proposes Negotiations with Arabs on Five-year Plan to Solve Refugee Problem

Israel proposed to the United Nations today that, as the first phase of an overall Arab-Israeli agreement on the Middle East crisis, the U.N. initiate negotiations on a five-year plan for the economic development of the entire Middle East, which would rehabilitate the Arab refugees and integrate them into the economic life of the entire region.

Shortly after the Israeli proposal was laid before the U.N., the United States introduced a draft resolution deploring the fact that no substantial progress has been made on the reintegration or resettlement of the Arab refugees. The U.S.A. urged, among other steps, that the world organization’s special Arab refugee relief set-up, the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees, “continue” its efforts to rectify the relief rolls “to assure the most equitable distribution of relief based on need.” One of the points made in Israel’s presentation disagreed sharply with the UNRWA statistics from which the relief rolls are made up by the agency, calling many of the figures “inflated.”

The Israeli plan was proposed to the General Assembly’s special political committee by Ambassador Michael S. Comay, Israel’s representative to that 123-member committee which has been debating the Arab refugees problem for the last week.

COMAY TELLS COMMITTEE ISRAEL HAS PREPARED ‘DETAILED, PRACTICAL’ PROPOSALS

In a lengthy address to the special committee, Mr. Comay “welcomed” the Middle East resolution adopted by the Security Council November 22, placing the solution of the Arab refugee problem “in the broad context of peace.” He recalled also that that resolution had authorized the U.N.’s special representative. Ambassador Gunnar Jarring (who arrived in Israel today), “to establish and maintain contacts with the states concerned in order to promote agreement and assist in efforts to achieve the peaceful and accepted settlement.”

“Since June,” said Mr. Comay, “the Israel Government, through groups of experts, has been working on detailed and practical proposals on the refugee question. It is clear that Israel has neither the duty nor the capacity to solve this problem by itself. But the Government will participate fully in an international and regional plan to dispose of it in the broad framework of an effort to establish a permanent peace.” He appealed to all U.N. members, particularly to the Arab states, to consider the Israeli proposal seriously “on simple humanitarian grounds.” Referring to the Arab states, he declared:

“Across the wall of hostility and misunderstanding which still unhappily divides us, my Government would voice a solemn appeal to neighboring governments. They should not hurry to reject our offer, but ponder it well on the same human grounds that prompted it. The swift and bloody encounter of last June has changed more than we can yet realize, in the lives and outlook of the peoples in the Middle East. None of us can go back to where we were before. We in Israel, too, have buried and mourned our dead, tended our wounded and crippled, and counted the grim cost of war. Our conscience is clear before God and history. For our small people, the alternative to victory was not defeat or even loss of independence, but physical annihilation. Let us now forego rancor and reproach. On both sides of the cease-fire lines, one can sense among ordinary men and women a weariness of conflict, a profound longing for the chance to lead their lives and bring up their children in peace and human dignity. That, at any rate, is the mood that has emerged in the population, both Jewish and Arab, throughout the Israel-held area.

“The time has come to move along the path of reconciliation. That may be a long and difficult path, after all that has happened. Surely the forward step which Arab leaders could most readily explain and justify to their own citizens, is one which concerns the refugees. What we have proposed constitutes a challenge to Arab statesmanship, and it is our earnest hope that the response will be positive.”

“I would recall that in its statement before the committee during the last General Assembly, my delegation suggested the establishment of a re-integration and compensation fund, which would provide the financial means for a solution of the refugee problem in all its aspects – land settlement, economic integration, training, migration, and compensation for property. We then stated that the Israel Government could be counted upon to give its prompt and substantial financial support to such an initiative. I am instructed now to reaffirm that commitment.”

SAYS ARABS ‘INFLATED’ FIGURES ON REFUGEES AND DISPLACED PERSONS

Mr. Comay reminded the delegates that, in the annual report on UNRWA’s operations, filed here by Laurence Michelmore, the agency Commissioner-General, the latter had stated that Israel’s cooperation with UNRWA, to help it carry out its work on the West Bank of the Jordan River and in the Gaza Strip, had been offered as far back as last June 14, and that that cooperation had been “effective.” He complimented the agency on its “zeal and devotion” and its general labors “in spite of the difficulties

However, Mr. Comay questioned many of the figures concerning the refugee population and movements as reported by Mr. Michelmore, saying that many of those data, furnished by the Arab “host” governments, were “inflated” and grossly inaccurate. The Israeli delegate questioned particularly two of the points to which Mr. Michelmore had referred in his report – the matter of textbooks for Arab schools in Israel-occupied areas and “the discrepancies between UNRWA statistics and the results of the population census carried out by Israel authorities in the areas in question.”

Regarding education of the Arab children in Israeli-occupied areas, Mr. Comay noted that the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization had ruled in its constitution that such education “shall promote understanding, tolerance and friendship among all nations, racial or religious groups” and the maintenance of peace.

“In the context of the Israeli-Arab conflict,” he said, “it is of special concern what attitudes young children are taught in school. Objectionable material is being deleted from school textbooks in the Israel-held areas, and it is my Government’s sincere hope that similar steps will now be taken in UNRWA/UNESCO schools, wherever they may be. In Dr. Michelmore’s statement, he mentions that the need to modify textbooks has reduced the number of them that are available. I have since been able to inform him that the Israel educational authorities are able to fulfill orders from UNRWA for a complete range of textbooks.”

SUGGESTS JOINT STUDY OF DATA; REPORTS ISRAEL’S ECONOMIC. SOCIAL PROGRAMS

Regarding the statistical figures, he told the committee that Israel had proposed a joint study of all available data because the matter is “complicated and technical.” “We are concerned” he said, “not merely with determining the number of registered refugees that physically exist in the area. In our view, there is also need to clarify certain questions of eligibility and the reflection in refugee statistics of the substantial degree of economic integration which has been taking place.”

Touching on the nature of the displacement of Arabs in the various areas involved in last June’s war, and voicing “compassion for all civilians on either side who have been affected by the recent war” Mr. Comay said his delegation “would certainly agree that assistance should be given to those in need of it.” “At the same time,” he added, “it is incumbent upon us to understand the nature of these population movements if we wish to prescribe for them. Most of these figures (given in the Michelmore report) have not been verified by any independent source but have been supplied by Arab governments concerned and, in our opinion, are inflated.”

Mr. Comay reported on Israel’s efforts to repatriate Arabs who had moved to the Jordan-held East Bank of the Jordan River, and noted Israel’s “open-door” policy for those Arabs to return to Israeli-held territory. “The moral of the story,” he said, “is that all governments concerned must cooperate in facilitating cooperation.”

After reporting that Israel has inaugurated many economic and educational programs for the Arabs in the areas it holds — refugees and non-refugees — Mr. Comay concluded: “On its record till now, and its economic and social programs for the period ahead, the Israel Government can properly claim that it is discharging its responsibilities towards the inhabitants of the areas, and ensuring their safety, welfare and security.

“I do not wish to suggest that there are no problems. That would be neither truthful nor convincing. There are resentment and suspicion surviving from the past, some difficulties of economic and emotional adjustment to the present, and anxiety about the future. All that is natural. But conditions are in every way better than anyone would have dared to expect some months ago.

What is reassuring is that daily life is so normal, and above all that the barriers are crumbling and people are mingling freely. Incidents and clashes along the cease-fire lines are regularly reported in the press. The great untold story is that, in the area presently held by Israel, two-and-a-quarter million Jews and one-and-a-quarter million Arabs are co-existing without serious strife. That phenomenon is the basis for some sober confidence for the future of Israel-Arab relations in the Middle East, and for the future of the refugees.”

U.S. DRAFT URGES RECTIFICATION OF UNRWA RELIEF ROLLS; ENDORSES JARRING MISSION

The United States resolution was presented by Rep. L.H. Fountain, North Carolina Democrat, a member of this year’s Washington delegation to the Assembly. The resolution would request Mr. Michelmore to include among his plans rectification of the relief rolls; would request the virtually dormant Palestine Conciliation Commission to continue its work; and would urge all governments “as a matter of urgency,” to aid UNRWA to solve its serious deficit problems. Referring to the mission of Ambassador Jarring, Rep. Fountain said that “all members of the UN have a great stake in the success of his mission to the Middle East.” He reiterated his government’s support of the mission. In light of Ambassador Jarring’s mission, he called on the committee to “concentrate on immediate practical measures to improve the lot of the refugees.”

He said that over the years the United States has contributed over $400 million dollars, or almost 70 percent of the funds required by UNRWA. Congressman Fountain called for a permanent solution to the plight of the refugees, as stated by President Johnson in his speech of June 19. He said that all refugees who were displaced from their homes by the conflict last June should be allowed and encouraged to return to their homes. “Let us hope and pray that, with the assistance of Ambassador Jarring, a just solution of the problem of the refugees will, at last, within the framework of an overall settlement, be developed and implemented.”