Tel Aviv reports that the U.S. has proposed the surrender by Israel of the whole of the southern Negev were categorically denied today by an Israeli delegation spokesman. He said that at no time had the United States formally made this proposal.
The Lausanne talks, under the auspices of the U.N. Conciliation Commission, were continuing, he said, adding that considerable progress was made today in a meeting of the Jerusalem subcommittee. The Israeli delegation, he went on, was still hopeful of a successful outcome of discussions involving also the four Arab states of Egypt, Transjordan, Syria and Lebanon.
Reverting to the reported American proposals, he explained that throughout the Lausanne talks there had been many conversations, with Mark, F. Ethridge, then with Raymond Hare and more recently with Paul A. Porter, during which the question of territory was informally discussed.
The Americans had all along argued, he recalled, that Israel must give territorial compensation for keeping western Galilee. They had sounded out the Israeli delegation regarding regions which might be given up by the new state. Mr. Porter had inquired two weeks ago into the Israeli attitude to a suggestion that the southern Negev might be surrendered by Israel.
He was at that time informed by the chief Israeli delegate, Reuven Shiloah, that Israel would resist such a proposal to the utmost and if there was one issue which could turn Israeli public opinion against western orientation, it would be United States insistence that Israel must give up part of the Negev.
After that the Americans did not again raise this issue in Lausanne. The view of both Commission members and the Israelis in Lausanne is that Mr. Porter’s mission to Washington is primarily concerned with other matters, mainly Mr. Porter’s instructions. A Commission source reiterated that the main issue at Lausanne was now neither the Palestinian Arab refugee question nor a territorial settlement. The problem, he said, was whether the United States was prepared to carry out its undertakings as outlined in the plan for Middle East rehabilitation.
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