The resolution against admitting Arab refugees to Israel, which was adopted by the Israel Parliament last night, will serve as a basis and guide for the Israeli delegation at the United Nations when the debate on the Arab refugee problem begins at the U.N. Assembly at the end of this month or early next month, it was indicated here today.
Mrs. Golda Meir, Israel’s Foreign Minister, is scheduled to proceed to the United States in time to participate in the debate. The UN Assembly will take up the Arab refugee problem on the basis of the annual report submitted to it by The United Nations Relief and Works Agency for the refugees and on a report to be submitted by the UN Palestine Conciliation Commission.
Mrs. Meir said it was up to Israel as a sovereign state to decide who might enter its territory and that the idea that others should decide the question was as inconceivable as their right to decide who should immigrate into the United States or the Soviet Union.
She said that “when we believed that the war had ended in 1949,” Israel announced its readiness then to accept up to 100,000 Arab refugees as part of a general peace settlement but this was ignored. The proposal has since lapsed, she added, because the situation has changed.
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The Archive of the Jewish Telegraphic Agency includes articles published from 1923 to 2008. Archive stories reflect the journalistic standards and practices of the time they were published.
