The Israel Embassy here has reiterated to the State Department that no proposal involving territorial cession by Israel has any chance whatever of being discussed or agreed to by Israel, it was learned here today.
The Israel stand was voiced again in connection with talks held during the last few days by Iraqi statesman Nuri as-Said who conferred with President Eisenhower and Secretary of State John Foster Dulles and who is pushing the idea that Israel’s boundaries must be shifted. In the Israeli view, a discussion of this subject would invoke controversy and conflict without affecting the actual position except to make it more tense.
Israeli officials have discerned no change in the American position which holds that it is inadvisable to raise an Arab-Israel discussion internationally at a time when there is no reason to believe that progress towards agreement can be made.
Israeli circles here are not impressed by newspaper reports of an alleged Soviet initiative proposing a return to the 1947 partition plan. State Department sources also tend to minimize such reports as excessively “gloomy.”
A State Department source said today that Nuri as-Said was assured that no basic decisions involving Iraqi or Baghdad Pact interests would be taken at the Paris NATO meeting without consultation with the nations directly concerned. Nuri had voiced concern lest the NATO meeting would consider support of Israel as an anti-Communist power.
The State Department position is that U.S. policy requires that this nation avoid taking decisions involving other nations without discussion with them.
(In New York, Senator Jacob K. Javits, speaking at an Israel Bond dinner, suggested that the NATO meeting in Paris should consider Arab-Israel tensions and problems. The dinner was given in honor of Attorney General Louis J. Lefkowitz and was attended by more than 1,000 national, state and city leaders.)
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