The United Nations Conciliation Commission on Palestine met today in private session to consider how to approach the Arab delegations with the Israeli blueprint for settlement of the Arab refugee problem.
Certain security regulations similar to those new existing in Turkey would apply to those Arab refugees returning to Israel. The Arabs would not be allowed to settle in any frontier district out of military considerations and also to prevent any of the large-scale smuggling for which the Palestine frontier has always been notorious.
The Arabs are not objecting, it is learned, to either of these conditions, but their first counter-demand, according to Mulki Pasha, the Transjordan Defense Minister, will be to ask a certain deadline from Israel by which the repatriation of the Arab refugees to Israel will have been concluded.
The second Arab demand will be to obtain consent to the return of 100,000 refugees without any of the deductions included in the Israeli figures. But the Israeli delegation informed the Conciliation Commission yesterday that its present offer of 100,000 Arab refugees — which includes the 25,000 already in the country was the last possible word of the Tel Aviv Government and not subject to any bargaining. The Commission is now considering a proposal for the formation of a joint Arab-Israeli body.
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