Mark Ethridge, American member of the United Nations Conciliation Commission for Palestine, left for Lausanne, Switzerland today reportedly carrying the outlines of a draft plan for solution of the problem of Jerusalem.
At Lausanne, commencing next Tuesday, the Conciliation Commission will conduct discussions with representatives of the Arab states and of the state of Israel ##n all pending issues blocking establishment of peace in Palestine and seeking to have the way for peace treaties between Israel and her neighboring states.
Chief questions at issue concern the future status of Jerusalem and the settlement of the Arab refugee problem. In its report to the U.N. last week, the Commission indicated its belief that solution of the refugee problem would have to be found in the economic and social rehabilitation of the entire Middle East rather than in a return of all the refugees to Israeli territory. It also indicated doubts about the internationalization of Jerusalem.
(In London, the liberal New Statesman and Nation urged today that the “quite impracticable” schemes for internationalization of Jerusalem be dropped, declaring he “sensible solution is that Jerusalem become the capital of both Israel and TransJordan, the new city going to the Jews and the Old City to the Arabs.”)
At Lausanne, to which most of the Conciliation Commission staff has already one, the Commission will work on all questions involving establishment of peace in Palestine in separate, simultaneous talks with the Arabs on one side and the Jews on the other. At the outset, at least, there will be no formal meetings which all three groups will attend although it is expected that there will be many informal, direct contacts between Arab and Israeli representatives.
The Commission has left a small staff here in Jerusalem under direction of the deputy principal secretary. The staff is moving to the former Government House. The YMCA, which had been used by the United Nations staff, has been returned to its former management and the King David Hotel, which had been the Commission’s headquarters, will gradually be restored to use as a hotel for the public.
The “no-man’s land” area near the Old City walls, where these buildings are recanted, is gradually being repopulated by their former Jewish residents and many tops there which had been closed during hostilities and the ensuing “cease-fire” are now being reopened.
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