U.N. Continues Palestine Conciliation Body; Adopts Refugee Plan

The United Nations General Assembly yesterday passed resolutions continuing the U.N. Palestine Conciliation Commission and establishing a $250,000,000 relief and re-integration program for the Palestine Arab refugees. Israel voted for both resolutions after a compromise offered by the Canadian delegation had been accepted.

The compromise on the Conciliation Commission involved the dropping of proposals for expanding the membership of the body from three to seven and for instructing the commission to implement earlier resolutions of the General Assembly on the Palestine issue–in effect this would have meant that the Commission would have been ordered to implement the return of the Arab refugees to Israel. In its final form, the resolution of the commission instructed that body to seek agreement with the parties concerned to settle differences in line with the Assembly resolutions.

Acceptance of the relief and re-integration program for the refugees involves the establishment of a fund of $50,000,000 for refugee relief, and a $200,000,000 fund for building up the resources of the Arab states with refugee labor in order that the countries will be able to integrate the refugees within their economies. It is expected that the United States will provide the major portion of the needed funds.

Before the vote was taken on continuation of the conciliation group, Abba S. Eban, chief Israeli delegate at the U.N., told the Assembly that Israel would support the resolution as amended by Canada. He stressed later that Israel could not have voted for the resolution on a paragraph-by-paragraph basis, only on the resolution as a whole. The only opposition to the resolution on the commission came from the Soviet bloc, which abstained on the refugee proposal.