A report that U.N. Palestine mediator Count Folke Bernadotte is considering a plan to shift Israel’s boundaries and eliminate the Arab state envisaged in the original partition decision of the United Nations was denied here today by Dr. Ralph Bunche, assistant to the mediator.
Addressing a press conference, Bunche said that he had just talked with Bernadotte in Stockholm via the transatlantic telephone and was authorized to make this denial. The report said that the U.N. mediator, in considering a revision of Israel’s boundaries, was aiming at transforming irregular Jewish frontiers into a rough but compact square, facilitating defense. The Palestine territory outside of the Jewish state would then be divided between Transjordan and Egypt, the report alleged.
Addressing the same news conference, U.N. Secretary-General Trygve Lie discounted the possibility that Bernadotte is drawing up a plan for Palestine to be submitted to the General Assembly opening in Paris next month. He indicated that if the cease-fire in Jerusalem evolved into a gross violation of the truce, the Security Council could be mustered to meet this situation despite the adjournment of its session at Late Success, which is scheduled for tomorrow at midnight. He emphasized that the president of the Security Council would stand by at Lake Success, until the end of this month.
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