Last-minute efforts were made here today by the Israel delegation to influence the final vote on Jerusalem when the resolution to place the Jerusalem area under international trusteeship comes up for voting in the plenary session of the U.N. General Assembly, probably on Saturday.
Israel Foreign Minister Moshe Sharett told the Jewish Telegraphic Agency today that the “United Nations is facing the greatest crisis in its history in regard to the workability of its decisions.” An Israel spokesman, commenting on the resolution adopted yesterday by the Special Political Committee providing for the internationalization of Jerusalem, said:
“Proud of its membership in the United Nations and hopeful that the international organization’s authority and effectiveness will grow, Israel appeals to international statesmanship to abandon a paper proposal plunging the United Nations into a sterile conflict with the peoples whose rights and aspirations it denies and which is foredoomed to futility.”
The spokesman’s statement reiterated the Israel Government’s offer, which he called unprecedented in history, to enter into an agreement with the United Nations for “effective international supervision of the Holy Places in Jerusalem.”
Most delegates were convinced that the major burden for preventing a two-thirds majority vote at the Assembly for the Jerusalem resolution adopted by the Political Committee lay with the American delegation, whose influence, it was thought, could possibly switch the necessary number of votes. It was impossible to tall, however, how active the U.S. delegation would be in this respect.
Without debate or a dissenting vote, the plenary session today approved a resolution setting up a $54,900,000 program for Arab refugee work relief to run until June, 1951. The Assembly then adjourned until tomorrow, reportedly delayed by the financial consideration involved in the Jerusalem issue.
U.N. COMMITTEE APPROVES $8,150,000 BUDGET FOR INTERNATIONALIZED JERUSALEM
It will cost the United Nations at least $18,000,000 annually to run the city of Jerusalem, Israel representative Gideon Raphael told the Budgetary Committee of the U.N. today. An advisory committee of the Budgetary Committee, however, estimated the immediate cost at about $4,000,000,a figure that was supported by Arab and Soviet delegates who led the fight for passage of the internationalization plan of Jerusalem.
The advisory group admitted in its report that its estimate of an $8,000,000 budget, with only half of that necessary immediately, was based on three assumptions: that there would be full cooperation on the part of the population of Jerusalem in implementing the internationalization plan; that there would be no abnormal security requirements; and that municipal expenditures could be reasonably based or 1946 figures. These assumptions were questioned by the U.S., British and Israel delegates.
Late in the evening the budgetary committee approved a budget of $8,150,000 to cover the 1950 expenditures of an internationalized Jerusalem. The vote was 25 in favor of the budget, four against, 15 abstentions and 15 absent. To the surprise of all delegates, the U.S. cast its ballot for adoption of the budget. Only Israel, Guatemala, Yugoslavia and Uruguay voted in the negative.
The Archive of the Jewish Telegraphic Agency includes articles published from 1923 to 2008. Archive stories reflect the journalistic standards and practices of the time they were published.
