Dr. G.J. van Heuven Goedhart, United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees, asserted today that he is quite sure that the Washington Administration will ask for a Congressional appropriation for aid to refugees. “I would be surprised and disappointed if Congress does not make a contribution,” he said.
The High Commissioner, in response to questions by newsmen, declared that he does not think the resolution creates the sort of precedent against which the Arab bloc here had fought. The six members of the Arab League here abstained from voting on that resolution because they feared that the portion allocating full responsibility to countries of asylum after a five-year period might affect the status of Arab refugees from Palestine.
He did say, however, that in one respect the situation of the Arab refugees from Palestine–over which he has no jurisdiction whatever–is similar to the situation of European refugees from the Baltic countries. “If the Arabs want to go back home,” he said, “they may find, like the refugees from the Baltic countries, that their country no longer exists.”
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.
