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Ben-gurion Discusses Arab Refugee Problem with American Senators

November 24, 1959
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Prime Minister David Ben-Gurion today received two members of the United States Senate who are on a fact-finding mission in the Middle East and outlined to them a constructive program for a solution of the Arab refugee problem.

The two senators, Albert Gore of Tennessee and Gale W. McGee of Wyoming, were told by the Israel Prime Minister that the solution to this problem must be based mainly on resettlement of the refugees, while Israel might agree to accept some of them under a token repatriation scheme. The conversation with the senators was termed later by Mr. Ben-Gurion as “very satisfactory.”

The senators, both of them Democrats, arrived here from Jordan where they studied the Arab refugee problem on the spot. They told Mr. Ben-Gurion that they found that 150,000 United Nations ration cards are being misused in Jordan and that many thousands of cards are being issued to non-existent refugees.

(Both senators were reported from Washington as having sent this week-end a protest to President Eisenhower, Secretary of State Christian A. Herter and the United Nations urging that the Palestine refugee aid program should not be extended unless the rationing system is overhauled first. They said the rationing program is “immoral, dishonest and unfair” and laid most of the blame at the feet of the Jordanian government).

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