Draft letters to Israeli/Arab delegations re. upcoming discussions on territorial questions – UNCCP 100th meeting (Lausanne) – Summary record


UNITED NATIONS CONCILIATION COMMISSION FOR PALESTINE

SUMMARY RECORD OF THE ONE HUNDREDTH MEETING

held in Lausanne on Thursday,

8 September 1949, at 11 a.m.

 Present:

Mr. de Boisanger

(France)

Chairman

Mr. Yalcin

(Turkey)

*Mr. Rockwell

(U.S.A.)

Dr. Azcárate

Principal Secretary

*Alternate

Consideration of draft letter to the Israeli delegation

In the section “Refugees”, Mr. ROCKWELL objected to the phrase “to sign a declaration”, in paragraph 1, considering it preferable to say “to accept in their general lines the principles sot forth…”. In the second part of paragraph 3 he thought it wiser to speak of the “protection” of the right of minorities, rather than of “international guarantees”. In paragraph 5, the present drafting appeared to give the impression that the Survey Mission was being charged with certain specific detailed questions involved in the refugee problem; he suggested that the last part of the first sentence should be revised to read “in view of the fact that the refugee question in general will be examined by the Economic Survey Mission”.

In the section “Territorial settlement”, in the last sentence of paragraph 2 the CHAIRMAN preferred that it shout not be implied, directly or indirectly, that reservations had been made by the delegations; he proposed the substitution of the following sentence: “Whatever may be the scope of those “adjustments”, they must not, in the opinion of the Commission, alter the essential significance of the undertaking subscribed to.” Ho also favoured the deletion of paragraph 4.

The Commission adopted the text of the draft letter with the above amendments and various minor drafting changes.

Consideration of draft letter to the Arab delegations

The CHAIRMAN thought it unnecessary that identical letters should be sent to all four Arab delegations; on some points he felt the text should vary slightly. A distinction was to be made between the delegation of Syria and Jordan on the one hand, and Egypt and Lebanon on the other, in connection with the question of the resettlement of those refugees who, would not be repatriated.

Mr. ROCKWELL suggested that at the end of the introductory section should be inserted the text of the second paragraph of the introductory section of the letter to the Israeli delegation. In the section “Refugees”, paragraph 4 he asked that the first sentence should be amended in the same terms as paragraph 5 of the Israeli letter.

In the section “Territorial settlement”, the CHAIRMAN suggested revision of the last sentence of the first part of paragraph 2 to use the same terms as agreed upon for the similar sentence in the Israeli letter.

There was considerable discussion concerning paragraph 3, the CHAIRMAN maintaining that the Commission must not give the impression of accepting the principle advanced by the Arabs concerning the cession of territory as compensation. It was finally decided to omit the entire text of paragraph 4 and to amend the second part of paragraph 2 as follows: “After due consideration, the Commission has come to the conclusion that the proposals of the Arab delegations, taken as a whole, exceed to a considerable extent the limits of what may be taken, in the broadest sense, as “adjustments” of the map attached to the Protocol of 12 May, even taking account of the legitimate interests of the refugees”.

Mr. YALCIN suggested that paragraph 4 should also be deleted in its entirety, since it would merely embarrass the Arab delegations to no purpose.

The CHAIRMAN suggested the deletion of the first part of paragraph 6, which was identical with the deleted paragraph 4 of the Israeli letter.

There was some discussion of the remainder of paragraph 6, the Chairman being of the opinion that economic and security considerations must be taken account of, on behalf of the Arab States as well as of Israel, if an eventual agreement was to be achieved.

Its was decided that the Chairman, in collaboration with the Principal Secretary, would redraft paragraphs 6, 7 and 8 and that the revised document would be examined once more by the Commission at a meeting the following afternoon.


2019-03-12T20:04:04-04:00

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