867N.01/2215: Telegram

The Minister Resident in Saudi Arabia ( Moose ) to the Secretary of State

57. Finance Minister46 called yesterday and read me telegram he had just received from King Ibn Saud about Palestine resolution mentioned Department’s 341, February 19, 5 p.m., to Cairo.47 After citing news items published in London, King’s message continued in translation as follows:

“Meet American Minister in Jidda; notify him of this news; advise him that the news has disturbed us; that it will have an ill-effect in Arab circles; that we think discussion of the subject of Palestine at this moment premature; that it will stir up emotions and produce uncertainty; that we ask him to refer the matter to his Government in view of the friendship and attachment between us because we know of its good aims toward the Arabs and of the good will and assistance which the friendly American Government and its ally the British have shown and of which the recent incident in the Lebanon48 is the greatest proof.”

In reply I explained to Finance Minister sense of Department’s 19 to Baghdad, February 16, 6 p.m.

Sent Department, repeated to Cairo, Jerusalem, Baghdad, Beirut; Beirut repeat to Damascus.

Moose
  1. Abdullah Suleiman.
  2. Not printed.
  3. See correspondence regarding representations by the United States to the French Committee of National Liberation concerning the Franco-Lebanese crisis of November 1943, Foreign Relations, 1943, vol. iv, pp. 996 ff.