867N.01/8–3145: Airgram
The Minister to Syria and Lebanon (Wadsworth) to the Secretary of State
[Received September 26—6 p.m.]
A–126. With reference to the Department’s telegram no. 241 of August 18, 5 p.m.,31 concerning the President’s remarks touching on the Palestine problem made at his press conference of August 16, 1945, it may be of interest to report that, while the local press has limited its coverage to reproduction of foreign agency press reports and while there has been no overt manifestation of public or official reaction, the Legation gathered from several usually reliable local sources that the President’s remarks had in fact given rise to considerable speculation and no little apprehension lest, with the end of hostilities, American policy might under Zionist pressure (which had been much remarked by Lebanese representatives at the San Francisco Conference) be tending towards advocacy of high-level unilateral decision permitting a new wave of Jewish immigration into Palestine.
While in the light of previous experience this absence of press comment and overt manifestation might seem surprising, it could be explained as resulting from close public and official preoccupation with pressing Lebanese affairs of both internal and external nature. The new cabinet had not yet announced its program. Franco-Levant relations were at best unstable and gave cause for serious concern. Any strong Moslem anti-Zionist stand would but further French attempts to accentuate Moslem-Christian disunity. And generally in political circles there was acceptance of the theme reported in my telegram no. 253 of August 11, 5 p.m.,32 that Lebanon could render better service to the Palestine Arab cause if working from within rather than from without the family of the United Nations.
[Page 737]More specific explanation was, however, given me yesterday when making my first call on the new Prime Minister, Sami Bey Solh. Both he and the Minister of Public Health, Dr. Jamil Talhuk (a graduate of the American University in Beirut and a friend of long standing whom I have never known to be other than well-informed in such matters) assured me that it was only because of strong deterrent action on their part that press and political leaders had been dissuaded from launching a new anti-Zionist campaign and using the President’s remarks as a point-de-départ for querying the good faith of war-time-made British and American statements which had seemingly promised that no variation from British White Paper policy would be considered except in full consultation with the Arab Governments as well as with Zionist leadership.
The Prime Minister said specifically that a number of local personalities, including journalists and a committee from the anti-Zionist bloc, had called on him in the matter and that it had been only with some difficulty that he had been able to persuade them that it was not in Lebanon’s interest to agitate the question at the present delicate juncture of the country’s internal and external political relations.
He concluded in substance: “Lebanon cannot admit that it is second to any other Arab state in interest in the Palestine problem or desire to support the cause of the Palestine Arabs. We did not, however, read into your President’s remarks that he proposed to take or urge any immediate action designed to force open the doors of Palestine without first providing for a full airing of the views and interests of all concerned.”
Having in mind the Department’s current instruction that I was not to comment on or endeavor to interpret the President’s remarks, I limited my reply to saying that I had always understood the position of my Government to be that the views of both Arabs and Jews were to be given fullest consideration if and when, independently or in concert with other governments, it might feel itself called upon to take any action to implement its various statements of policy in the matter.