867N.01/12–1346
Memorandum by the Acting Secretary of State6
Memorandum of Conversation Between the President and Amir Faisal, Foreign Minister of Saudi Arabia, December 13, 1946
There were present at the interview with the President the Acting Secretary of State, Mr. Acheson; His Royal Highness Amir Faisal, Minister of Foreign Affairs of Saudi Arabia; Sheikh Asad Al-Faqih, Minister of Saudi Arabia; and Sheikh Ali Alireza.
After exchange of courtesies between the President and Amir Faisal, the latter said that there were one or two matters which he had been directed by His Majesty King Ibn Saud to bring to the attention of the President. He stated that it was well knowm in Saudi Arabia and throughout the Arab world that the President’s feelings toward his country and the other Arab countries were of deep friendship, a desire to assist them with their problems, and that the President was actuated by principles of justice and fairness. He wished to appeal to these feelings of the President in a situation which was causing His Majesty deep concern.
He stated that the desire of the Zionists to bring large numbers of Jews to Palestine in order to take away from the Arabs lands upon which they had lived for many centuries could not be defended as being in accordance with fairness or justice. The President stated that it was not his purpose in any sense to advocate taking from any person or people what belonged to them or to deal in any way unfairly or unjustly. He was concerned in urging a settlement of the situation in Palestine which would be just to all concerned and would make for peace in the Near East. The President added that in his correspondence with King Ibn Saud he had endeavored to make this position clear. The Amir would understand that the President had not yet had [Page 730] an opportunity to reply to the last communication from the King on account of the great pressure of critical domestic and international matters which had pressed upon him.
The Amir continued that the proposals of the Zionists did not make for peace in the Near East. He said that he wished to bring two matters to the attention of the President.
First. A great deal of false and misleading propaganda had been put forth by the Zionists, which had misled many people in the United States. The President stated that he was not moved or influenced by propaganda. He thought that the plight of hundreds of thousands of displaced persons in Europe, the great majority of which were being cared for by the United States, must appeal to all men of good will. They could not continue indefinitely in their present situation. All must join in the effort to alleviate their situation. The President was taking steps with the Congress to receive a considerable number of these people in the United States. Plans were being made for others to go to South America. The President had spoken with General Smuts,7 who was willing to cooperate by receiving others in South Africa. Some of these people, the President added, desired to go to and he thought could well be received in Palestine.
The Amir said that many of the people coming to Palestine were bad people, as was shown by the acts of terrorism which were occurring in Palestine. The President replied to this that no one was more opposed to acts of terrorism, violence, and lawlessness than he. But he could not believe that the pitiful remains of the Jews were such people as had been described by the Amir. There were in all groups of people some who were bad. He was not speaking for these, but for the oppressed who had suffered so cruelly before and during the war and who were now seeking homes.
The Amir said that this brought him to his second point, which was that the central difficulty in the Palestine matter was the desire of the Zionists to establish a Jewish state in either a whole or a part of Palestine. The Arabs were prepared to live peacefully with and cooperate with Jews who were in the Near East. They were not prepared to accept the establishment of political Jewish communities or states. In particular any proposal of continuing immigration until the present Arab majority in Palestine was turned into a minority they believed to be unjust and to be disturbing to the peace.
The Amir continued that the Arabs had made a proposal to the effect that Palestine as a whole should now be given its independence and that the country so constituted should decide its own wishes as to immigration; that, until it was so established and could make that decision, immigration should cease.
[Page 731]The President expressed his pleasure at the Amir’s statement that Jews and Arabs could live peacefully together. He stated that the very purpose of the meeting in London was to consider various proposals which had been or might be put forward to this end. He did not wish to go into them at this time. At the London meeting the proposals of the British Government, the proposals of the Arab states, and the proposals of the Jewish Agency could be considered. He believed, and had said many times, that the matter could be solved by men who had good will and desire to solve it. He stressed again the plight of the displaced persons and the necessity of all peoples receding from rigid positions in order to aid in finding a solution.
The Amir, in taking his departure, urged the President to give this matter his deepest consideration, because the Amir regarded it as a matter of the most profound consequence to the Arab peoples.