501.BB Palestine/1–349: Telegram
The Special Representative of the United States in Israel (McDonatd) to the Secretary of State
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7. Reference Deptel 281.1 Attention President and Acting Secretary. I am transmitting below verbatim text of Foreign Office note received today as formal reply my representations of midnight December 31.
“Sir: 1. I have the honour to acknowledge receipt of the communication from the Government of the US of America which you conveyed to me orally on the afternoon of Friday, 31 December 1948. A copy of this communication, in the form in which it was made, is appended hereto for reference.
2. You have already been informed by the Prime Minister and myself that such Israel forces as entered Egyptian territory did so in hot pursuit of an enemy driven out from a territory he had invaded in the course of a war of aggression. All such forces were recalled without delay and no Israel troops now remain on Egyptian soil. The reports received by the US Government to the effect that Israel forces had ‘invaded’ Egyptian territory, not as an incidental military maneuver, but as an operation deliberately planned, are devoid of all foundation. The Government of Israel never had any intention to stage an invasion of Egypt or to occupy, let alone annex, any part of Egyptian territory.
3. The Government of Israel is not surprised that charges of such utterly unfounded character should be preferred against it by the Government of the UK. It was that government which in the spring of last year encouraged the invasion of Palestine by the armies of Egypt and the Arab states. It has consistently defended this aggression in open defiance of the Charter of the UN and of the law of nations. It has throughout demonstrated and made effective its hostility to the State and Government of Israel.
4. The Government of Israel must nevertheless register its profound resentment at the attitude of the Government of the UK as transmitted without comment by the US Government. In threatening to take action under the terms of the Anglo-Egyptian treaty of 1936, the British Government conjures up a contingency which, as will be evident from a study of the relevant provisions of that treaty, has by no means arisen. The British Government furthermore makes its abstention from a ‘conflict’—which in this context can only mean an armed conflict—with the Government of Israel contingent upon the acceptance by the latter of the decisions of the United Nations [Page 606] Security Council. It is thereby setting itself up, without any warrant whatsoever, as an arbiter and mandatory, not in any actual conflict between itself and the Government of Israel, but in a hypothetical dispute between Israel and the Security Council, and is seeking to justify its arrogation of such authority by invoking a treaty which in the given context is irrelevant. The Government of Israel presumes that your communication is not to be interpreted as identifying the US Government with the attitude adopted by the British Government in this matter.
5. You will recall that on May 15 last the Egyptian Army invaded Palestine with the declared intention of preventing the establishment of the State of Israel or, if prevention were no longer possible, of encompassing its destruction. This invasion, which the Government of the US did not find itself able to halt, was an open act of war, whereby Egypt forfeited all claim to be counted among the peace-loving nations of the world. Yet, this undeniable violation by Egypt of her obligations under the Charter of the United Nations did not deter the Government of the US from sponsoring Egypt’s candidature for membership in the SC, with the result that an aggressor state, which in collusion with other aggressor states has made itself responsible for a most flagrant breach of the international peace, now appears in the role of a custodian of world peace and is able to use that authority and cast its vote in furtherance of its aggressive designs. You will doubt less appreciate my government’s perplexity and sorrow at finding itself—the victim of Egyptian aggression—under suspicion by the US Government of having taken an action which might ‘place in jeopardy the peace of the Middle East’. I should be grateful if you would interpret to the US Government the feelings of the Government of Israel at finding itself, contrary to all rational expectations faced with a situation which appears so fundamentally to distort the true state of affairs prevailing in the Middle East.
6. As I have already had an opportunity of informing you, the report which the US Government has received from its representative in Transjordan is wholly without foundation. Not only has the Government of Israel not told the Government of Transjordan that the time has passed for the negotiation of an armistice’, but it is precisely an armistice which Israel is at present attempting to negotiate with Transjordan, in the hope that an armistice will soon lead to a permanent peace. I note your communication does not cite the Government of Transjordan as the source of this report.
7. I should like in conclusion to assure you, and to request you to convey this assurance to the US Government, that the Government of Israel has today in mind but one aim—peace. It nurtures no ambition to invade the territory of neighbouring states. Yet it feels bound to defend its territory and its people against aggression from whatever quarter that aggression may come and to take all legitimate measures dictated by considerations of self-defence. It will not regard that purpose as accomplished until the invading armies have withdrawn to their proper territories and peace has been established between Israel and her neighbours. It attaches the utmost importance to the retention by Israel of the friendship of the Government and people of the US and trusts that no conflict will arise between its [Page 607] paramount duty of self-defence and its vital interest in the retention of the friendship. It will always be sincerely appreciative of any help that the US Government can lend in restraining aggression and hastening the restoration of peace and hopes that the US Government may find it possible, as in the past, to exercise its good offices in this direction both with the Arab states and with the Government of the UK.
Accept, sir, the renewed expression of my highest consideration.” (Signed: Moshe Shertok, Minister for Foreign Affairs.)
Enclosure referred to in note is copy of the paraphrase of Deptel 281 of December 30 which I read to Shertok and Ben-Gurion as Shertok took it down in shorthand.
[Here follows enclosure.]
For American eyes only: Mission analysis of situation by the above development follows as part Two.2
- Foreign Relations, 1948, vol. v, Part 2, p. 1704.↩
- See telegram 9, January 5, p. 614.↩