501.BB Palestine/2–149: Telegram
The Chargé in the United Kingdom (Holmes) to the Secretary of State
us urgent
379. 1. Burrows today gave Embassy considered Foreign Office reply Department’s 321, January 281 (Embassy’s 351, January 29).2 He said British views based on two important considerations.
2. First consideration is that Rhodes talks are being conducted in extreme privacy. Bunche made this clear in January 25 telegram to SYG (Doc No. S/1225) which mentioned formal agreement between Arabs and Jews that information re progress talks should not be made available in advance of their conclusion to anyone—not even SC. As result Burrows said it is impossible for anyone to have formal official notification of what is going on. PGI has approached USG in sense Depreftel, and Egyptians a few days earlier approached British Government re Israeli intransigence on Falluja garrison withdrawal but in Foreign Office view there is no official basis upon which advice can be given to either party.
3. Burrows said parenthetically that now UK has recognized Israel, latter is at liberty to put directly to it any points and that UK would be glad to consider such points. Israel has made no such approach.
4. Second consideration according Burrows is that intervention in favor Israeli’s ideas re Auja by a government would be in pursuit settlement on very different lines to that laid down by SC on November 4 and December 29. Consequently UK feels that any such action should be regarded with utmost caution because of possibility of it being taken as precedent in other cases such as Indonesia.
5. Burrows said UK has no objection to any agreement reached between parties which would help maintain cease-fire and lead to armistice and final settlement but that Foreign Office considers material difference arises if some outside power (not party to negotiation) should intervene to press one or other side to accept something quite different from SC views.
6. Burrows pointed out that UK has repeatedly told all Arab Governments (most recently on January 18) that their best course would [Page 715] be to conclude armistice with Israel followed by final settlement. However, Foreign Office for reasons given above does not find it possible to intervene with Egypt in favor of any particular concession re Auja as outlined by Epstein.
7. In conclusion Burrows said Foreign Office would like to make one positive suggestion: One main difficulty Rhodes is Egyptian fear of making agreement which would leave Egypt open to further Israel aggression. Consequently Foreign Office believes that anything USG can do towards removing this Egyptian fear would be most valuable contribution.
8. When Embassy pointed out Department’s 321 referred only to particular effort Cairo by UK to persuade Egyptians to reach com promise, Burrows said that in context outlined by Department this could only mean compromise re Auja and that UK for reasons given above is not prepared to advocate this compromise.