Foreign Relations of the United States, 1949, The Near East, South Asia, and Africa, Volume VI

501.BB Palestine/8–2949

The Chargé in Israel (Ford) to the Secretary of State

confidential

Tel Aviv, August 29, 1949.

No. 215

Subject: Israel Attitude toward Economic Survey Commission.

Sir: I have the honor to transmit as enclosures to this despatch copy of a memorandum dated August 15, 1949 from the United Nations Conciliation Commission for Palestine regarding the formation of an Economic Survey Commission to study conditions in the Middle East with a view to facilitating the repatriation and resettlement of Arab refugees, and copy of the Israel delegate’s reply to the memorandum dated August 23, 1949.¹ These communications were handed to the Embassy on August 24, 1949 by a representative of the Israel Foreign Office, and while it is appreciated that copying them [for transmittal?] to the Department may be a duplication of work, I nevertheless feel that the two communications taken together are of sufficient importance for future reference as to warrant them being made the subject of this despatch.

The enclosures are believed to be self-explanatory and to require little if any comment at this stage. Stress, however, should be placed on the nature of the Israel delegate’s reply to Chapter II of the memorandum having to do with territorial settlement. The ironclad determination of the Government of Israel not to surrender any of the territory now physically occupied either by its citizens or by its Army or by both is clearly apparent in this portion of the reply, and it would be misleading and perhaps even dangerous to assume that Israel will give up any appreciable part of the territory which it now considers its own either by right of conquest or otherwise.²

Respectfully yours,

Richard Ford

1. Neither printed.
2. The Israeli reply asserted that all areas allotted to the control and jurisdiction of Israel under the terms of the armistice agreements with its four neighbors were to be formally recognized as Israeli territory. Any changes in the final delimitations of frontiers were to be brought about only after negotiation and agreement with those neighbors. The reply also stated that the Government of Israel would facilitate the task of the economic survey mission and give full consideration to its proposals but that it considered the resettlement of refugees in Arab territories was the primary method of solving the refugee problem, although Israel would contribute by “agreeing to a measure of resettlement in Israel.”