McGhee Files: Lot 53 D 468
Memorandum of Conversation, by the Assistant Secretary of State for Near Eastern, South Asian, and African Affairs (McGhee)1
Subject: Syrian-Israeli situation.
| Participants: | Abba Eban, Ambassador of Israel |
| NEA—Mr. McGhee | |
| NE—Mr. Kopper | |
| NE—Mr. Stabler |
Mr. Eban called on me at his request. He said that Mr. Sharett had asked him to take up with the Department the question of jurisdiction in the demilitarized zone. The US delegation to the UN had also suggested that he discuss this question with the Department as it was the delegation’s feeling that the Department might not be familiar with some of the points he was going to mention. Mr. Eban said it was unfortunate that this question had come to the SC, since the matter should have been dealt with by the Mixed Armistice Commission. He felt that Israel was the aggrieved party in this question, since the Syrians had invaded Israeli territory and had killed seven Israeli policemen. His government considered that the November 17 resolution of the SC was an injunction to the parties not to bring matters before the SC when they could be resolved in the Mixed Armistice Commission. However, the question was now before the SC. While his government had had no intention of raising the juridical position of the demilitarized zone, since it felt that Israel clearly had jurisdiction over the area, it now appeared that this matter was an issue. General Riley had raised the question by stating that in his opinion the laws and legislation of Israel were in abeyance. Originally, he had said that the laws were null and void, but had subsequently changed his mind. His government had admiration for General Riley, but they did not believe he was an expert on Palestine or Israel law. In the view of the Israel government the concession given to the Palestine Land Development Company was still entirely valid and Israel did not believe that either Riley or the Chairman of the Mixed Armistice Commission had any right to assume they could cancel the validity of this concession. His government believed that this action was not in keeping either with the Armistice Agreement or with practice for the last two years. Israel considered that the only difference between the demilitarized zone and the rest of Israel territory was that troops could not be stationed in the former; otherwise, the demilitarized zone was exactly the same as other Israel territory, and Israel law was valid and applicable there. Israel considered that the basic concept of the Armistice [Page 639] Agreement was that there was a contractual arrangement between the two parties and the UN and that the Chairman had no superior rights to the other parties. Israel would like to see the UN and observers abide by the Armistice Agreement and only assume those powers expressly given them by that Agreement. Israel took strong exception to the unilateral action by the Chairman.
Mr. Eban also reviewed certain alleged facts concerning the situation.
I thanked Mr. Eban for these views, but said that the matter was now to be considered by the SC and it was for that body to decide the issues. We considered, however, that Israel had taken unilateral action in this situation and had not recognized the fact that the UN Chairman had requested the Israelis to cease engineering operations and that the Syrians had protested these operations. Since the question was being disputed by the two nations, it would appear that the UN had a supra-national authority and consequently it was not justifiable for Israel to take unilateral action. While we deplored the shooting of the Israeli policemen, we did not think that the Israeli retaliatory action could be justified under any circumstances. I said I was sure that Mr. Eban would understand that these incidents have a cause and effect relationship. With respect to the facts in the case, I wished to point out that the Department also possessed a considerable amount of information from neutral and reliable sources which I could say in all frankness did not bear out much of the information which the Israelis presented. Unfortunately, Israel had not seen fit to permit our Service Attaches to proceed into the area, so our information from the Israeli side did not come from American official observers. However, I emphasized that the US did not prejudge the issue and that we would await determination of the facts as the SC consideration of this case developed.
- Memorandum drafted by Mr. Stabler.↩