357.AC/11–1452: Telegram
No. 518
The Ambassador in Israel (Davis) to the Department of State
791. FonMin Sharett stated yesterday with respect to the Pal item on the agenda of the UN ad hoc comite1 that it is the IG objective to secure passage of a resolution calling on the parties to the dispute to enter into direct negots looking toward permanent peace settlelemt. He stated that he hoped for general support for such a resolution and felt that the US cld be very helpful. He recognized there might be good reason why the US might wish to avoid playing too prominent a role in this connection and that it might accordingly be better to seek as sponsors some sympathetic Latin American, Scandinavian or Brit Commonwealth nations.
He continued that Israel wld have been pleased had the item been left off the agenda this year, but since discussion seemed inevitable it wished to make it serve a purpose in the interest of peace. He anticipated, however, that the policy of the Arab countries wld be to make propaganda and create as much confusion as possible. He said he thought it quite possible that the Arabs wld raise the Jerusalem question purely for polit reasons since they feel they can get support from some Catholic countries. He said there was nothing new about Israel’s estab of its govt in Jerusalem and that he [Page 1056] hoped a matter of this kind wld not be permitted to obscure more important ones.
- The question of the Palestine Conciliation Commission was referred by the General Assembly to the Ad Hoc Political Committee, which considered it at its 25th–39th meetings, from Nov. 25 to Dec. 11.↩