200. Letter From Foreign Minister Meir to Secretary of State Dulles1
Dear Mr. Secretary: I received your personal telephone message through the Embassy on Monday for which I thank you very much.2
I appreciate the sustained interest which you have shown in this problem. The many long hours which you have devoted to studying the questions involved and your dynamic effort to reach practical solutions have been a major factor in the progress that has been made. I think that we were in agreement that decisive weight and importance is to be attached to President Eisenhower’s letter to the Prime Minister of March 2 and to his assurance that he will seek that the expectations and hopes which I expressed on March 1 shall not be in vain. This assurance has been a decisive element in my Government’s action.
Ambassador Eban will work closely with the Department of State to maintain cooperation on the objectives set out in President Eisenhower’s letter of March 2, your memorandum of February 11, and in my address of March 1, which was so fully and carefully considered with you.
We venture to hope that there will be speedy action to give effect to the readiness of the United States to exercise free and innocent passage in the Gulf of Aqaba.
On the question of Gaza, I urge the most serious consideration of the point which Ambassador Eban explained to you last Thursday3 night, and again on Saturday and Sunday. If the United Nations does not maintain full military and administrative control, the situation could speedily get out of hand. It is a compelling element of my Government’s policy to ensure that Gaza, for the transitory period described in my statement, continue under the exclusive control of the United Nations.
The abandonment to Egypt by the United Nations of any part of its responsibility for the civil and military administration of the Gaza area would create, in the view of my Government, a situation which [Page 378] would compel it to defend its rights as envisaged in my statement at the General Assembly on March 1, 1957. This is a situation which I fervently hope will not arise.
It is our view that Egypt, which proclaims and practices a “state of war” forbidden by the 1949 Armistice Agreement cannot legally claim a return to Gaza on the grounds of that agreement. But irrespective of any views on the legal position, we agreed that an arrangement for a “de facto exclusion of Egypt” would meet the very vital security problems of the area, and it was this that my Government had in mind when it took its decision.
I do not doubt, Mr. Secretary, that you will understand our anxieties and determination on this point in the light of the tribulations to which my people were exposed for so many years during the Egyptian occupation of the Gaza area.
I hope that there can now be a quietening down period during which we can turn to constructive tasks. Ambassador Eban will be in touch with the Department on many aspects of direct United States-Israel cooperation which have been in abeyance since the end of October, through our preoccupation with other matters.
May I wish you success in your present mission and in your tireless efforts for world peace.4
Yours sincerely,
- Source: Department of State, Central Files, 674.84A/3–657. Personal. Typed on the stationery of the Israeli Delegation to the United Nations. Delivered to the Department of State by Eban on March 9; see telegram 860, Document 208.↩
- Reference is presumably to a telephone conversation which Dulles had with Shiloah at 6:10 p.m. on March 4. According to the memorandum of conversation by Bernau, Dulles told Shiloah, among other points, that he was very gratified about the Israeli withdrawal and that the United States had sought to do what was right. (Eisenhower Library, Dulles Papers, General Telephone Conversations)↩
- February 28.↩
- In a letter to Meir on March 14, Acting Secretary Herter acknowledged receipt of Meir’s letter, stated appreciation for her expressions of gratitude to the Secretary, and restated briefly U.S. positions on Aqaba and Gaza. Herter reminded Meir that, while the United States foresaw no obstacles to the passage through the Gulf of Aqaba by ships of U.S. registry proceeding on commercial voyages to ports in the Gulf of Aqaba, it differed with the Israeli Government on the subject of Gaza, as the United States did not feel that “the mere presence of Egyptian personnel in territory which under the Armistice Agreement Egypt is entitled to occupy would give Israel the right to act”. According to Herter, the United States maintained that “arrangements for the administration of Gaza must be within the legal framework brought about by the Armistice Agreement,” although it was the American desire “that the United Nations remain in Gaza pending an agreement on the future of that area or a permanent settlement.” (Department of State, Central Files, 674.84A/3–657)↩