Foreign Relations of the United States, 1961–1963, Volume XVII, Near East, 1961–1962

36. Memorandum From the Assistant Secretary of State for International Organization Affairs (Cleveland) to Acting Secretary of State Bowles⁰

Washington, April 19, 1961.

SUBJECT

• Status of UNRWA (Palestine Refugees) Item at the General Assembly¹

I thought you might wish to have the following summary report on where the Palestine refugee item stands.

On April 18 the Arab draft resolution sponsored by five Moslem countries was approved by the Special Political Committee by a vote of 47 in favor, 19 against, and 20 abstentions. As approved, this draft resolution contained several changes which were included among amendments which we had proposed. However, the resolution still contains two paragraphs, one preambular and one operative, which refer to the “property rights”, as interpreted by the Arabs, of the Palestine refugees. The pertinent operative paragraph reads:

Recommends to the General Assembly that at its sixteenth session primary consideration be given to the future welfare of the refugees themselves including the means of safeguarding their property rights.

The United States voted against the two paragraphs on the property question and against the resolution as a whole because we believe that the introduction of the Arab concept that the Palestine refugees have specific, ongoing title to property left behind would immeasurably complicate the already difficult problem of working towards a solution of this refugee question. Assembly approval of this concept, even in the apparently innocuous phraseology the Arabs are now proposing, would serve to stimulate later Arab demands for the appointment of a UN custodian in Israel to receive past and current incomes from properties once owned by the refugees.

In order that there be a positive alternative for those delegations who did not wish to endorse the Arab property concept, we introduced in Committee our own resolution which noted that the Palestine refugee problem as a whole would be reviewed at the 16th GA and which, on the strong recommendation of our delegation, contained the following operative paragraph:

Believes that in its consideration of this item at the 16th session, careful consideration should be given to the future welfare of the refugees themselves, including the safeguarding of their rights as set forth in Resolution 194, paragraph 11.

Our resolution was defeated by a single vote, 30–31–15. Incident-ally, the Israelis made strong representations to the Department about the use of the term refugee “rights” in connection with the repatriation or compensation principle set forth in Resolution 194, paragraph 11. We took the position that the word “rights” was fully consistent, in terms of GA language, with the position the Assembly has long held on paragraph 11. In any event, with the defeat of our resolution this question is no longer germane, for we do not intend to re-introduce our resolution in plenary.

We have fair reason to hope that in plenary a blocking third will be marshalled against the two undesirable property paragraphs in the Arab resolution. If these paragraphs are deleted, we intend to vote for the resolution; if not, we shall vote against. After the Committee vote, we sent a circular to a number of Embassies, requesting that representations be made to secure support for our position on this property question in plenary.

Arab spokesmen and news media are very worked up about our opposition to their ongoing title property concept. We believe that to accommodate ourselves to Arab extremism on this matter now would seriously compromise our ability to assist the parties in finding an eventual solution, and that therefore we must stand firm on our position.²

0. Source: Department of State, Central Files, 325.84/4–1961. Confidential. Drafted by Palmer and cleared by Meyer.
1. Documentation on the U.S. position on this U.N. General Assembly item is ibid., 325.84.
2. At the U.N. General Assembly’s plenary meeting of April 21, the two paragraphs opposed by the United States failed to receive the necessary two-thirds majority and were not adopted. Members of the General Assembly then adopted the revised draft as Resolution 1604 (XV) by a vote of 37 to 17 with 38 abstentions. The United States voted for the revised resolution. For text, see American Foreign Policy: Current Documents, 1961, pp. 677–678.