JERUSALEM’S FUTURE

Press, Volume LXXXV, Issue 25797, 7 May 1949, Page 7

JERUSALEM’S FUTURE

Safety of Holy Places ISRAELI VIEWS ON U.N. PROPOSAL (N.Z. Press Association—Copyright) (Rec. 8.30 p.m.) NEW YORK, May 5. Israel to-day refused to consider the complete internationalisation of Jerusalem, and proposed instead a nominal international regime for the city. This regime woul» have no direct powers of government and it would be restricted to the protection of holy places. Mr Aubrey Eban, the Israeli representative, made his country’s new proposal to a committee of the United Nations General Assembly. He argued that since the General Assembly had decided in November. 1947, on the internationalisation of the whole of Jerusalem, conditions had changed considerably, and the General Assembly could not “reverse the.clock of history.” Mr Eban said that Israel would agree to put holy places outside Jerusalem also under international control, and would support the protection of sacred places and freedom of access to them. Israel was prepared to offer full safeguards and guarantees for the security of religious institutions in the exercise of their functions, and would continue its efforts to repair the damage inflicted on religious buildings and sites during tlte Palestine fighting. Israel would continue t(>seek agreements' With the Arabs for the maintenance and preservation of peace, and the reopening of blocked roads into and within Jerusalem.

Mr Eban said that the plight of Arab refugees was entirely attributable to a war launched bv the Arab States themselves. Israel believed that a solution of the refugee problem would be to resettle the refugees in neighbouring areas, where they would live under a Government akin to them in spirit and tradition. Mr Charles Malik (Lebanon) said that the continued dispersion of about 1,000.000 Arab refugees in Israel’s neighbouring Arab States would not fail to cause political, social, economic, and spiritual disturbances in the Near East for years to come. He said that the territory of Israel now exceeded the territory allotted to it by the United Nations, and

there was every indication that the Israeli authorities had no intention of giving up any of it. Mr Malik said that the decision to admit Israel to membership of the United Nations was “the virtual surrender of Jerusalem, the Holy City of thrfee great world religions, to the secular representatives of one such religion, as well as the revocation of the decision of the General Assembly in favour of the fait accompli with which Israel presents the United Nations.”