Futile Diplomacy, Volume 3: The United Nations, the Great Powers and Middle East Peacemaking, 1948-1954

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FUTILE DIPLOMACY

Neil Caplan

ISBN 978-1-138-90524-5

FUTILE DIPLOMACY The United Nations, the Great Powers, and Middle East Peacemaking 1948–1954 Neil Caplan

FUTILE DIPLOMACY

Volume 3

THE UNITED NATIONS, THE GREAT POWERS, AND MIDDLE EAST PEACEMAKING 1948–1954

Page Intentionally Left Blank

FUTILE DIPLOMACY Volume Three

The United Nations, the Great Powers, and Middle East Peacemaking 1948–1954

NEIL CAPLAN

First published in 1997 by FRANK CASS & CO. LTD This edition first published in 2015 by Routledge 2 Park Square, Milton Park, Abingdon, Oxon, OX14 4RN and by Routledge 711 Third Avenue, New York, NY 10017 Routledge is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group, an informa business © 1997 Neil Caplan All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or reproduced or utilised in any form or by any electronic, mechanical, or other means, now known or hereafter invented, including photocopying and recording, or in any information storage or retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publishers. Trademark notice: Product or corporate names may be trademarks or registered trademarks, and are used only for identification and explanation without intent to infringe. British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library ISBN: 978-1-138-90521-4 (Set) eISBN: 978-1-315-69594-5 (Set) ISBN: 978-1-138-90524-5 (Volume 3) eISBN: 978-1-315-69509-9 (Volume 3) Publisher’s Note The publisher has gone to great lengths to ensure the quality of this reprint but points out that some imperfections in the original copies may be apparent. Disclaimer The publisher has made every effort to trace copyright holders and would welcome correspondence from those they have been unable to trace.

FUTILE DIPLOMACY VOLUME THREE

THE UNITED NATIONS, THE GREAT POWERS, A ND MIDDLE EAST PEACEMAKING 1948-1954

NEIL CAPLAN

FRANK CASS

First published in 1997 by FRANK CASS & CO. LTD Published 2013 by Routledge 2 Park Square, Milton Park, Abingdon, Oxon OX14 4RN 711 Third Avenue, New York, NY, 10017, USA Routledge is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group, an informa business

Copyright© 1997 Neil Caplan British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data Caplan, Neil, 1945Futile diplomacy Vol. 3: The United Nations, the great powers, and 1\liddle East peacemaking, 1948-1954 I. Jewish-Arab relations- 1949-1967 2. Israel-Arab conflicts 3. Diplomatic negotiations in international disputes I. Title 327 .5'694'0 174927

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Caplan, Neil, 1945The United Nations, the great powers, and 1\liddle East peacemaking, 1948-1954 I Neil Caplan p. em.- (Futile diplomacy ; v. 3) Includes bibliographical references (p. ) and index. I. Jewish-Arab relations-1949-1967. 2. Jewish-Arab relations-1949-1967-Sources. 3. United Nations-Palestine. 4. World politics- 1945- 1955. I. Title. II. Series: Caplan, Neil, 1945- Futile diplomacy; v. 3. DSII9.7.C319 1986 vol. 3 956.04'2-dc21 96-39814

ISBN 13: 978-0-714-64756-2 (hbk)

All rights reserud. No part ofthis publication may be reproduced in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without the prior permission of the publisher.

Contents Documents

IX

List of Illustrations

X

Abbreviations

Xl

Acknowledgements

Xlll

Introduction: Approaching the Subject

XV

Scope and Sources: Making Choices Working with the Documents Objectivity and Subjectivity 0

0

I Historical and Psychological Context

1

Lessons from the Mandate Period ° Changing Structure and Dynamics of the Post-1948 Conflict ° Forms ofThird-Party Intervention in the Arab-Israeli Dispute The Maze of Mutual Perceptions and Misperceptions 0

17

II War and Mediation, 1948 Bernadotte's 'Suggestions', 27 June 1948 Direct Negotiations The Bernadotte Plan, September 1948: Acquiescence versus Agreement Patterns and Precedents °

0

0

34

III Egypt and Israel at Rhodes United Nations Peacemaking: Two Tracks ° From Truce to Armistice Getting to the Table Opening of Talks Breakthrough: Signing the Armistice Agreement From Armistice to Peace? 0

0

IV The Lausanne Conference: Prenegotiation The Palestine Conciliation Commission Preparing the Ground Shuttle Diplomacy Quest for an Advance Gesture from Israel PCC Beirut Conference, March 1949 Continuing Pressure for an Israeli Gesture The Shadow of Rhodes Strains in the Arab Common Front °

0

0

0

0

0

57

FUTILE DIPLO.\IACY

Vl

v

76

Manoeuvring at Lausanne Opening the Conference · A Basis for Discussion: The Lausanne Protocol, 12 May 1949 ·Staking Out the Positions: The First Deadlock · Israel's Offer to Incorporate the Gaza Strip

101

VI Lausanne: The Final Stalemate July Recess· Resumption of the Conference· Israel's Offer to Repatriate 100,000 Refugees · Continued Conciliation or Imposed Settlement? · Winding up the Conference · Lausanne Postscripts

127

VII Geneva Interlude Years of Drift· From Conciliation to Mediation?· Bilateral Negotiations· PCC Geneva Meetings, January-July 1950

145

VIII Deterioration of the Armistice From Negative Peace to Positive Peace?· Beginnings of the Arms Race · Regional Stability and Arms Control: The Tripartite Declaration, May 1950 ·The Entrenchment of Israeli and Arab Positions · Piecemeal Approaches: 'Knitting Tissue' over the Wound IX PCC Paris Conference, Autumn

1951

162

From Atrophy to Activity: Ely Palmer, the State Department, and the PCC Initiative · Preparing the Conference · The Conference Begins · The PCC's Comprehensive Pattern of Proposals X The Paris Conference and the Demise of PCC Mediation

185

Draft Non-aggression Formulae · From Preamble to Proposals Paris Deadlock and the General Assembly · The Final Sessions: 14 November 1951 ·The Demise of the PCC and United Nations Mediation XI The United Nations and Direct Negotiations,

1952-1953

The Seventh General Assembly (1952): Eight-Power Draft Resolution· Changes during 1953: Q!bya and Israeli-Jordanian Tensions · The Israeli Call for Direct Negotiations: November 1953

212

CONTENTS

XII The United Nations Conference that Never Was,

1953-54

vu

230

Invoking Article XII: The First Stages · Arab Reactions to International Pressure · Responses to Jordan's Refusal Aftermath · An Assessment

Conclusion

257

Assessment of the Arab-Israeli Impasse · Approaches to Conflict Resolution · American Leverage on the Parties Techniques of Conciliation · The Attitudes and Positions of the Parties · From War to War

Documents

279

Notes

301

Bibliography

367

Index

384

Page Intentionally Left Blank

Documents

beginning on page 279

1. 2. 3. 4. 5.

Bernadotte Suggestions, 27 June 1948 Bernadotte Proposals, 16 September 1948 Jessup Statement, 20 November 1948 UNGA Resolution 194, 11 December 1948 Egyptian-Israeli General Armistice Agreement, 24 February 1949 6. Lausanne Protocol, 12 May 1949 7. Suggested Basis for a New Approach by the Conciliation Commission to the Parties on their Resumption of Work on 18 July [1949] 8. PCC Summary of Achievements and Questionnaire Soliciting More Specific Details on the Positions of Parties Regarding Refugees and a Territorial Settlement, 15 August 1949 9. PCC Draft Declaration Embodying Apparent Consensus Reached Regarding an Approach to Resolving the Refugee Question, 5 September 1949 10. Tripartite Declaration, 25 May 1950 11. PCC Comprehensive Proposals, 17 September 19 51 12. Draft Non-aggression Pact (Israel), 28 September 1951 13. Draft Non-belligerency Statement (Arab), 3 October 1951

Illustrations Front page of The Palestine Post, 25 February 1949

51

Map: 'Central Israel and the West Bank, 1949-1967' from Jonathan Shimshoni, Israel and Conventional Deterrence: Border Warfare from 1953 to 1970, Ithaca I London: Cornell University Press, 1988

223

Clipping from Filastin, 26 March 1954

246

Abbreviations airg AL

airgram Arab League(= League of Arab States)

British Middle East Office BMEO BrComDiv British Commonwealth Division, Israel Ministry of Foreign Affairs CZA

CIA

Central Intelligence Agency Central Zionist Archives, Jerusalem

Del desp DMZ DSB

Delegation despatch Demilitarized Zone United States, Department of State Bulletin

EIGAA EIMAC Emb EnDept ESM

Egypt-Israel General Armistice Agreement Egypt-Israel Mixed Armistice Commission Embassy Eastern Department, (British) Foreign Office Economic Survey Mission ( 1949)

FDJ FO FRUS

Futile Diplomacy (Vol. I- etc.) Foreign Office, London Foreign Relations ofthe United States

GAA

General Armistice Agreement ( 1949)

HMG

His (Her) Majesty's Government, United Kingdom

ID IDF

IJGAA IJMAC IMFA ISA

Documents on the Foreign Policy ofIsrael Israel Defence Forces Israel-Jordan General Armistice Agreement Israel-Jordan Mixed Armistice Commission Israel Ministry of Foreign Affairs Israel State Archives, Jerusalem

JTA

Jewish Telegraphic Agency

LCA Leg Lev Dept

Local Commanders' Agreement Legation Levant Department, (British) Foreign Office

xu MAC MEC MFA Mis NATO NEA NIE NSC

FUTILE DIPLOMACY

Mixed Armistice Commission Private Papers Collection, Middle East Centre, St Antony's College, Oxford, England Ministry of Foreign Affairs; Minister for Foreign Affairs Mission North Atlantic Treaty Organization Bureau of Near Eastern, South Asian and African Affairs (US Department of State) National Intelligence Estimate National Security Council

PGI PMO

Palestine Conciliation Commission(= United Nations Conciliation Commission for Palestine) Provisional Government oflsrael (May 1948 -January 1949) Prime Minister's Office

PRO PSC

Public Record Office, Kew, England Provisional State Council(= Cabinet of the PGI)

PCC

PPSG

RCC ResDiv

Public Papers ofthe Secretary-General ofthe United Nations Revolutionary Command Council, Egypt Research Division, Israel Ministry of Foreign Affairs

SNIE

Special National Intelligence Estimate

tgm

telegram

UN UNA UNGA UNRWA UNSC UNTSO USDiv USNA USSD

United Nations United Nations Archives, New York United Nations General Assembly United Nations Relief and Works Agency United Nations Security Council United Nations Truce Supervisory Organization US Division, Israel Ministry of Foreign Affairs National Archives, Washington DC United States, Department of State

WEurDiv Western Europe Division, Israel Ministry of Foreign Affairs WNRC Washington National Records Center, Suitland MD

Acknowledgements The field-work and research for this study were begun before the surprising breakthroughs in Arab-Israeli and Palestinian-Israeli relations that occurred in Madrid, Washington and Oslo between late 1991 and late 1993. The ups and downs of the subsequent peace process have provided new relevance for today's readers seeking a comprehensive and non-partisan understanding of the futile diplomatic activity of earlier periods. This study would not have been possible without the financial assistance of the Government of Q!lebec's FCAR Programme, the Canadian Institute for International Peace and Security (Ottawa), and the Memorial Foundation for Jewish Culture (New York). Research was conducted in England as a Visiting Scholar of the Oxford Centre for Postgraduate Hebrew Studies, which provided me its idyllic base of operations at Yarn ton Manor. Much of the work in Israel was done as a Fellow of the Moshe Dayan Center for Middle Eastern and African Studies of Tel Aviv University, to which I am deeply indebted not only for financial support but also for warm hospitality and unparalleled opportunities for research and discussion with colleagues. My personal thanks go to Professor Asher Susser and Ms Amira Margalit of the Dayan Center; their friendship and encouragement have made my affiliation with the Center a richly rewarding and stimulating experience. After spending so many months ordering and poring over vast quantities of files, newspapers, periodicals, clippings and books in various archives and libraries, I have accumulated a heavy debt of gratitude to the staffs and directors of a number of institutions. I thank them (alphabetically) for their helpfulness in dealing with my many requests: Ben-Gurion Archive, Sede Boqer; Central Zionist Archives, Jerusalem; Dayan Center Documentation Center, Library and Press Archives, Tel Aviv University; Institute for Palestine

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Studies, Washington; Israel State Archives, Jerusalem; Kresse! Collection and Library, Yarnton, Oxford; Public Record Office, Kew, England; St Antony's College, Middle East Centre Library, Oxford; United Nations Archives, New York; United States National Archives, Washington DC; and Washington National Records Center, Suitland MD. Among the fine people upon whom I have imposed in search of their valued advice and/ or services, I wish to thank (also alphabetically): Laura Eisenberg, Yehoshua Freundlich, Mordechai Gazit, Marvin Hershorn, Philip Mattar, Moshe Mossek, Itamar Rabinovich, Gideon Rafael, Yemima Rosenthal, Avraham Sela, Avi Shlaim and Shabtai Teveth. I was also very fortunate to have benefitted from assistance by Kamal Abdel-Malek, Dina Cohen and Fawaz Gerges in handling Arabic materials. Bryna Bogoch and Ben Caplan did excellent work in the assembling of research materials. Neil Caplan Humanities Department Vanier College, Montreal, Quebec, Canada January 1997

INTRODUCTION

Approaching the Subject SCOPE AND SOURCES: MAKING CHOICES

The present study focuses on five major efforts by the United Nations, the United States and Great Britain aimed at bringing about Arab-Israeli negotiations between 1948 and 1954: • the unsuccessful attempts ofUN mediator Count Folke Bernadotte to move the warring parties from truce to armistice negotiations and a political settlement; • the Egyptian-Israeli armistice negotiations at Rhodes in early 1949, which produced the first of four similar General Armistice Agreements (GAAs); • a 'peace conference' in Lausanne, Switzerland, under the auspices of the United Nations Conciliation Commission for Palestine (or Palestine Conciliation Commission, PCC) (April to September 1949); • a second PCC conference, held in Paris (September to November 1951); and • the unsuccessful attempts by the UN to promote direct negotiations (late 1952), and particularly the efforts by its Secretary-General to convene a conference between Israel and Jordan (November 1953 to April1954). Only the second of these five efforts resulted in the parties being brought to the same negotiating table and signing an agreement and even this was merely an armistice and not a peace accord. In the first episode Count Bernadotte followed a pattern of 'shuttle diplomacy' but never progressed beyond this stage. The Lausanne

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and Paris conferences led to parallel Arab and Israeli discussions with the PCC, but not to direct Arab-Israeli talks around the same table. No agreements were reached or signed. The final selected case-study did not even succeed in bringing the parties to meet, either directly or under UN auspices. Despite the absence of successful outcomes, there is much to be learned from these five negotiation attempts. This learning can be of two kinds: practical and academic. Since there is a high degree of continuity in the basic positions of the protagonists and in the kinds of opportunities that arise for contacts and diplomacy, practitioners of current and future negotiations may benefit from knowing how parties have acted and reacted under given circumstances in the past. Of course, Arab-Israeli (or any other) diplomacy is nothing like an exact science, and no one has been able to point to lessons from the past that can guarantee future success. I There are too many uncontrolled variables that must be taken into account, such as the changing internal political situation within the Israeli and Arab camps, the perceived balance of military advantage, and the interests of world powers. Circumstances never reproduce themselves identically; nor can parties be brought into negotiations under controlled laboratory conditions. Still, some historians have rightly criticized political leaders and would-be mediators for not taking the time or care to equip themselves with an adequate background understanding of the good and bad experiences of their predecessors' attempts at resolving this long-festering dispute.2 Those who have not already discovered it elsewhere will be struck by the repetitiveness of certain situations and patterns of behaviour that are revealed in the archive materials. The second type oftearning that can be gained from a careful study of failed attempts at negotiation is a more accurate understanding of the true dynamics of the Arab-Israeli conflict. By examining the behind-the-scenes calculations and motives of the parties as they face the prospect of negotiating with their adversaries, one becomes better able to distinguish between their highly-developed advocacy, propaganda and posturing, on the one hand, and their equally skilful tactical manoeuvring in pursuit of specific political goals, on the other. The historical study of these negotiation episodes may enable the reader to assess properly the complex mixture of emotional and rational components in each party's stance. The original scope of the current research had been wider, and

INTRODUCTION

xvu

was spread over a longer period, than the book which has resulted. Initially, it had been my hope to reconstruct a broad history of ArabIsraeli negotiation attempts between 1948 and 1973, based on previously-untapped primary source materials, following the framework and format of the first volumes of Futile Diplomacy.3 After a few months of research using British, American and Israeli archives, I realized that, ifl were to exploit the unexpectedly voluminous and intimate primary material as fully as possible, I would need to compress my proposed time frame. I have chosen to end this study in mid19 54, on the eve of a major Anglo-American co-ordinated exercise in conflict-resolution: an operation code-named 'Alpha' during which highly secret attempts were made to achieve a settlement between Gamal Abd al-Nasir of Egypt and Moshe Sharett (formerly Shertok) and David Ben-Gurion of Israel. The story of Operation Alpha is given extensive treatment in a separate volume.4 In what felt like a natural evolution, the focus of the study was also narrowed. Gradually it became clear to me that, even within the six-year time frame, the volume and richness of the documentation made it unrealistic to attempt to integrate all the recorded ArabIsraeli negotiation episodes into a single study. This decision was dictated by a combination of factors: a concern for coherence, a desire to do justice to the archival materials, practical considerations of time available, and the desire to zero in on one facet that has not yet been extensively covered in the literature, namely international efforts at 'getting to the table'. This has meant leaving to one side the realm of secret, direct (but equally futile) Arab-Israeli diplomacy. Post-1948 bilateral ArabIsraeli negotiation attempts have, in recent years, been the object of a growing and impressive list of serious studies. For example, the intricate relations and negotiations between Israel and Jordan (194851) have been exhaustively analysed in the publications of Avraham Sela, Avi Shlaim, Uri Bar-Joseph, and others.s Recent works by Shimon Shamir, Michael Oren, ltamar Rabinovich and others provide detailed examinations of Israeli-Egyptian relations and negotiations. New research by Aryeh Shalev has shed important light on early lsraeli-Syrian relations.6 The present study complements the foregoing authors' treatments by highlighting the efforts of the United Nations and the main powers of the day, Britain and the United States. Some readers may wish to place the present work in the international relations

XVlll

FUTILE DIPLOi\lACY

framework of'patron-client' relationships. The general picture that emerges is not of all-powerful patrons capable of manipulating the behaviour of weak regional clients to suit their ends, but rather of would-be great powers undergoing the frustrating experience of learning the limitations of their influence over Arabs and Israelis alike.7 Historians may be struck by the extent to which Arab-Israeli relations preoccupied the British Foreign Office (FO) and US State Department (SO) during the relatively quiet and uneventful years after 1949. In addition to the detailed reports from the field and the corresponding instructions sent back to Middle East postings, various aspects of relations between Israel and the neighbouring Arab states were the subject of highly detailed and often sophisticated background papers, minutes and political discussions. These internal analyses reflected a variety of interpretations and leanings among the bureaucrats themselves, with no constant and clear-cut 'British' or 'American' position on the 'rights' and 'wrongs' of the conflict, on what should be done, or on what could be done to resolve it. One tendency that did seem clear was for both powers to operate behind the scenes, leaving the United Nations to assume formal responsibility for finding a solution to 'the Palestine question'. 8 Even after shortening the time frame and narrowing my original focus to international efforts between 1948 and 19 54, a number ofother choices had to be to made. The areas to be covered in the present volume deliberately relegate to the background a number of interrelated international issues that must nevertheless be taken into consideration if one aspires to a proper and comprehensive understanding of the total Arab-Israeli dispute. Each of these areas deserves careful study on its own:

• United Nations peacekeeping. There is a wealth of documentary material relating to border incidents, the operation of the various Mixed Armistice Commissions (MACs), the day-to-day implementation of the armistice regime under the responsibility of the United Nations Truce Supervisory Organization (UNTSO), and frequent complaints addressed to the United Nations Security Council (UNSC). This conflict-management function is secondary to my main focus on United Nations efforts at conflict resolution. 9 • The Palestinian refugees. Except for its intersection with peace

INTRODUCTION

XIX

discussions at Lausanne and Paris, I have glossed over voluminous materials dealing with the United Nations' treatment of the refugee question. Much archival material exists which can be profitably studied by those interested in the informal contacts and lobbying surrounding annual debates on the refugees in the United Nations General Assembly (UNGA). Moreover, the archives provide untapped new sources for further study of the social and political development of the Palestinian refugee community in Jordan. • Jerusalem. I have chosen to side-step the thorny issue ofJerusalem in the present work, primarily because of the large quantity of documentation devoted to this highly emotional issue. Always an obligatory agenda item for a peace settlement, many believed that it was best to save discussions on Jerusalem until the end of negotiations, given its intractable character and its religious, legal and geopolitical complications. In the story that emerges in the following pages, we find the United Nations, the United States and Great Britain searching, during and after 1948, for ways of bringing Israelis and Arabs to the negotiating table in the hopes of arriving at a settlement. There is no denying that the powers had their own 'selfish' interests for trying to promote Arab-Israeli peace; indeed, it would be abnormal to expect the international behaviour of powerful nation-states to be governed by purely abstract or altruistic motives. At given moments, politicians and officials acted in the American or British national interest in pursuit of Middle Eastern policies or initiatives which were sometimes camouflaged by the lofty ideals of the United Nations. Aside from the Jerusalem question, there were two major unresolved issues that confronted would-be peacemakers after 1948 and these two items constituted the potential agenda of all Arab-Israeli diplomacy during the period: • the fate of the Palestinian Arabs who became refugees during the fighting of 1947-49, and • the final determination of boundaries between the new state of Israel, on the one hand, and the Arab states of Lebanon, Syria, Jordan and Egypt, on the other. For a number of important reasons, however, most of the diplomatic

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activity of the period was not spent on discussing these issues in search of compromises and common ground. Rather, the parties often found themselves 'negotiating about negotiations', manoeuvring towards and away from actually meeting - what some writers have called 'prenegotiation' .10 In the rare cases when meetings did actually take place, much of the activity of the participants consisted of manoeuvring and posturing so as to avoid having to make concessions. We are left, therefore, with a study which is more about political manoeuvring around negotiations than about their contents - or even the process itsel( An examination of the record reveals that the parties seldom reached the stage of discussing what some are now calling 'final-status issues'. Far more time and energy were devoted to orchestrating peace overtures, linking a peace move to expected gains on some other important issue, or sidestepping unwanted initiatives. WORKING WITH THE DOCUMENTS

As the reader will discover, the treatment of the subject is more that of the historian than the political scientist. Although it is not among my aims to contribute to the theoretical study of conflict resolution, this detailed presentation of the parties' motives and manoeuvres may prove useful to my theoretically-minded colleagues who wish to develop or refine hypotheses about how parties involved in protracted, seemingly-intractable disputes might be drawn successfully into negotiations and the diplomatic process. Before undertaking this study, my experience with Israeli, British and American archives dealing with the pre-1948 period had taught me to appreciate these hallowed repositories as bottomless pits containing vast amounts ofboth exciting and useless material. In spite of this previous experience, the staggering quantity of files in London, Washington and Israel dealing with Arab-Israeli relations during and after 1948 came as a genuine surprise. In my visits to the Public Record Office (PRO), the US National Archives (USNA), the Israel State Archives (ISA), the United Nations Archive (UNA), the Ben-Gurion Archive (BGA) and the Central Zionist Archives (CZA) between 1990 and 1993, I was able to build up a database of some 3200 items on my chosen subject for the period from May 1948 to December 1956.11 These archival documents, together with another 5000 dated entries culled from published sources, are the

INTRODUCTION

XXI

raw materials from which the present study has been built. The most valuable published primary sources are the volumes in the Foreign Relations ofthe United States (FRUS) and Documents on the Foreign Policy of Israel ('Israel Documents'; abbreviated hereafter as !D) series, published in Washington and Jerusalem, respectively. Although selective, and occasionally omitting material considered 'sensitive', these accessible collections of archival documents are intelligently edited and meticulously annotated. When I began this project, a respected Israeli veteran in the field cautioned me that the study and writing of diplomatic history required such care and cross-checking of minutiae that it was bound to be terribly boring, if done properly. While his point is certainly well taken, it is also true that much of the raw data consulted for a study of this kind- diaries, correspondence and internal memoranda - was composed by perceptive and literate officials and statesmen, thus offering the researcher much fascinating insight into the mentality and emotions of the policy-makers and their times. In offering a new reconstruction and analysis of Arab-lsrae!i relations (1948-54) based primarily on archival documents, I am aware of the dangers of adding to the 'vast and growing mass of dryas-dust factual histories, of minutely specialized monographs' produced by 'would-be historians knowing more and more about less and less'. I trust that, in my reliance on archival sources, I have not fallen victim to what E.H. Carr has called the 'fetishism of documents'. Despite its authenticity, no archival document 'can tell us more than what the author of the document thought- what he thought had happened, what he thought ought to or would happen, or perhaps only what he wanted others to think he thought'. As Carr rightly notes: [n]one of this means anything until the historian has got to work on it and deciphered it. The facts, whether found in documents or not, have still to be processed by the historian before he can make any use of them.12 In my attempts to process the raw material of my chosen archival documents, I have sought to provide a relevant context for the actors and events of the period, displaying some 'imaginative understanding' of those actors. I hope that I have succeeded in showing even-handed empathy for the Arabs, Israelis, English and

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Americans who appear in the following chapters, but without engaging in advocacy on behalf of any of them.13 The results of new, archives-based reconstructions of events and motives are seldom earth-shattering rewritings of modern Middle Eastern history. More often, we are left with minor refinements and corrections, yielding a more accurate historical record. One of the best possible results of this sort of revisionist scholarship may be the gradual abandonment of previously-accepted simplistic or patriotic versions of the conflict espoused by supporters of the various protagonists. The present account reveals, in new detail, the ideas and careers of American, British, Israeli and Arab officials and leaders. Erstwhile heroes and events may appear, to some, less heroic; former villains and disasters may appear perhaps less villainous or disastrous. By shifting the searchlight of inquiry from public statements and actions to confidential documents, one has the further advantage of probing below the surface of formal policy declarations and shedding more light on the sophisticated tactical manoeuvring which was perfected by both the principal adversaries and would-be mediators and conciliators. By searching for parallel sources which can offer several different perspectives on the same event or issue, one is reminded, as most serious researchers into this subject have discovered, that there are often more than the proverbial 'two sides to every story' to be reported. A number of published studies have commented on the serious imbalance that exists in the availability of, and access to, primary archival materials dealing with the Arab-Israeli conflict.14 For years, reconstructing an authentic Arab perspective on Arab-Israeli contacts and negotiation has been exceedingly difficult because most Arab state archives remain closed to researchers. IS Secondly, until recently there has been a widespread taboo on discussing the subject of relations with Israel throughout the Arab world. The quantity and quality of Arab primary sources have been less rich than the materials from the other main protagonists. It has thus been impossible to attain as intimate and as accurate an insight into the presumptions, strategies, tactics and decision-making among Arab leaders and officials as is possible for their Israeli, British and American counterparts. While this imbalance may deprive the reader of a full and authentic Arab perspective on the conflict, it does not necessarily lead to anti-Arab or pro-Israeli distortions of history. Indeed,

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XXlll

knowing a disproportionate amount of behind-the-scenes detail relating to the other three main actors may sometimes give an unfair advantage to the Arabs- whose dilemmas, internal secrets and 'dirty laundry' remain less available for public scrutiny. Resourceful researchers try to compensate for the lack of public access to official Arab archives through various devices. One partial remedy is to make careful use of published works. Lately, both the press and book publishers (especially in Egypt) have shown a new interest in, and openness towards, dealing with the Arab-Israeli conflict in its historical perspective, albeit often with a tendency to sensationalism or incrimination.I6 One of the most useful published sources for the historian is the diary, which conveys a sense of authenticity and intimacy on a day-by-day basis. Published diaries of leading Arab personalities who were active during the late 1940s and early 1950s are, unfortunately, relatively rare.l7 Memoirs and personal retrospective accounts are more commonly available, but, as interesting as these books may be, the usefulness of this entire genre (in any language) is compromised by selective silence as well as the tendency for the writers to indulge in apologetics and selfjustification. As the fictional narrator in Salman Rushdie's Midnight's Children puts it, memory has its own special kind of truth. It selects, eliminates, alters, exaggerates, minimizes, glorifies, and vilifies also; but in the end it creates its own reality, its heterogeneous but usually coherent version of events; and no sane human being ever trusts someone else's version more than his own.IS

Another way of compensating for the problem of the imbalance of archival sources is to make use of the Arabic press- what an Israeli scholar has called 'one of the most underrated sources for the region's history'. Editorials, reactions and analyses ofevents can often be a good indicator of leadership (or opposition) thinking vis-a-vis the issues of the day.l9 While it was not possible to conduct an exhaustive and systematic survey of the leading Arabic dailies of the period, several Egyptian, Jordanian and Lebanese newspapers were scanned for selected periods surrounding specific episodes. Although not 100 per cent complete, the extensive holdings of the Moshe Dayan Center's Arabic Press Archive at Tel Aviv University were especially valuable in this task. Much useful, but selected,

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Arabic press material also exists in the form of summaries, extracts and translations found in the files of the USSD, British FO and Israel Ministry of Foreign Affairs (IMFA). A third possible compensation for the absence of Arabic archival materials lies in the political conversations with Arab public figures that were recorded by British, American or other diplomats and journalists. USSD, FO and IMFA files contain many such conversations, but these often colourful accounts must be handled with care, as the ostensibly intimate and authentic views contained in these memoranda may suffer from a number of possible distortions. My own experience bears out E.H. Carr's warning that such reports tend to exaggerate the writer's actual share of the conversation, as well as the cogency and effectiveness of his own arguments as against the 'scanty, confused, and unconvincing' arguments of his interlocutor.ZO Questions also remain about the extent to which Arab personalities disclosed their true feelings in conversations, however confidential, with Englishmen, Americans or Israelis. OBJECTIVITY AND SUBJECTIVITY

Attempting to write about an historical conflict which remains unresolved in our own day, and one which is the subject of much heated dispute among natives of the region and foreigners alike, poses special challenges and gives rise to the need to make certain choices. In spite of a professional credo which demands efforts at maximum objectivity, balance, and fairness, many journalists, commentators and academics find this conflict one about which it is particularly difficult to write dispassionately. Some of the choices which writers on this delicate topic make can only be described as personal and subjective. Although far from arbitrary, the selection and organization of source materials are largely a reflection of the personal judgment of the researcher. We turn again to Carr for the wise observation that: [i]t used to be said that facts speak for themselves. This is, of course, untrue. The facts speak for themselves only when the historian calls on them: it is he who decides to which facts to give the floor, and in what order or context ... The historian is necessarily selective. The belief in a hard core of historical facts existing objectively and independently of the interpretation

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XXV

of the historian is a preposterous fallacy, but one which it is very hard to eradicate.Zl Thus, two equally professional scholars may survey the same body of raw material, but each may choose to highlight different documents or to emphasize different aspects, leaving readers with two quite different pictures of the period and the various competing parties. The inclusion of thirteen selected documents at the end of this volume may give the reader a taste of the variety of interpretations possible. When confronted with two conflicting versions of what happened and why, it is up to the reader to decide which is the more valid or convincing one. Often it is pointless to expect to find a single, definitive 'correct' or 'true' history of the Arab-Israeli conflict. There is certainly place - and a need - for several credible versions upon which discerning readers may base their own conclusions. So long as two authors accurately convey the contents of their source materials, are mindful of the context in which their evidence is set, and draw conclusions even-handedly and with consistency, then each set of results, however different, may be a valid piece ofhistorical writing. Beyond the subjectivity inherent in the processes of selection and presentation of source materials, there are also considerations of partisanship and bias. Beyond the most obvious forms of partisanship- portraying either Israelis or Arabs as outraged victims pitted against congenitally evil enemies - there are multiple variations within each camp. The non-specialist reader must be wary of the distortions inflicted by experts who may be writing generally about Arab-Israeli relations, but with an unannounced personal 'agenda': for example, to promote a favourite Israeli or Arab personality, movement or party, or to denounce a particular villain. But the subjectivity factor goes even deeper, I feel, than the issues ofselection ofsources or partisanship. I would suggest that an author's basic temperament can also have a decisive effect on the approach he or she takes towards the subject. This often unknowable and unquantifiable factor may be discernible only to those who are familiar with the primary source material and skilled at reading between the lines. It is by reference to this element of personal temperament that one can best situate the present work within the current historiographical debates on the Arab-Israeli dispute. In comparison with

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other writers on this controversial subject, I do not feel called upon to apportion blame for so-called missed opportunities for a peaceful resolution of the dispute. Out of genuine respect for the needs and motives of the various protagonists, I have tried to hold back from condemning unworthy motives or misguided policies among the various Israeli, Arab, British or American actors. That task is best left to partisan commentators and sensationalist journalists. Serious historians would do well to allow readers to form their own judgments on the basis of a fair presentation of the available evidence. Also related to personal temperament is the presumption I make that people's behaviour is attributable to a complex combination of factors, including enlightened self-interest, fears, prejudices, unconscious impulses, and spontaneous reactions to a variety ofoften competing challenges. I tend to discount explanations that place exaggerated emphasis on rational decisions made in accordance with a coherent plan or ideology. As a result, I am reluctant to infer nefarious cause-and-effect processes, or to detect and expose conspiracies. It is perhaps this personal approach which keeps me largely on the sidelines of the recent 'battleground' between the so-called revisionist, or 'new', historians - whose lack of respect for sacred cows is, in itself, a welcome and healthy attitude- and those supposedly 'old' historians who criticize them for writing politicized history.22 In the following pages I have sought to convey something of the flavour and the fascinating detail of the perplexing Arab-Israeli conflict as it emerges from the recently-released archival sources. I encourage readers to encounter this new material in a spirit of openminded inquiry. Some will perhaps draw fresh conclusions or revise some previously-held beliefs about the evolution of the Arab-Israeli conflict. Others may find confirmation of their existing views or interpretations. It is all to the good if the presentation that follows stimulates further research to challenge perspectives or interpretations which readers may not find pleasing or convincing. It is entirely to be expected that different readers will draw different conclusions from the complex historical evidence which is now available in the archives.

CHAPTER I

Historical and Psychological Context

LESSONS FROM THE MANDATE PERIOD

The first Arab-Israeli war, which erupted in mid-May 1948, was the culmination ofan evolving conflict which traces its recent origins to 1882 - the first wave of modern Zionist immigration the aim of which was to create a Jewish society and state in a part of the Ottoman Empire subsequently known as Palestine.l Between 1917 and 1948, during the period of the British military occupation and the subsequent League of Nations mandate, relations between the Arab majority and the growing Jewish minority in Palestine degenerated into a serious inter-communal struggle for paramountcy. The struggle was played out in several fields: a 'numbers race' Gewish immigration), control of territory through the purchase ofland, and an escalation of violent incidents (riots, attacks, counter-attacks) culminating in a widespread Arab rebellion against British rule and Zionism between 1936 and 1939.2 Even prior to the outbreak of war in 1948, the struggle for Palestine had already bequeathed its legacy of cynicism, mutual suspicion and hatred to Arabs and Jews. During and immediately following the fighting of 1947-49, popular resentment also grew among both peoples towards the alleged perfidy of outside powers whose support for the 'right' cause was found wanting. The struggle for mandatory Palestine also had a diplomatic front to which Arab and Zionist leaders turned their attentions whenever time and circumstances seemed appropriate.3 While it is not clear to what extent politicians and policy-makers base their decisions and

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actions on cumulative past experience, those responsible for the course of post-1948 Israeli, Arab, British and American strategy regarding the Arab-Israeli conflict ought to have been able to draw upon the following 'lessons': • Given the unbridgeable gap between the firmly-held and essential (as opposed to merely tactical) positions of the two parties, direct negotiations between the parties, while valuable, were not sufficient to ensure progress towards a solution. • Despite pious public statements to the contrary, both parties accorded a low priority to reaching an accord with the other side. In fact, each party perfected the habit of employing negotiations as a tactical device to avoid compromise, in the expectation that a solution might eventually be imposed that would vindicate its own position. • In rejecting not only overtures from, but even the rights of, the other side, each party did not simply display a lack of concern for the worsening conflict. Each practised a careful strategy of avoidance, preferring to sidestep awkward realities. • Despite lip-service to the notion that the best way to resolve the conflict was to leave the parties alone to settle their differences, it was clear that no voluntary bilateral agreement was possible. If there was any hope for a settlement, it was likely to come in an imposed format, whether through force majeure of military victory or at the hands of one or more of the great powers. • Well-intentioned third-party attempts to promote an agreement were futile because would-be mediators had been armed only with the power of moral persuasion, without the ability (available to governments) to use effective incentives and pressures on the protagonists. A number of the above 'lessons' were absorbed, with only slight modification, into the post-1948 experience of Arabs and Israelis.4 Another underlying feature of the Arab-Israeli conflict which carried over from the pre-1948 period to the post-1948 period was the symbolic importance which both parties attached to direct negotiations. After 1948 the niceties of international diplomacy lent an enhanced political significance to any known contacts between Arabs and Israelis. For the latter, such direct dealings were actively sought as a precious goal: an indication, however low-key or begrudging, of Arab recognition that Israel was a legitimate partner

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3

worthy of consideration. For many Arabs, avoidance of such direct contacts, even if secret and unofficial, was part of the struggle against the consolidation of the military and diplomatic fait accompli of the Israeli state that had been created in Palestine. CHANGING STRUCTURE AND DYNAMICS OF THE POST-1948 CONFLICT

Apart from a number of pre-1948 and post-1948 continuities, there were also important structural changes which affected the nature of the ongoing conflict. Following the final breakdown of the British mandate and the eruption of the 1948-49 war, the Arab-Zionist conflict in Palestine became the Arab-Israeli conflict. A longsimmering inter-communal rivalry for predominance inside mandatory Palestine was transformed into a serious inter-state, regional conflict in which one of the original contestants achieved sovereignty over a part of the disputed territory while the other became dispersed and stateless. Unresolved grievances regarding the aftermath of the 1948-49 war (particularly the refugee issue) provided sufficient fuel for the continuation and deepening of a conflict which was to follow a pattern of breaking out into largescale warfare at least once in each of the next four decades ( 19 56, 1967, 1973, 1982).5 In the period covered by the present study, Arab-Israeli contacts and negotiations were carried out, sometimes openly, usually secretly, but never with the successful result of a diplomatic solution to which Israelis and Arabs could adhere. Given the refusal of most of the Arab states to deal directly with the state oflsrael and thereby legitimize its victory of 1948-49, a number of British, American, and United Nations officials came to serve as sounding-boards, channels of communication and potential facilitators of negotiations among the reluctant, ever-manoeuvring parties. Having defeated the Arab armies on the battlefield in 1948-49, Israel waited for the Arabs to 'accept realities' but also struggled actively to convert the 1949 armistice into a durable peace. Much Arab behaviour at this time can be attributed to a general revulsion and shock that a Jewish state had been created in Palestine and had survived the test of battle. Beyond this 'existential' contradiction between the two sides, there were, as mentioned earlier, three specific issues which remained unresolved:

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• the disposition of]erusalem, whose eastern (older) sections were occupied by King Abdullah's Arab Legion during the 1948 fighting and whose western (newer) sections were held by the Israelis; • the fate of approximately 700,000 Palestinian Arab refugees, who claimed the right to return to their former homes inside Israel; and • the final determination of boundaries between Israel and the neighbouring Arab states. With regard to the latter, the armistice lines negotiated at Rhodes and elsewhere between January and July 1949 were perceived by all sides as temporary, with the Arab states hoping to erase Israel's military successes of 1948-49 and to produce a smaller Jewish state in conformity with the 1947 UN partition plan (which they had rejected in 1947 and 1948). The Israelis, for their part, wan ted permanent frontiers based more or less along the existing armistice lines. Searching for middle ground between the two parties, Britain and America explored various formulae for a territorial compromise. To Israel's dismay, most proposals for a post-1949 settlement required concessions which would have reduced the territory of the new Jewish state. The most commonly-advanced proposal was that Israel cede part of the Negev in order to satisfy an Egyptian demand for territorial contiguity with Jordan. With regard to the Palestinian refugees, a historic UN GA resolution of II December 1948 (below, Chapters III, IV and Document 4) urged that they be allowed to return to their homes to live in peace with their neighbours. This call for 'repatriation' was firmly resisted by the Israelis, who invoked reasons of security and sovereignty. Instead, they offered to accept the return of a limited number, but only as part of a comprehensive peace agreement. In Israel's view, the bulk of the Palestinian refugees should be offered compensation to build new lives in the Arab countries to which they had fled 'resettlement'. Seeking to avoid both politically-loaded terms, United Nations relief organizations often spoke of refugee 'reintegration', a term ambiguous enough to encompass both resettlement in Arab countries and the possibility of some limited repatriation to Israel. The uneasy armistice between Israel and the Arab states might have lasted longer than it did, had it not been for the inability of the parties and the United Nations to resolve the Palestinian refugee

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5

question during 1948 and 1949. The stalemate which left the refugees to their fate created a time-·bomb in the region which was bound to explode sooner or later. The continued existence of hundreds of thousands of Palestinian refugees -largely concentrated in parts of former mandatory Palestine known as the West Bank, annexed by Transjordan (thereafter called Jordan), and in the Egyptian-administered Gaza strip- soon led to cross-border incursions, followed by increasingly severe Israeli reprisal raids. This set off a cycle of escalation that was only occasionally slowed down by rebukes and admonitions from the UN and other outside powers. Trading blow for blow became an issue of prestige and leadership in the adjoining states, eventually leading to the 'brinkmanship' that contributed to the next Arab-Israeli war. The post-1948 Arab-Israeli conflict did not long remain merely a regional one, but became an international one inextricably linked to Great Power confrontation durin!~ the early 'Cold War'. An arms race was soon underway, as Britain and America had reason to fear that their deteriorating relations with the Arab world might not only provide an entry for Soviet 'penetration' in the region, but might also adversely affect the uninterrupted flow of oil. The lack of movement towards an agreed solution after 1949 could be seen from three contrasting p1:rspectives: Anglo-American, Israeli and Arab. The only belief shared among all three was that this conflict was not one which would be easily resolved; at best, it might be managed until such time as conditions somehow became 'ripe' for a solution.6 But, as we shall see, even the limited hopes of managing a low-grade conflict and preventing violent explosions were not to be realized. Some of the more striking differences among the three perspectives may be better understood und•er the following three headings:

Process In the years following 1948, the US government displayed a determined non-interventionism and a preference to leave the Israelis and Arabs to work out their differences, with or without conciliation available through the UN. On the whole, the British tended to favour a slightly more active approach. Only towards the end of the period under review did an Anglo-American consensus emerge that the only chance for a settlement lay in what might be called 'coercive

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diplomacy' .7 In response to the fact that there was little likelihood of either a voluntary settlement or one arrived via UN conciliation, and faced with a dangerous deterioration of Arab-Israeli relations during the early 1950s, an informal 'division of labour' emerged between the two Western powers whereby representations were made to the Arabs (mainly by the UK) to accept Israel's existence and end the state of declared and undeclared hostility, 8 and to Israel (mainly by the US) to convince the Jewish state to consider concessions on territory and the refugee question. While some observers have painted a picture of Israel's apparently unlimited ability to manipulate American public opinion and US government policy in its favour since 1948, the dynamics of American-Israeli relations as revealed in the archival documents, were different: recurring unwelcome American pressure on Israel, whose diplomats and officials responded with what has since come to be known as 'damage control'. A mainstay of the Israeli position was that only direct bilateral negotiations with the Arabs would bring about a workable solution. The quest for a separate Israel-Jordan agreement was the preferred avenue from 1948 to 19 51, while some effort was devoted to promoting an Israeli-Egyptian breakthrough between 1952 and 1955. Limited American or British mediation was considered useful in order to facilitate preliminary contacts, but Israelis wanted real bargaining to take place only in face-to-face talks between representatives of Israel and individual Arab states. Israelis displayed a marked predisposition to be wary of (and avoid if possible) outside mediation or conciliation, believing that the only possible settlement to result from such a process would be one which demanded too high price in terms of territory and refugee repatriation. The Arabs consistently rejected direct talks with Israel, partly on moral and ideological grounds and partly on tactical grounds. Direct, official negotiations were considered not only as potentially useless or disadvantageous, but also as amounting to a recognition of the Jewish state, which the Arabs did not wish to grant. Arab attention was devoted instead to lobbying activities aimed at forcing Israel to abide by several United Nations resolutions which would have reduced the de focto borders of the Jewish state and would have required it to accept the return of many refugees. In the absence of any movement towards a settlement of the Palestine question along these lines, the Arabs accepted indirect conciliation via the PCC,

HISTORICAL/PSYCHOLOGICAL CONTEXT

7

but often requested a stronger mediation role for the Commission that might have given effect to a peace plan based on favourable UN resolutions.

Definition and contents ofa peace settlement Without delving into the philological and semantic background of the Hebrew shalom and the Arabic sa/am and sulh, one important dimension ofthe Arab-Israeli impasse after 1948 was the protagonists' conflicting definitions of the term 'peace'. Appreciating the depth of the antagonism which separated the parties, many of those involved in attempts to promote negotiations chose to define their objective in less extensive terms, preferring to work for an 'accommodation' or a 'settlement'. Even when substituting these lower-key words, Israelis and Arabs differed sharply in their understanding of what a settlement entailed. Israel sought a settlement based largely on the status quo, and was unwilling to consider any large-scale territorial concessions or repatriation of refugees. Legally, Israelis based their claims on their interpretation of the GAAs as being transitional agreements with a built-in obligation upon the parties to proceed to full peace accords. Arab calls for a settlement were based on the status quo ante- often defined as confining Israel to the boundaries proposed in the UN partition resolution of 29 November 1947- and were bolstered by the terms of several key UNGA resolutions. The solution which most Arab leaders publicly advocated was one which would have left Israel with little, if any, territory beyond the 1947 UN partition lines, and with an acknowledged obligation to accept the Palestinian refugees' right to return or to be compensated.

Tactics and strategy A key element of the Arab strategy was to play for time and to make the no-peace, no-war status quo untenable for Israel, forcing a reversion to the status quo ante. A campaign was aimed at weakening Israel by boycott and isolation, combined with low-grade military pressure on the frontiers. For some, the final goal was the destruction of the Jewish state; for others it was the demoralization of Israel to the point of being able to extract substantial territorial concessions and the return of more than a token number of refugees.

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The Israelis likewise sought to make the status quo untenable for the Arabs, but hoped in vain to force them to move 'forward' to consider upgrading the shaky armistice agreements into full peace treaties. Israeli strategy was a combination of (a) international diplomatic activity denouncing the Arabs' unwillingness to advance towards 'peace', (b) secret peace feelers to individual Arab leaders, and (c) military pressure along the frontiers, including strong crossborder retaliations for fidayyin (commando) incursions and other provocations. Despite Israel's growth, consolidation and ability to withstand the pin-pricks of border violence, the psychological and economic costs of being partially isolated in a position of nearpermanent insecurity eventually brought the Israelis to the breaking point. This was a factor contributing to Israel's alliance with England and France in support of its attack on Egypt in late October 19 56. FORMS OF THIRD-PARTY INTERVENTION IN THE ARAB-ISRAELI DISPUTE

It was in this political context that the US, UK and UN sought to manage or resolve the Arab-Israeli conflict in the years following the 1948-49 war. Third-party involvement in regional conflicts can take a variety of forms, with varying degrees of coercion. Most British and American involvement in the Arab-Israeli conflict after 1948 could be classified as attempts at conflict management, or peacekeeping; only occasionally did this involvement aim at conflict resolution, or peacemaking. The goal of conflict management is generally the avoidance of military action: keeping tension down, investigating and resolving localized grievances, avoiding frontier flare-ups, preventing reprisals. Although the British and American embassies in the region often found themselves drawn into dealing with such matters, the bulk of routine conflict-management activity was carried out by the United Nations peacekeeping apparatus: truce supervisory observers, mixed armistice commissions, etc. Generally, conflict management makes no attempt to alter the status quo, but rather aims to make it livable or workable. Conflict resolution, on the other hand, is a more ambitious activity, attempting to resolve one or more outstanding issues by encouraging conciliatory attitudes or behaviour on the part of one or more of the main protagonists. When one of the powers decides

HISTORICAL/PSYCHOLOGICAL CONTEXT

9

to pursue this option, it must give some thought to both the process (specific steps which will bring the parties to agree to some form of mediation or negotiation) and the content (the suggested lines which a settlement may take). In terms of'patron-client' relationships,9 it was usually expected that the British patrons would be more successful when intervening with 'their' clients, the Arab states, while the American patrons would be more effective in dealing with 'their' Israeli clients. Yet this 'division of labour' was never totally exclusive, watertight or evenly balanced; one scholar has suggested that by 1955 the 'burden ... fell mainly on the American diplomats ... due to their greater credibility and leverage with both parties.'IO Britain and America often found themselves brandishing a variety of carrots and sticks on both sides of the divide in their attempts to influence Arab and Israeli behaviour in the direction of either maintaining the (status quo) peace or moving towards a settlement of the unresolved issues. The various forms of outside involvement may be listed as follows, generally in ascending order from the least to the most coercive and from the least to the most political in their implications.

• Serve as a 'Postman'- Given the Arab refusal to recognize Israel and maintain normal diplomatic relations with it, the Western powers have often performed the useful function of filling the gap by acting as channels of communication. • Make diplomatic representations - This was perhaps the most frequently used form of diplomatic intercourse between the powers and Middle Eastern states. Executed beyond the glare of publicity, it was the mildest method the patrons had for exerting pressure on the client. Patron states have offered their friendly advice, or have expressed concern, about a client's recent (or anticipated) military action or political statement which the patrons may have considered provocative to the other side or liable to lead to a breach of the peace. • Provide diplomatic support or condemnation - During a period of frontier incidents, with the attendant risks of escalating violence, supportive patrons have backed a client's complaint against another state through representations made in 'enemy' capitals, in consultations with other powers, or at the United Nations. Conversely, critical patrons have shown their displeasure with a client's behaviour by holding back from offering such diplomatic

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•

•

•

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support. The most extreme sign of a patron's displeasure would be its participation in a UN condemnation of its own client. Offer, delay or withhold financial aid- If lesser measures proved incapable of modifying client-states' behaviour in a situation which patrons deemed intolerable, the latter have sometimes chosen to resort to financial sanctions. Patrons have tried to punish 'bad' behaviour by withholding or delaying financial assistance being sought by the client, or to reward 'good' or cooperative behaviour by promising or making such aid available. Offer, delay or withhold military aid- Although this was complicated by the fears oflaunching an arms-race in the volatile Middle East during the early 1950s, patrons have also sought to reward 'good' behaviour by offering to provide military equipment, ostensibly for defensive or domestic purposes, or for withstanding Soviet 'penetration'. Patrons have also punished 'bad' or uncooperative behaviour by withholding such assistance, or by delaying shipments of materiel previously ordered. Offer good offices to the parties - From time to time, one of the Western powers decided that the risks of allowing a specific dispute to fester unresolved was serious enough to warrant an attempt to invite the parties to consider proposals for removing grievances and settling the matter. A prominent example of this was the US State Department's offer of good offices to Egypt and Israel to discuss the latter's proposal to take over the Gaza strip in 1949 (see Chapter V). Such offers of good offices to facilitate direct or indirect meetings between representatives of the parties in conflict have involved political risks to the powers, and have often placed the client states in awkward situations vis-a-vis the patrons. Conciliation - More than good offices, conciliation implies a sustained commitment to help the parties resolve a wider range of issues in dispute. Like mediation, the powers have usually left it to the United Nations to perform these functions, as in the PCC's meetings with the parties in Lausanne (1949), Geneva (1950) and Paris (1951). Mediation - As the term was generally understood during the period under discussion, mediation was a form of involvement in conflict resolution that went beyond conciliation in that the third party was not restricted to receiving and transmitting proposals originating from the principal protagonists. The mediators were

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11

empowered to propose their own peace plans for the parties to consider, as Count Folke Bernadotte did in June and September 1948, and as the PCC did in Paris in the fall of 19 51. THE MAZE OF MUTUAL PERCEPTIONS AND MISPERCEPTIONS

One of the fascinations- and frustrations- of dealing with the ArabIsraeli conflict is the stark contrast between the various parties' perceptions of each other and the differing views of what the conflict is really about. This psychological backdrop has shown a high degree of resiliency and historical continuity, before, during and since the brief period under study in this volume. One perception which both main protagonists have shared is a deeply-rooted perception of the self as 'victim' and the other as 'aggressor' or 'victimizer'. The problem is more than just the result of continuous propaganda, brainwashing and ill-informed polemics which reinforce such self-serving and one-sided conclusions. There is also an ongoing and cumulative history of intense rivalry, struggle and warfare dating back to the latter part of the nineteenth century -a history which provides much tangible evidence upon which many Arabs and Israelis can build up a convincing case 'proving' the foul deeds and inherently evil nature of the adversary. In the resultant interplay of logic and rhetoric, the practice of arguing about the Arab-Israeli conflict has become a minefield of selective remembering and double standards. Some of it is conscious, but much is unconscious. The psychological need of many Arabs, Muslims and Jews around the world to identify with, and defend the case of, their respective people or countrymen has resulted in the perpetuation and internationalization of deep-seated stereotypes, prejudices and conspiracy theories. With regard to the latter, Carl Brown has pointed out that Middle Easterners (and even outside powers themselves) have, for the past two centuries at least, regularly subscribed to the complementary myths of the 'master puppeteer' and 'outside manipulator', and that Middle Eastern political actors have tended 'to exaggerate both the power and the consistency of purpose of the presumed outside manipulator' .11 In a recent essay, Daniel Pipes has observed that '[w]bile American officials are nearly blind to conspiracy theories, Middle Easterners discern them in the merest accidents' .12 Let us sketch briefly several

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Arab, Israeli, and Anglo-American perceptions which manifest themselves during the period under study.

Arab perceptions Arab perceptions of Jews, Israelis and the Western powers have tended to be monolithic and often conspiratorial. Notions of a world Jewish plot against all the nations (popularized in the exposed forgery, The Protocols ofthe Learned Elders ofZion) have played their role in shaping the attitudes of a number of Arab politicians and statesmen.l3 When conferring with British or American officials, Arab spokesmen frequently decried the alleged Jewish control of the media and public opinion as an obstacle preventing the Arab case from receiving a fair hearing in the West. Israel soon came to be seen as the darling, or the favoured child, of the Western democracies which used a double standard in dispensing sympathy and/ or largesse to the Middle East. The results of the 1947-49 fighting were seen as essentially evil and unjust, caused by a combination of deception and unfair international assistance to the Jews of Palestine politically, economically and militarily. Outcries against Western colonialism and imperialism were linked with Zionism, which became portrayed as the principal enemy of, and obstacle to, Arab nationalism. The recovery of Palestine and the undoing of the defeat of 1948-49 became a test case in this struggle against an enemy which was simultaneously scorned and feared.

Israeli perceptions Pitted against the Arab perception ofJewish 'power' was the Israeli self-perception of vulnerability. Israelis and Jews believed with equal passion and sincerity that they had very few friends in the world and many enemies hoping for an opportunity to destroy them. The Holocaust had been real, and so was the trauma affecting all those who considered themselves its 'survivors'. Israeli officials developed their own set of often black-and-white perceptions of their Arab adversaries and the motives of the Western powers. Historians and political analysts have become very fond of explaining Israeli attitudes to the Arabs in terms of'extremists' (or 'activists') and 'moderates' - a dichotomy personified by the

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13

country's first two Prime Ministers, David Ben-Gurion and Moshe Shertok (who Hebraicized his name to Sharett in 1949).14 BenGurion, who served jointly as Prime Minister and Minister of Defence (May 1948 to December 1953, and again from November 1955) and as Minister of Defence under Sharett's premiership (February- November 1955), is often portrayed as exemplifying an 'activist' or 'direct action' approach, operating on the presumption that 'the Arabs understand only force'. Perhaps influenced by their decisive military victories of 1948-49, members of this 'extremist' school anticipated the need for endless skirmishing with and repeated.humiliation of the adversary. They worked and waited for the day when Arab leaders would simply accept their defeat and admit it to their people. Moshe Sharett, who served as Israel's first Foreign Minister until mid-1956 (and as Prime Minister from December 1953 to November 1955), had a more complex understanding of the Arab world and was also more sensitive to the needs of the international diplomatic arena. Influenced also by Eliahu (Elias) Sasson, the IMFA's senior expert on Arab affairs, members of this 'moderate' school of thought believed that much time and careful, gradual steps would be required to overcome the psychological trauma of their defeated opponents, which was seen the key obstacle to a peaceful reconciliation.IS In an increasingly heated and tense atmosphere, Israelis of all schools of thought looked upon the Arab world around them as a dangerous and unpredictable place. They felt they had reason to fear that the few Arab leaders who might have dared to consider peace with them would be too weak to withstand the growing popular pressure against such a settlement. Generally, Israelis felt insecure about achieving normal relations with the neighbouring countries because of widespread political instability, rivalries and mistrust among the various Arab regimes and their leading personalities. Israeli attitudes to the Western powers were also problematic and worrisome, and contained some simplistic and conspiratorial ingredients. Some Israelis tended to view Britain as harbouring sinister intentions towards the Jewish state. Many saw the UK as not doing enough to provide the appropriate advice to its Arab clients to moderate their hostility towards Israel, while others suspected that some British officials were actively encouraging Arab animosity and conniving to gain an opportunity to establish British bases in

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the Negev. Only slowly after 1949 did the scars of Anglo-Israeli mistrust and resentment- which had grown since the 1939 White Paper and had reached their peak during the 1948-1949 war- begin to heal. Israeli perceptions of the Americans were also mixed. Contrary to Arab and British perceptions of the US as almost 100 per cent solidly behind the Jewish state, Israelis felt that their case was periodically put in jeopardy by intrinsic anti-Israeli and sometimes anti-Semitic sentiment in State Department and oil company circles. Some feared that USSD officials were actively conspiring against Israel. On more than one occasion, Israelis revealed that they did not fully trust their American 'friends' to serve as honest brokers for finding a settlement with the Arab states. Anglo-American perceptions

The duality between the power and vulnerability oflsraelis and Jews could also been seen in the perceptions of British and American observers during the early 1950s. Many diplomats and officials viewed the new Israelis as a hard-nosed and 'stiff-necked' people. They were also perceived as tricky customers, having a great potential for successful lobbying in the various capitals of the world, and particularly during election campaigns in the United States. This was considered by some British and American officials to be an insidious factor preventing the powers from adopting evenhanded policies in the Middle East. But Israelis were also admired, somewhat begrudgingly, in Western capitals for their spunk and their stubborn determination to consolidate the gains of 1948-49 and build up their new state. During the course of 1948 the Israeli image was quickly transformed from pathetic underdog to glorious victor. After 1949, the West viewed the Israelis as having unchallenged military superiority over the combined forces of the Arab states. The image of the heroic little David fighting the mighty Arab Goliath was one which Israel would deliberately foster during and after the mid-19 50s. While this image may have influenced public perceptions in Western capitals, it was never really believed by the majority ofBritish and American policymakers, who until early 1956 continued to believe that the military balance (troops, equipment, skills and motivation) favoured Israel against any combination of hostile Arab states.l6

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15

British and American personnel stationed in Tel Aviv and Jerusalem developed their own positive and negative attitudes towards the Israeli 'psychology'. Admiration for Israeli toughness and superiority often came mixed with criticism for aggressive and threatening attitudes. One not-unfriendly British Ambassador to Israel found the Israelis 'emotional, unstable, impatient and often only less blind than the Arabs to what appears to be their own best interests' .17 Israeli political and military leaders were seen in London and Washington much as they have been portrayed by historian Avi Shlaim: as conducting their first efforts at alliancebuilding, military campaigns and post-war political negotiations in a manner far removed from the popular view ofJews and Israelis as victims and underdogs. The Israelis were seen not merely as clever practitioners of realpolitik, but also as somewhat intoxicated by their victories and hardened in their new-found power.l8 After the battlefield defeats of 1948-49, the image of the Arabs among the Western powers was that of an aggrieved, but highly emotional and unreasonable, party. The notion that British officials were solidly pro-Arab and in sympathy with their post-1948 plight is not fully borne out by the documents of the period.l9 The British mind-set was affected by a certain contempt for the behaviour of the Arabs who, following their humiliating defeat by Israel, attempted to hide their losses behind a cloak of vengeful rhetoric which - whatever its domestic effects - did not evoke respect or admiration abroad. British impatience and resentment became especially evident in August 1948 under the impact of a barrage of Arab criticism that London had allegedly betrayed the Arabs during the 1948 war. British envoys in the region were instructed not to be swayed by such Arab complaints.ZO Several years later, some British officials were still writing scornfully of the 'vilification' which the Arab leaders continued to heap on the UK, 'speak[ing] softly to us in private but denounc[ing] us in public'. 21 In early 1953 the head of the British Middle East Office [BMEO] wrote that he was unable to regard the Arabs as politically adult, however much we may have to talk and act as though they were. They possess, as is known, the obstinacy of children and the same delighted reaction to praise. 22 Still, as the unofficial protector ofEgypt,Jordan and Iraq, Britain also felt some sympathy, which was linked to an underlying feeling of

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guilt regarding the sad fate of their Arab allies. In the internal debates about how far Britain should (or could) go towards actively reconciling the Arabs with the new fact of Israel, British patience was sorely tested by what was seen as Arab traits of emotionalism and unreliability. Three years before the Suez crisis, Foreign Secretary Anthony Eden disclosed that he was 'weary of the fickle friendship of the Arabs'.23 British and American attempts to influence the Arabs took on the paternalistic ring of having to 'educate' them to behave in accordance with their own best interests - which always happened to be defined, of course, as coinciding with those of Great Britain or America.

CHAPTER II

War and Mediation, 1948

Although some historians would cite14 May1948 as the start of the war known variously as theIsraeli War ofIndependence, an-Nakba ( the (Palestinian) Catastrophe), or the first Palestine war, it would be more accurate to consider that war as beginning on30November 1947, with the Arab attacks which followed the passage of the historic United Nations partition resolution of 29 November. T he initial pattern of the fighting was a civil war, which was followed, after 15 May1948, by the entry intoPalestine of armies from the neighbour­

ing states. The ensuing inter-state war was punctuated by truces and Israeli counter-offensives spread over the next ten months, as follows: (1) Arab armies advance, 15 May-ll June 1948 (2) First truce, 11 June- 9 July (3) 'Ten Days' War', 9-18July (4 ) Second Truce, 18July- 15 October (5 ) Operation Yoav (Egyptian Negev front), 15-22 October

(6) Operation Hiram (Galilee), 29-31 October (7) Operation Horev (Negev IEgypt),22 December1948- 7January 1949 (8) Operation Uvda (Negev/Transjordan), 5-10 March 1949 .1 It was with great difficulty that the new Jewish state held its ground during the opening phase of the war. During the first truce the Israel Defence Forces (IDF) consolidated their positions and made significant advances during the 'Ten Days' War', following

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which they enjoyed an increasing military predominance. But Israel would find it impossible to translate its obvious military advantage into a true victory or 'peace' with the defeated Arabs. The deepseated resistance of the latter to concede the establishment of the Jewish state oflsrael in place of the hoped-for Arab state ofPalestine would make the achievement of peace elusive for decades to come. In an effort to contain and stop the fighting which broke out on 14 May 1948, the United Nations General Assembly appointed Count Folke Bernadotte, President of the Swedish Red Cross, as mediator with a wide mandate to 'promote a peaceful adjustment of the future situation of Palestine'. 2 Bernadotte took up the challenge with an unusual persistence and a naive humanitarianism reminiscent of Don Quixote. 3 Prior to his assassination at the hands ofJewish terrorists in Jerusalem on 17 September, Bernadotte's efforts led to the successful conclusion of two truces. Working closely with his American assistant, Dr Ralph S. Bunche, Count Bernadotte put forth two sets of proposals for a political settlement. Both the tentative suggestions offered to the parties in June and the comprehensive proposals submitted to the United Nations in mid-September proved utterly unacceptable to Arabs and Israelis alike. Despite their ultimate rejection, Bernadotte's unworkable plans would become a reference-point for both Arabs and Israelis during future negotiation attempts. His failed mission has been researched and analysed in great detail elsewhere, and has achieved the status of a classic case-study for students of international mediation.4 For our present purposes, we shall focus briefly on each of his two sets of proposals, and then point to several patterns and precedents of his mediation effort which would become important for future attempts at Arab-Israeli peacemaking. BERNADOTTE'S 'SUGGESTIONS', 27 JUNE 1948

Bernadotte's and Bunche's ambitious attempt to move quickly from the first truce to a political solution centred around a three-part document (Document 1) which scholars have variously described as a 'debiicle' and 'a solution too early'.5 Having conferred with the representatives of both sides over the course of a few weeks, Bernadotte felt that he had grasped 'a very clear impression of their positions on the question of the future ofPalestine'. He advanced a list of nine 'suggestions' which he hoped would be seen as 'a

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19

reasonable framework of reference' within which 'the two parties may find it possible to continue their consultations with me toward the end of a peaceful adjustment'.The Count emphasized that his suggestions were being 'submitted with no intimation of preciseness or finality', and were 'designed solely to explore the possible bases for further discussions and mediation, and to elicit from the parties their reactions and further views'. 6 The main thrust of his suggestions was to create a union of Palestine and Transjordan containing mutually-agreed separate Arab and Jewish 'Member' units. His proposed territorial revisions were that Western Galilee (allocated by the UN partition plan to the Arabs, because of its heavy Arab population) should be given to Israel, in exchange for the Israelis renouncing their claims to the Negev- an idea which was also current in British Foreign Office and US State Department circles.? The mediator's suggestions met with a uniformly hostile reception by the interested parties. Not only were the proposals unacceptable in themselves; the very fact that he had chosen to issue open-ended, long-range proposals for a solution inspired reluctance and even hostility on the part ofleaders on both sides. The Israelis were highly dissatisfied with a number of elements, including the Count's inclination to tamper with and undermine the authority of the 29 November 1947 partition resolution. In his attempt to satisfy what he felt were legitimate Arab needs, the Count would have nullified Israeli military advantages and ignored their aspirations. This, along with the awarding of all ofJerusalem to King Abdullah, further alienated Israeli support for his ideas. The Israelis were also annoyed by Bernadotte's strong humanitarian concern for the return of Palestinian Arab refugees. 8 For their part, Arab and Palestinian spokesmen did not accept the mediator's premise that the new Jewish state was an established fact, and resented the proposed annexation of the Arab portions of partitioned Palestine to Transjordan as a transparent manoeuvre to benefit Abdullah (and, indirectly, his British masters) at the expense of Egypt, the Arab League, and the prospect of an independent Palestinian state.9 Even the Transjordanian monarch, who stood to benefit most from the far-fetched scheme, announced that he considered the proposals 'completely unacceptable to Transjordan even as a basis for discussion' .10 Only the State Department and the Foreign Office appeared pleased at first with the suggestions,

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although 'minus [the] idea of [the] union between two states', and with growing reservations about placing Jerusalem under Arab sovereignty. In the weeks following the submission ofBernadotte's suggestions, London and Washington gave serious thought to joint action that might bring about Israeli and Arab 'acquiescence' in a settlement which corresponded to Anglo-American interests. II One of the main objectives of the 27 June suggestions had been to prolong the first truce. Instead, the Arabs rejected the proposal for an extension, and a 'ten-days war' erupted (9-18 July) which provided Israel with significant strategic victories. Bernadotte succeeded in mediating a shaky second truce, but lapses in supervision and the inflow of Czechoslovakian (Soviet) arms enabled the Israelis to further strengthen their position. With the IDF now assuming clear-cut military superiority, British and American interests converged on one fundamental point: the powers' desire to extricate the Arabs from their debacle so as to avoid the risk of even greater losses on the battlefield. As a result, British and American policy-makers co-ordinated their efforts more closely, anxious 'to avoid a situation wherein the Mediator again makes proposals which are considered very unrealistic by both sides and rejected by them' .12 Representatives of the two powers were even sent secretly to Rhodes in an 'attempted conspiracy' at the eleventh hour to influence the mediator's next report to the UNGA.l3 DIRECT NEGOTIATIONS

Even while the attentions of the major powers were directed to Bernadotte's forthcoming report, Israeli diplomatic activity was stepped up in the hopes of achieving direct, bilateral contacts with each of the neighbouring Arab states. Bernadotte and Bunche had their own first-hand experience of the depth of Arab feeling against such direct contacts during consultations on the Island of Rhodes which had preceded the submission of the Count's late-June suggestions. According to Ahmad Shuqayri's memoir of their first session, Bernadotte had explained that, although the parties were not being assembled for the purpose of negotiations between Arabs and Jews, he 'would have no objection if you [Arab representatives] would meet the other side at the tea-table to talk in a general way without any obligation on either of the parties'. Replying on behalf of the Arab group, Shuqayri insisted that there would be 'no meeting

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between us and the Jews, neither on the level of negotiations nor conversations'. When Bernadotte alluded to the fact that meetings between Arab and Jewish leaders had occurred during the mandate period, Shuqayri admitted that such had been the case 'but that was before the establishment of the Jewish state'. In reply to further questioning, the Palestinian lawyer explained that there would be 'no meetings until a return to the status quo ante'. Once the Jewish state 'disappear[ed], ... we shall meet with the Jews for conversations and negotiations'. At this point, Dr Bunche reportedly interrupted, 'his bright eyes sparkling, and said: "I fear that Mr Shuqayri has summarized the Palestine question in its entirety in this single minute."'14

The Israeli peace initiative, August 1948 While the focus of the present study is on international efforts at ArabIsraeli peacemaking, there were moments- for example, in August 1948, during 1949-50 (in secret contacts with King Abdullah of Jordan) and again in August 1952 (after the installation of the Free Officers' regime in Egypt) - when the main diplomatic activity centred around an Israeli 'peace initiative' for direct negotiations with one or more of its neighbours. Despite an increasingly stiff Arab resistance to such moves, bilateral diplomatic activity did persist, often serving as a distraction from international efforts. Given the impetuosity, unpredictability and independence which Count Bernadotte had displayed during June, and given the utterly unacceptable proposals which he had advanced for a solution, it is not surprising that this third-party intervention helped spur Israeli strategists into considering a major initiative aimed at starting direct, bilateral negotiations with Arab leaders at this time. In the final week of July, a number of Israeli officials were recommending that their government undertake such a concerted effort hoping to side-step Count Bernadotte's mediation. Publicly, Prime Minister David BenGurion pointed to the need for the Provisional Government of Israel (PGI), despite recent evidence of its military superiority, 'to exploit every opportunity, perhaps without the assistance of the Mediator [emphasis added, NC], to reach a modus ·vivendi with the Arab peoples' .Is If Count Bernadotte was prepared to help bring about such direct negotiations between Israel and the Arab states - well and good. But, especially following the submission of his unacceptable

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DIPLO~IACY

suggestions of 27 June, Israelis were in no mood to offer any concessions to, or through, the mediator.16 During their meeting on 25 July, Foreign Minister Shertok provided Count Bernadotte with a detailed elaboration of continuing differences of opinion on the questions ofboundaries, immigration, and Jerusalem, and ended by underlining his government's readiness for peace negotiations between the parties directly concerned, recognized by one another as sovereign states. To be fruitful, the negotiations must fully take into account the basic provisions of the Assembly's Resolution ofNovember 29th, as well as the subsequent course of events. A determined effort to bring about such negotiations would be a distinct contribution to the cause of peace.17 Reporting to the Provisional State Council (PSC) several days later, Shertok announced the government's intention to seek 'direct negotiations without any mediation' - although he was open to 'mediation aimed at direct negotiations' and which allowed Israel 'complete freedom of action'. Shertok reminded his listeners that the Arabs' agreement to such talks ('even though the chances [were] very, very vague and unclear') would constitute an important 'test of whether they lean towards peace or war', since peace with Israel was 'only possible if we are recognized as an independent state, with historic rights' .18 A combination of considerations - both positive and negative led Israelis to believe that the time was now ripe for an independent initiative for direct negotiations with the Arab states. Negative motivations for the Israeli diplomatic offensive in early August 1948 included: • fears that the mediator was preparing new recommendations for a solution which would tilt heavily in favour of the interests ofBritain and its Arab clients; • the economic and psychological difficulties of maintaining the truce indefinitely; and • the desire to deflect mounting Arab and American pressure on Israel for a 'gesture' towards the Palestinian refugees. Positive considerations for such a demarche at this time included the feeling that a good negotiating opportunity had been created by 'the

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23

fresh memory of[Israeli] military success', by the flight of the Arabs, and by the progressive stabilization of the Israeli regime and its growing international recognition.l9 While support for a diplomatic initiative among Israel's policymakers was unanimous, there were differences of opinion over the appropriate target(s) of the negotiation overtures. Essentially, Israeli foreign-policy experts were divided between Transjordanian ('Jordanian', after April1949) and Egyptian options or orientations. 20 Throughout the month of August, there were many rumours and reports of various overtures for negotiation, with the Israeli diplomatic offensive resembling a 'shotgun' approach, with no obvious preference between the Transjordanian and Egyptian options. Israel's leading 'Arab affairs expert', Eliahu (Elias) Sasson, who had been sent to Paris to establish contacts with Arab representatives in Europe, was reported to have invited Lebanese Prime Minister Riad as-Sulh, Syrian leader Lutfi al-Haffar and others to meet him for informal discussions. King Abdullah's Minister in London, Abd alMajid Haydar, met at least once with Sasson.21 Bernadotte and the Israeli initiative

In Tel Aviv, IMFA adviser Leo Kohn urged Shertok to follow up his general appeal to Bernadotte by a more explicit request for him to convene 'an official conference' between representatives of Israel and the Arab states. Kohn felt that this overture could be presented to the mediator as a generous Israeli move to help the Arabs 'build for themselves a golden bridge to withdraw from the impasse into which they have manoeuvred themselves by their military adventures and conceit'.22 Shertok, after conversations with UN officials in Tel Aviv, also seemed sensitive to the Arab leaders' need for a way of saving face, and wondered whether invoking Chapter IV, Article 33(2) of the UN Charter (which obliged member-states to settle disputes by peaceful means, such as negotiation, mediation) might be helpful to the Israeli initiative by providing an element of 'coerc[ion] by higher authority which would cover [Arab leaders] internally' _23 In probing the prospects of organizing direct talks between Israel and her neighbours in response to Shertok's earlier request, Count Bernadotte had already picked up discouraging signals during his conversations with Arab leaders. The Transjordanian Prime

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Minister and Foreign Minister, he reported, had 'completely shared [his] view that there was no getting away from the fact that a Jewish State existed and would continue to exist'; yet, 'the only thing they would not agree to was a meeting with the representatives oflsrael'. 24 In Egypt, Egyptian Prime Minister Nuqrashi Pasha and Arab League Secretary-General, Abd ar-Rahman Azzam Pasha, had said essentially the same thing. In conversation with an American official in Cairo, Bernadotte felt that he was 'making progress in obtaining [Arab] acquiescence [in the] existence [of the] Israeli state', but 'not its formal acceptance by [the] Arab states'.25 This dichotomy between acquiescence and acceptance became a fundamental part of the Count's thinking. In his view, Arab leaders might never voluntarily 'accept' Israel 'for fear of public opinion in their countries', but they might 'acquiesce' (not resume warfare) in the existence of aJewish state if such a decision were enforced by the United Nations and the great powers. 26 On 5 August, Shertok officially asked the Count to 'transmit an offer to the belligerent powers on the other side to meet us for a peace conference' and Bernadotte agreed to do so, in spite of doubts and misgivings. 27 The mediator not only dispatched formal notes to Arab leaders, but also took two supplementary steps which demonstrated the seriousness of his intentions. The first was to approach the British government. Given the repeated Arab affirmations of not recognizing the legality or existence of the Jewish state, the UN mediator believed that it would 'greatly facilitate his task' of convening a conference if the British would take the lead and offer to recognize the PGI 'quickly' .28 His second practical step was to follow up his formal note by dispatching a personal envoy in an informal attempt to convince Arab leaders to accept his invitation for direct talks. Both steps led to dead ends. Not for the first or the last time, the UN mediator was left disappointed after appealing to one of the Western powers for important political or material backing.29 The Foreign Office immediately made clear to Bernadotte that His Majesty's Government was 'not at present contemplating any step towards recognition of a Jewish State'. 'Recognition', the Foreign Office asserted, 'was the only major political card that we have to play with the Jews', and it was 'essential that we should reserve it for use at the appropriate moment when we hope to get some worth while and lasting settlement in return.' Foreign Office officials also

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believed that the British 'stock of influence' with the Arabs was 'at present low', and that any step towards recognizing the Jewish state would leave Britain 'without any influence at all on Arab policy at this critical moment'.30 On 10 August, Bernadotte reported to Shertok that he 'Did not think anything would come of[the Israeli] peace offer at this stage, but' - he added - 'this did not mean that there would need to be a resumption of fighting. '31 That very day, Arab League SecretaryGeneral Abd ar-Rahman Azzam ended his meetings with the Egyptian Prime Minister with an announcement that 'The Arabs rejected categorically the proposal ofMoshe Shertok ... for a direct Arab-Israeli peace conference. •32 Two days later the mediator received the official Egyptian reply to his note. Foreign Minister K.hashaba Pasha rejected the call for direct negotiations as 'destined only to force the hand of the Arabs' and to allow the Zionists to consolidate a de facto situation which vainly seeks to stabilize itself and which is the result of terror, persecution, and total disregard for the rights and wishes of the Arabs who nevertheless constitute the immense majority of the Palestinian population. Khashaba reminded the Count that the Arab states had 'never recognized in fact or in law the so-called State oflsrael, begotten by ... Zionist terrorist groups', and would not accept 'the pretension of this so-called State to deal or negotiate in the name of any party in Palestine'.33 Several weeks later, the IMFA issued a press release containing this negative Egyptian reply to Israel's call for peace talks, along with the text of an unanswered letter which Elias Sasson had sent to Azzam Pasha in early December 1947.34 While rejection of such a formal invitation might have been expected, informal soundings were no more encouraging. On the one hand, they indicated a growing split between Abdullah, as a potential partner for talks (see below), and other Arab leaders who would prove adamant against having any direct dealings with the Jewish state. The mediator's personal envoy reported that, following his tour of Arab capitals, his best efforts had not succeeded in persuading any Arab, official or unofficial, to agree to direct meetings (even in secret) with the Israelis.35 Persistent rumours that some Arabs were considering, or actually engaging in, direct talks with Israel were immediately denied in Cairo, Beirut and elsewhere.36 Those Arabs working for a united stand in resisting the pressures

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for acceptance of Israel 'counteracted this peace offensive with firmness and vehemence by calling for preparations for the destruction of the bases of this so-called state'. Noting that, in August 1948, 'the Jewish state was not [yet firmly] established, was surrounded by uncertainty and apprehensions and was liable to dangers and collapse', some Arabs were 'not bereft of the hope of achieving their aspirations by war or by peace'. Claiming that feeling was unanimous both in government circles and among the public at large, Izzat Darwaza argued that it was simply impossible for them to respond positively to Israel's call for negotiations.37 As the call for direct negotiations was being met with either silence or rejection, Israelis utilized two other methods to exert pressure upon the Arabs to negotiate: local military pressure, and international political pressure. Drawing upon the anxieties held by political and military planners for almost a month,38 Israeli spokesmen began to complain ominously that they could not contemplate the indefinite duration of a truce which was imposing heavy economic burdens and psychological strains on the Jewish population. An Israeli official at Lake Success urged as an incentive to [an] early peace, the fixing of an early time limit for the present truce by which either peace must be concluded or [the] invading [Arab] armies leave. If neither result ensued, he warned, 'The Provisional Government of Israel would thereafter be free to seek a way out of the impasse by its own action.'39 According to one Arab source, Syrian leader Shukri al-Quwatli's nerves were 'shattered' by the combined Israeli military and diplomatic pressure during these weeks, while the Iraqi Chief of Staff feared that 'If we reject [the proposals for peace talks] we will be forced to accept worse than this at a later date. '40 At the same time, Israel increased its efforts to mobilize international political pressure on the Arabs to agree to talks, with or without a mediator. From Tel Aviv, President Truman's Special Representative, James G. McDonald, pleaded on Israel's behalf for 'US and UN pressure to force [direct] peace negotiations now.' The presidential envoy was convinced that the American government should concentrate on getting peace negotiations started. To reply that this is difficult or that the Arabs won't accept is to confess that the Arabs can indefinitely call the tune.41

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The same views were advanced even more forcefully by the PGI's Special Representative (later Ambassador) to Washington, Eliahu Epstein (Elath). 'The only hope for a final settlement of the Palestine question', he argued at the State Department, 'would be through the direct intervention of the US and Great Britain.' Dismissing Bernadotte's efforts as incapable of achieving further progress, the Israeli representative claimed that 'if these two countries approached Israel and the Arabs a settlement would more quickly be arranged'. 42 Assistant Secretary of State Robert Lovett was apparently impressed with Epstein's arguments and was becoming increasingly convinced that the proper course for the United States and the United Kingdom Governments to adopt was to make a determined effort to stage a meeting between the Arabs and Jews in the near future.43 But the accumulation of veiled hints at Israel's inability to maintain the truce soon resulted in a tougher attitude towards Israel for its allegedly uncooperative and 'aggressive' behaviour. 44 Israel's repeated requests for an American or an Anglo-American effort to 'force' Israel and the Arabs to negotiate peace at this time led nowhere. Given the unmistakable indications of Arab determination not to deal directly with representatives of the Jewish state, British leaders soon concluded that any attempt to make further progress through direct discussions between the Arabs and Jews themselves would fail, and that the only hope lay in the imposition of a settlement by the United Nations.45 Thus, the last month of the Bernadotte mission offered the first of several testing-grounds between two divergent approaches to peacemaking: direct bilateral Arab-Israeli talks versus international attempts at a negotiated (or imposed) settlement. As we shall see in subsequent chapters, Israel's proclaimed preference for the former would never be enough to convince American or British officials, who would continue to find reasons for believing that only some kind of outside 'coercive diplomacy', coupled with generous Israeli concessions, might dislodge the Arabs from their deep-seated opposition to even meeting with Israeli representatives.

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Israeli- Transjordanian contacts In early August 1948, King Abdullah ofTransjordan had dispatched his Minister in London, Abd al-Majid Haydar, to meet with Eliahu Sasson and to sound out Israel's terms for an agreement. This move was just the latest in a long series of secret contacts in which the Transjordanian monarch had indulged since the start of the Palestine mandate.46 Even after the Israeli 'peace offensive' was stymied by an Arab consensus to avoid direct dealings with the Jewish state, King Abdullah and his trusted advisers persisted in maintaining their own secret contacts with Israelis off-and-on for the next two and a half years. The intricate dealings between Abdullah and the Israelis during and after 1948 have been the subject ofa number of detailed scholarly works,47 and lie beyond the scope of the present study. It suffices to note here that, during the summer of 1948, Abdullah's tendency to chart his own path towards a rapprochement with Israel was already an open secret, to the point of leaving Syrian leaders feeling 'vulnerable to danger because the Jews have an understanding with Transjordan and will be secure vis-a-vis [Syria]'.48 Abdullah's behaviour often attracted the ire of Egyptian, Syrian, Iraqi and Palestinian politicians who feared being isolated or weakened by a potential Israeli-Transjordanian deal. These separate bilateral negotiations, as we shall see in subsequent chapters, also served as a regular counter-point to other diplomatic efforts aimed at a settlement. The fact that such an alternate track for peace talks existed served to complicate, and occasionally side-track, United Nations attempts at fostering Arab-Israeli negotiations.49 Although Abdullah appears, in retrospect, to have been Israel's best chance for a peace accord, opinion among Israeli decision-makers was not unanimous in regarding a deal with the Hashemite monarch as feasible, durable or worth the monarch's asking price, which included a corridor to the Mediterranean, a free zone in Haifa, and a partition of Jerusalem. THE BERNADOTTE PLAN, SEPTEMBER 1948: ACQUIESCENCE VERSUS AGREEMENT

As the Israeli 'peace offensive' was fizzling out in late August, the initiative reverted to the Western powers, who looked forward to implementing a Palestine settlement based on the forthcoming

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Bernadotte report to the UNGA. This approach dovetailed perfectly with that of the mediator, whose real aim was now to win AngloAmerican and United Nations- rather than Arab and Israelisupport for his revised proposals. This was the key feature which distinguished the mediator's final plan from his tentative suggestions of late June. SO Having learned from the bitter experience of July and August that there was no hope of achieving a ·voluntary Arab-Israeli agreement, both Bernadotte and Ralph Bunche- who had a decisive hand in the drafting of the reportS! - hoped to see their proposals imposed on the reluctant adversaries by the UN and the Western powers. The British recommended to their American allies that the powers work jointly towards 'a UN decision to which the Arabs and Jews would acquiesce', having reached the conclusion that 'at this stage it would be impractical to attempt to get the parties to negotiate an agreement'.52 In presenting his proposals to the UN, Bernadotte felt that the time was 'ripe for a settlement', despite the parties' consistent rejection to date of all compromises suggested to them. The sort of settlement envisaged, he underlined, was not a 'formal agreement' but rather the parties' acquiescence, 'however reluctantly, in any reasonable settlement on which is placed the stamp of approval of the United Nations'. The Count expected that both the Arab states and Israel would feel themselves 'morally' bound to comply with a majority decision of the General Assembly. He was convinced that it was 'possible at this stage to formulate a proposal which, if firmly approved and strongly backed by the General Assembly, would not be forcibly resisted by either side'. 53 The actual terms of the 'proposals', signed and completed on 16 September (Document 2), were only slightly less objectionable to Arabs and Israelis than the earlier suggestions (Document 1) which they had 'flatly rejected'. Bernadotte retreated from his previous recommendation for the political and economic union of Palestine and Transjordan, and now proposed placing Jerusalem under United Nations control. The Count recognized 'historical connection and common interests' as offering 'compelling reasons' for merging the Palestinian West Bank with Trans jordan to the east. As in his earlier set of suggestions, the mediator continued to advocate the reallocation of the Negev to Arab, and the Galilee to Jewish, sovereignty. Also common to both sets of proposals - and of key strategic interest to the Western powers- was his call for the

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declaration of a free port in Haifa, whose terminal for the allimportant pipeline carrying Iraqi oil to the Mediterranean had been closed in the early stages of the fighting. Bernadotte further recommended that 'the right of the Arab refugees to return to their homes in Jewish-controlled territory at the earliest possible date should be affirmed by the United Nations'. His final proposal was for the establishment of a conciliation commission to continue working for 'the peaceful adjustment of the situation in Palestine'. The next day, 17 September 1948, Count Folke Bernadotte and one of his senior officers were murdered by a terrorist of the LEHI group as their jeep drove through the Jewish sector of]erusalem. 54 During the following weeks, members of the UN General Assembly, acting partly under the impact of deep shock and moral indignation, appeared ready to adopt the second Bernadotte plan as a tribute to the assassinated mediator. The mediator's report at first benefited from firm Anglo-American support in principle, with both London and Washington making strong representations to Arab and Israeli leaders, urging them to 'acquiesce' in allowing the Bernadotte plan to serve as a basis for discussion.55 They were joined in this effort by the Count's successor, Ralph]. Bunche, who engaged in extensive personal diplomacy aimed at softening the unco-operative stances adopted by both parties, who repeatedly stressed that they found the proposals unacceptable. 56 During October and November, however, American support for such joint diplomatic activity steadily eroded, partly in response to an Israeli diplomatic campaign aimed at rallying presidential candidates and American public opinion against forcing the Israelis to retreat from the Negev. By mid-November, the British were left virtually alone in pressing for UNGA endorsement and implementation of the Bernadotte proposals and their territorial provisions. 57 While parts of Bernadotte's final report were transformed into a landmark UNGA resolution in early December (Document 4), in the end, nothing further came of the plan itself. PATTERNS AND PRECEDENTS

Despite the fact that his proposed solution never came into being, Bernadotte's brief and unsuccessful mediation attempts either initiated or illustrated at least seven enduring features of the quest for an Arab-Israeli peace settlement. These patterns would be

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replicated, with slight variations, during the coming peacemaking efforts of the Western powers and the UN Conciliation Commission for Palestine, and the episode would leave its distinctive mark on the attitudes of Arabs and Israelis for years to come.

1. Rhodes meetings In the early, optimistic days of his mission, Count Bernadotte had supplemented his 'shuttle diplomacy' among Middle Eastern capitals with an invitation to the parties to send 'technical consultants' to assemble at his headquarters on the Island of Rhodes, to serve as sounding-boards during the final elaboration of the 27 June suggestions. 58 Despite the obvious criticism that these suggestions had been prepared too hastily and superficially, 59 the June 1948 Rhodes consultations were a procedural innovation on which the Count's successor, Ralph Bunche, would build when he organized armistice negotiations - incorporating direct Egyptian-Israeli talks - in the same venue in January 1949 (see below, Chapter Ill). 2. The refugees: pressure for an Israeli 'gesture' Bernadotte's espousal of the cause of the Palestinian Arab refugees (llan refers to him as 'the first statesman openly to warn the UN that such a problem did exist'60) set an important pattern in that this concern was invariably accompanied by calls for an Israeli 'gesture'. The key to peace, the mediator and others often argued, lay in Israel's agreement to the readmission of 'a small trickle of refugees', or in its issuance of a conciliatory statement regarding its commitment to resolving the refugee problem. 61 The theory propounded by Bernadotte and others after him was that an appropriate Israeli gesture would not only be seen as a humanitarian act to relieve the suffering of the refugees (and thereby enhance Israel's standing in the world), but would also have the psychological impact of diminishing the hostility of the Arab states and unblocking the political impasse. Influenced by reports from the mediator, the State Department also began subscribing to this view. 62 While Israeli officials were willing to admit that the refugees required relief, they considered any steps regarding their return as another matter - 'a political question of the first magnitude'. 63 Israelis, in contrast to Bernadotte, Bunche and others, made a different reading of the likely reaction of their adversaries to the

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recommended gestures, arguing that 'the refugee problem [was] an inducement to the Arab States to reach a final settlement, while a solution of the refugee problem would leave no such inducement'. 64 Israel's Washington representative explained that 'the return of Arab refugees would endanger the security of Israel and would constitute a serious drain on its economic resources'; hence, their return 'could not be considered prior to peace negotiations ... , as this question would be of importance to them as a bargaining point in such negotiations'.65 Thus began a recurring tug-of-war between Israel and would-be international peacemakers over the return of Palestinian refugees. Given the hardline stances adopted by both the Arab states and Israel, the refugees themselves soon became entangled in the web of cynical calculations by both sides. Although Dean Rusk at the US State Department singled out the Israelis for criticism for 'using the fate of these unfortunate people to enhance its bargaining position' in August 1948,66 the same comments could be applied, pari passu, to the other side in the months and years that followed. 3. Great power role

The Western powers, especially the United States and Great Britain, ended up playing a crucial behind-the-scenes role in giving effect to activities pursued under the auspices of the United Nations. Without their effective technical, financial and political support, UN mediators and conciliators, beginning with Bernadotte, Bunche and the PCC, would be able to make little progress. 4. Great power co-operation

From the attempts to influence the writing of Bernadotte's report until the final breakdown of the Anglo-American push for implementation of the plan at the UNGA, there was both a great need for, and serious limitations on, Anglo-American co-operation in approaching the Palestine issue. S. Military realities

Local military achievements on the ground and the perceived balance of power played- and would continue to play- a larger role in determining the bargaining stances of the parties than all the

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exhortations and inducements coming from abroad. When applied to the Arab-Israeli truces of 1948-49, this reality led Israelis to look upon Bernadotte as the initiator of unwanted attempts to 'roll back the territorial gains of military victory', while Arabs tended to welcome his mediation for precisely that reason.67 UN (and other) calls for the cessation of hostilities and for peaceful relations held little moral force in themselves, but had to be understood in the context of the military realities affecting the embattled adversaries.

6. Savingfoce: an imposed settlement While all post-war reconciliation attempts must take into account the need of the defeated party to 'save face', the issue was particularly complicated in the wake of the first Arab-Israeli war. In the course of the Bernadotte mission, a paradoxical notion took root 'that the Arabs would be willing to be coerced [my emphasis, NC] by the UN into recognising Israel and eventually making peace with her'. The mediator and others who were privy to the private thoughts of Arab leaders seemed to detect a secret willingness to have the powers or the UN impose a settlement on the region. This outside coercion would perform the necessary task of serving 'as a face-saver to [the Arab leaders] vis-a-vis their own public' .68 This presumption about the dynamics of Arab leadership and popular opinion became widespread in United Nations, US State Department, British Foreign Office and Israel Foreign Ministry circles.69

7. The mediator's style The Count's unique personal style also left its mark on the parties, especially the Israelis who, from the start, had had little confidence in his integrity, his abilities, or his attitude to Jews. 70 The confidence and trust in Count Bernadotte ofboth Arabs and Israelis were undermined by periodic accusations of bias and by rumours of his being a British agent. There was also a feeling that his efforts may have been motivated more by personal aggrandizement than by an honest interest in resolving this particular conflict. During the coming years, the term 'Bernadottism' would occasionally be used pejoratively by Israeli officials to denote a dangerous dilettantism of outsiders and would-be mediators who descended upon the Middle East with grandiose ambitions to resolve the conflict in one fell swoop.71

CHAPTER III 1

Egypt and Israel at Rhodes

UNITED NATIONS PEACEMAKING: TWO TRACKS

There were three main reasons for the abandonment of the Bernadotte proposals in late 1948: • the determined opposition of not only Arabs and Israelis, but also the Soviet Union;2 • the impact of pro-Israeli campaign pledges during the American presidential election on the activities of the State Department and the US mission at the UN;3 and • 'drastic, irreversible' changes in the truce lines created by the Israeli army during the fall of 1948.4 But, while not resulting in endorsement of the terms of the Bernadotte 'plan' as such, the Paris meetings of the Security Council and General Assembly in October, November and December of 1948 did produce two tracks for future United Nations efforts at Arab-Israeli peacemaking.s On 15 October, the Israelis began advancing across their Egyptian front in Operation 'Yoav'. During the week-long campaign, Israeli forces broke through Egyptian lines in the Northern Negev, capturing Beersheba, surrounding an entire Egyptian brigade at al-Faluja and expanding their hold on parts of the Mediterranean coast, the Hebron area and the Jerusalem corridor.6 This resumption of military activity brought the UNSC into session. After

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calling for the withdrawal of forces and the establishment of 'permanent truce lines' on 4 November, Security Council resolution 62 (1948) of 16 November 1948 went one step further and called upon the parties 'to seek agreement forthwith, by negotiations conducted either directly or through the Acting Mediator, with a view to the immediate establishment of[an] armistice' to consolidate the shaky ceasefires on all fronts. 7 This resolution became the basis for the first of two UN tracks: the armistice negotiations conducted by Dr Ralph Bunche on the Island of Rhodes in January 1949. The second track for UN efforts at conflict-resolution was UNGA resolution 194(111) of 11 December 1948 (Document 4)- a resolution which was to become an important benchmark for attempts to resolve the Arab-Israeli dispute during the coming decades. Among its key elements, the resolution established the Palestine Conciliation Commission and mandated that body, inter alia, to assume at its discretion the functions of the UN mediator, and to 'take steps to assist the Governments and authorities concerned to achieve a final settlement of all questions outstanding between them'. (The fruitless efforts of the PCC to fulfil its mandate for a 'final settlement' will be detailed in Chapters IV-VI below.) Resolution 194 'In effect codified the Bernadotte approach to the Palestine problem', alienated the Israelis, and 'formed the basis of Arab claims for the next forty years. •8 FROM TRUCE TO ARMISTICE

While the quest for an armistice, as an interim step towards a peace settlement, has usually been credited to acting mediator Ralph S. Bunche, it had really been started by his predecessor, Count Bernadotte, in the summer of 1948. Given fears that the existing ceasefire and truce lines might not remain stable, Count Bernadotte had suggested to Israel's Foreign Minister, Moshe Shertok, that the parties move towards replacing the truce lines by an 'armistice'. Shertok's response was positive. As he understood it, the truce was a phase of war, while an armistice was a phase of peace. An armistice implied some preliminary agreement to negotiate peace. It presupposes agreement by the Arabs to sit with the State of Israel and discuss terms for a settlement.

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But, sensing that this might not be the way in which the Arabs might understand it, the Israeli leader went on: An armistice which merely entailed the evacuation of certain areas, placing the neutral zones (no-man's land) under international control, might well lead to a reduction of Israel's bargaining power before an agreement had been obtained from the Arabs to negotiate a peace settlement.9 Several weeks later, the PGI informed the United Nations of its view that '[n]one of the problems created by the war [could] be solved within the framework of the truce.'IO After Dr Bunche replaced the assassinated Bernadotte, the UN concentrated its efforts on convincing the parties to move from truce agreements to armistice arrangements. II It was precisely because they wanted to prevent Israel from building towards a peace settlement based on existing truce lines and its military advantage that most Arab spokesmen hesitated to subscribe to Shertok's understanding of the move from truce to armistice. In reply to a UN official in Amman, Prime Minister Tawfiq Abul-Huda announced that his government did 'not see any objection to changing the present Truce into [a] permanent Armistice' because it did 'not see any difference between the two' .12 In reply to Iraqi queries and concerns, the Transjordanian Prime Minister planned to reply that the 'permanent armistice' being considered was 'a "cease fire" only'. Privately, however, Abul-Huda harboured serious misgivings that such talks were indeed the thin edge of the wedge that might lead to peace talks. He confided to Sir Alec Kirkbride, British Minister in Amman, that he had decided that he could not remain at the head of a government which negotiated a settlement with the Jews. He would retire on the grounds of ill health when the time came for a final settlement.l3 Indeed, a number of Arab leaders (especially Iraqis) greatly feared that, under the guise of moving from truce to armistice, they might be forced by their military disadvantage into recognizing Israel and signing a political settlement which would have conceded their struggle for an Arab Palestine. Hence, they sought clarifications from Transjordanian and Egyptian officials, and sent signals to the British and the Americans that they expected that forthcoming

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armistice talks would be 'of[a] military nature designed [to] implementS[ ecurity] C[ ouncil] resolutions re: Truce and Armistice', but with no discussion of a 'peace settlement or political matters'.l4 Following the signing of the various General Armistice Agreements in 1949, Arab spokesmen would repeatedly stress the military character of the armistice, which, they claimed, left them free to continue to press their political claims and grievances against the Jewish state. GETTING TO THE TABLE

Egypt, which was the first Arab state to sign a formal peace treaty with Israel in 1979, had also been the first Arab state to sign an armistice agreement with the Jewish state 30 years earlier. No research monograph has yet appeared which offers an authoritative account and analysis of the motives, tactics and manoeuvres of the Egyptian and Israeli delegations at the Rhodes talks based on newlyavailable archival documents. IS In the present chapter, we shall offer a general outline of the progress and dynamics of those negotiations, followed by an attempt to weigh their significance. The signature of the Egyptian-Israeli General Armistice Agreement (EIGAA) (Document 5) on 24 February 1949 was preceded by over three months of talks, including almost two months of prenegotiation. The process and structure of the Israeli-Egyptian talks, and the text of the resulting agreement, not only became models for the three subsequent sets of armistice negotiations, but also came to serve as an important reference-point for all future Arab-Israeli peace efforts, including the more comprehensive talks held at Lausanne (below, Chapters IV-VI). It took two UNSC resolutions (4 and 16 November) to end the fighting that the Israelis had initiated under Operation Yoav. Even while in Paris, during the discussions over draft United Nations resolutions in November, some Egyptian feelers were conveyed to the Israelis via Dr Bunche.l6 On the morning after the passage of Security Council resolution 62 of 16 November, the acting mediator contacted Israelis and Egyptians to begin preparing for the armistice talks.17 In attempting to start up these talks, Bunche found his task made more difficult by British manoeuvring at the United Nations and elsewhere to have the Bernadotte plan endorsed- or, at least to keep the Negev from becoming part of the Jewish state. IS

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The Israelis, while hardly ready to retreat behind earlier cease fire lines as called for in the earlier resolution of 4 November, looked forward to the talks envisaged in the second resolution (16 November) as offering a political and psychological breakthrough in their quest for direct negotiations and recognition.l9 They were perturbed when Egyptian leaders took their time in replying to Bunche's inquiries, especially by their insistence of the prior withdrawal oflsraeli forces to the truce lines which they had crossed on 15 October.20 In an effort to advance the talks, Dr Bunche visited the Middle East in early December and held meetings with Egyptian, Israeli and Transjordanian leaders. 21 For most ofDecember 1948, the parties haggled over terms and conditions affecting the implementation of the two partially contradictory UN ceasefire resolutions. 22 Much of the difficulty was due to Egyptian attempts to resist paying too heavy a political price for the decisive military advantage which the Israeli army had achieved in the Gaza area and in surrounding Egyptian troops in the Faluja 'pocket' in the Negev.23 Israel persisted in refusing to retreat behind the ceasefire lines of 14 October, as called for in the Security Council resolution of 4 November. The acting mediator attempted to have the Israelis lift the siege at Faluja, with special personal appeals such as the message delivered to Dr Eytan of the IMFA: It offers you and your Government an 'unique' opportunity of making a 'beau geste' for the troops encircled in Faluja and nothing would help more[,] not only for the immediate negociation [sic] for an armistice but for future relations with Egypt.

Excusing himself for his 'frankness', Dr Bunche concluded his entreaties with the words: 'I write because I am sure that by refusing you will miss a great opportunity for your country and peace.' 24 But the Israelis insisted on certain conditions before allowing any evacuation from Faluja, and in the end chose to decline what might have been a potential political-psychological advantage in favour of maintaining their concrete military advantage.25 While issues like Faluja posed obstacles to getting the parties to the table, a deeper psychological hurdle remained: the very idea of Arabs having to

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conduct negotiations with 'the Jews', at a time when their leaders were pledging never to recognize the new Jewish state.26 A renewed Israeli offensive on the Egyptian front in late December saw the IDF crossing the international boundary onto Egyptian soil for the first time. Five British reconnaissance planes were shot down by Israelis on the last day of a 17-day action which drew Egyptian, American and British anger and provoked a serious crisis in Israel's relations with the two Western powers.27 But, significantly, Operation Horev also had the effect of hastening the onset of direct talks with the Egyptians.28 During the first week of January 1949, Pablo de Azcarate, representing the UN acting mediator, met in Cairo with Egyptian military officers to finalize the terms and conditions for a ceasefire to the latest flare-up. At first, the officers would agree to direct talks only on the explicit condition that this would not be considered 'as implying recognition oflsrael; moreover the negociations [sic] should be purely on military matters'. On reconsideration, however, Colonels Chirine and Nouh agreed to strike out these two conditional phrases, which were then omitted from Azcarate's telegram to Dr Bunche. Several days later, the same officers confirmed the wording of an Egyptian agreement to 'direct negotiations between its representative and Jewish representatives under UN chairmanship' on the basis of both UNSC resolutions of 4 and 16 November.29 Azcarate was supported in his delicate talks from the sidelines (but without his knowledge) by the US State Department, which had instructed its embassy in Cairo to make representations at the highest levels urging compliance with the UNSC call for negotiations. 3D This allowed the Egyptian government to announce (to the chagrin of the UN representative) that its acceptance of the cease fire was in response to an offer of 'US government mediation', rather than a result of 'the action engaged in by the Mediator's representative, on his behalf and under his instructions'.31 Several days later, the Egyptian Foreign Ministry issued another communique, correcting its earlier announcement to the effect that the US had not offered 'mediation' but rather its 'good offices'.32 At Dr Bunche's instigation, American pressure was then turned towards Israel to accept the terms for the ceasefire which Azcarate had worked out with the Egyptians. On this point, however, the Israelis needed no outside encouragement, having concluded that the Egyptian offer represented a significant turning point.33

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During the second week of January, the thoughts of Egyptian and Israeli officials turned to practical details, such as the venue of talks and the level of representation. Messages were passed, as required, between Israeli and Egyptian officials through UN or US diplomatic personnei.34 On 11 January, Egyptian Foreign Minister Ibrahim Dessouky Abaza appointed three military men and one civilian Col. Muhammad Ibrahim Seif ad-Din, Col. Muhammad Kamel arRahmani, Col. Ismail Chirine and Dr Ahmad Moussa- to represent his country in the scheduled armistice negotiations. The composition of the Israeli delegation was four Foreign Ministry officials (Director-General Dr Walter Eytan, Reuven Shiloah, Eliahu Sasson, Shabtai Rosenne) and one senior military officer (Col. Yigal Yadin).35 At first, the Israelis had hoped to be able to conduct the talks on the level of Foreign Ministers,36 but Egyptian reluctance to exceed the military dimension of the discussions soon became clear. This confusion partly contributed to the lack of symmetry in the composition of the two delegations, and was the first of several signals that, despite the definition of the talks as 'military', the political dimension lurked almost everywhere. At one point Egyptian officials in Cairo were reportedly so worried by the tendency of the Israelis to push the talks beyond purely military considerations that some lastminute British persuasion was required to prevent them from holding back their delegation to Rhodes.37 In addition to the normal pressures on the delegations to bring home a respectable deal which domestic opposition would not exploit, there would be other political pressures surrounding these talks. As members of the Arab League attempted to harmonize their Palestine policies and interests, the separate steps taken by Egypt in proceeding with the Rhodes talks became a source of awkwardness and embarrassment.38 Arab and Egyptian sources were at pains to insist, somewhat misleadingly, that Egyptian participation at Rhodes involved neither direct negotiations with Israelis nor matters relating to the general question of peace. 39 On 12 January 1949, most of the negotiators arrived at the Hotel des Roses on the Island of Rhodes, the site of the original headquarters of the late UN mediator, Count Folke Bernadotte. Few, if any, expected that they would be remaining there for the next six

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weeks. The talks would be conducted against the very real backdrop of armed forces in their respective positions, and in an atmosphere strained by the continuing Israeli military pressure. Despite these realities, Egyptian leaders back home managed to maintain a victorious public facade. In Al-Mussawar of 27 January, Prime Minister Ibrahim Abdel-Hadi explained that Egypt had decided to stop fighting in Palestine 'because the Security Council so decreed', and added that this decision had been taken 'at a time when her armed forces were at their zenith in discipline and strength'.40 The impression was created in some nationalist circles that, owing to British duplicity, the Egyptian army was being held back before it could reap the fruits of its valiant efforts on the battlefield.41 Neutral observers, however, were well aware that an Egyptian negotiating team had been forced into going to Rhodes by 'their military plight'.42 In particular, the siege of Egyptian forces at Faluja remained the cause of much 'bad feeling and trouble' - a problem which the acting mediator hoped (in vain) to 'liquidate ... very early in the discussions.'43 During separate unofficial meetings with the Egyptian and Israeli delegations on 12 January, Ralph Bunche explained procedures and sought to establish common definitions and expectations. His definition of 'armistice' was the 'liquidation of war on the military level', while 'peace' would be the liquidation of war 'on the political level'.44 In attempting to sort out the political and the military dimension of the talks, Dr Bunche ended up disappointing the Israelis by exaggerating (in their view) the necessity of keeping the talks purely military, while at the same time causing Col. Chirine some concern by referring to the inevitability of 'political entanglements' arising during the scheduled talks.45 On Thursday afternoon, 13 January, the armistice talks were officially opened and an agenda adopted. 46 By all accounts, the talks got off to a very good start. After the first week of meetings, the Israeli delegation and Dr Bunche were confidently predicting that the conference might conclude within another week. The following week was tougher going. A revised general ceasefire agreement was signed on 24 January, but this was a token achievement given the serious disappointment and confusion caused when the Israelis still refused to lift the Faluja siege because no armistice had been signed by that date.47 The acting mediator enlisted 'all the arts at his command' in a futile attempt to persuade the Israelis to allow the

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evacuation as a sign oflsraeli 'faith in the Egyptians' intentions'.48 Dr Bunche then called a short recess to allow delegates to return home for consultations. The head of Israel's delegation, believing that it was 'simply a matter of wearing the Egyptians down', had been prepared to persist in what he conceded was a 'rather callous and extremely tiring' process in view of 'the great political possibilities which success would open up'.49 The Faluja affair had created some bitterness and bad feeling, and it resulted in increased external pressures on, and criticism of, lsrael.SO But Eytan considered it an 'artificial crisis' which Bunche had manipulated 'for the purpose of discovering which side had the stronger nerves and which would give in first'. In that sense, he appeared not unhappy that the deadlock 'may have served a pretty useful purpose after all'.5l Standstill

The talks were able to continue in spite of the disappointment and misunderstandings surrounding the Faluja affair, but a new and more serious impasse soon developed over future boundaries and control of Beersheba and the al-Auja area along the Negev-Sinai frontier. This deadlock was complicated by two sets of external factors: • the entanglement of Israel's bargaining position in the current Egyptian negotiations with preparations for the expected round of armistice talks with Transjordan,sz and • Britain's encouragement of Egyptian-Transjordanian coordination regarding a possible future territorial settlement involving the sharing of the southern Negev between the two. 53 Egyptian disillusionment grew with the realization, at Rhodes, that the Israelis had no intention of complying with parts of the UNSC resolutions requiring a pull-back of armed forces to the ceasefire lines of 14 October 1948. Once the impasse became apparent, AlAssas, a 'government mouthpiece' and one of the only papers allowed to comment on the Palestine issue at this time, began devoting its editorials to explanations of why Egypt, which according to the Egyptian press ha[ d] been militarily victorious in Palestine, must reconcile herself to an

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eventual Palestine settlement which will be undesirable from her standpoint.54 Given the stalemate at Rhodes, some began pressing for a gesture of Israeli magnanimity, something to help the Egyptians find a way to 'save face' and thereby ease the looming predicament of the government in Cairo. 55 While sensitive to the need for Egypt to 'get out of Palestine ... without dishonour', Walter Eytan maintained that symbolic concessions designed to help the Egyptian government deal with its public opinion had 'nothing to do with the armistice and [were] no concern of ours'. 56 Israel refused to agree to the appointment of an Egyptian military governor in (Israeliheld!) Beersheba, an 'absurd' demand which seems to have been advanced on the grounds that 'the public in their country was not aware of their defeat and they could not return empty-handed to Egypt'.57 Moshe Shertok wanted Bunche to understand that 'the Egyptians were paying for their criminal invasion [of Palestine] and its failure'. If the Egyptian government did 'not have the courage to admit its failure to the people', it was not for the Israelis to help them out. Still, the Foreign Minister was keen to find the ideal formula which would allow 'the possibility of the other side saving face without undermining [Israeli] control' of border areas. 58 As discussions resumed following the brief recess, Dr Bunche felt the prospects of agreement were 'virtually nil', with both sides recognizing the deadlock but neither party prepared to take responsibility for walking out of the talks. 59 At the end of January, the acting mediator presented a draft agreement in separate discussions with each of the parties. Dr Bunche's compromise proposal was accepted by the Egyptian delegation almost without reservation, but contained provisions which the Israeli delegation considered unacceptable at any price. 60 A showdown seemed inevitable. Following Bunche's appeal to the UN, the US State Department encouraged the acting mediator to persevere, and increased its representations to the governments ofEgypt and Israel, especially to the latter.61 Appeals to the powers The threat of invoking Security Council action against an obstinate party had always 'lurked behind Bunche's conversations', and as the

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talks dragged on into February this threat began to come out clearly to the Israeli delegation. 62 But far more than any UN body, it was the US and Great Britain which played a prominent role in the dynamics of deadlock and breakthrough at Rhodes. Perhaps overgenerously, British Foreign Secretary Ernest Bevin had credited 'United States pressure on both sides' and 'British advice to the Arab Governments' with the progress that had been achieved during the opening week of talks. 63 When he perceived a serious breakdown in late January, Dr Bunche called upon the UNSC to intervene. But, instead of dealing with Bunche's appeal in the Security Council, Secretary-General Trygve Lie drew the State Department into the process by passing Bunche's letter along to the American mission at the UN.64 But the acting mediator was not the only party sending signals which found their way to the US State Department and the British Foreign Office. Complaints from both delegations to their home governments were frequently translated into appeals to both the United States and Great Britain. The parties' appeals for outside intervention invariably sought pressure to be brought to bear on the other side so as to unblock an impasse caused by the other side's unrealistic expectations, bad faith and/ or stubbornness. This was especially true during the first recess in late January, and also in early February following submission of Dr Bunche's draft agreement.65 In late January, the Israelis formally invoked the 'good offices' of the Americans (who, in turn, appealed to the British) to help persuade the Egyptians to agree to their armistice demarcation-line proposals. 66 For their part, Egyptians requested the Americans and the British to persuade the Israelis to 'comply with the United Nations resolutions' and also to lift the siege at Faluja, which in their view ought to have been done unconditionally. 67 Israeli representatives meeting with American officials in Washington, New York and Tel Aviv attempted to counteract the Egyptian arguments and deflect pressure in the other direction.68 From the American vantage point, Secretary of State Dean Acheson was keen to define American activity not as 'intervention' but as using its 'good offices' to facilitate the talks. In several cases, the transmission of these complaints and counter-complaints through the State Department did help to advance the negotiations by producing new instructions from Tel Aviv or Cairo to the

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delegations at Rhodes. On balance, in early February the Americans were siding with the Egyptian view, and had come to the conclusion that without 'statesmanlike concessions' on Israel's part, the Rhodes talks would fail. 69 In response to the pressure, Israeli representatives provided detailed counter-arguments to Egyptian complaints regarding their alleged inflexibility or bad faith. Underlying these Israeli arguments was a strong feeling that Egypt should not be allowed to achieve through armistice negotiations what it had failed to achieve on the battlefield.70 In outlining the reasonableness of the Israeli position on the remaining points at issue on 7 February, Aubrey Eban argued that 'The Egyptian Government ha[ d] ample material with which to emerge honourably from these negotiations. We think that they could legitimately be influenced to sign at this point.'71 Two sets of perceptions complicated the powers' ability to intervene constructively in assuring the success of the Rhodes talks. On the one hand, Israelis and Americans believed that the British were offering advice which had the effect of 'stiffening' the Egyptian attitude at Rhodes. Counterbalancing this were British and Arab perceptions that the US lacked the resolve to back UN decisions consistently in the face of alleged Israeli defiance. Keeping effective and even-handed British and American pressure on the parties at Rhodes became a delicate balancing-act for the two powers, and constituted a challenge and test-case for Anglo-American cooperation on the Palestine issue.72 Unlike the Americans, the British had real interests (and not just goodwill) to consider in Egypt,Jordan and Iraq. Treaties of alliance with these countries involved potential British military obligations, while strategic planners were unhappy about the prospect of permanent Israeli control of the Negev.73 But because British influence on Israel was at this time nil {or negative), it was ultimately the American representations to both sides which helped steer the Rhodes talks to their final conclusion.

Four channels of communication Like all such conferences, the Rhodes discussions operated at both a formal and informal level. In practice there were four types of meetings at Rhodes: (1) formal tripartite meetings, (2) informal tripartite meetings, (3) individual delegates' private conversations with Dr Bunche, and (4) informal Israeli-Egyptian meetings.

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(1) The formal, and least interesting, side of the Rhodes negotiations saw the parties meeting face-to-face under the chairmanship of Ralph Bunche only five times during the six weeks, including the ceremonial opening and signing sessions. 74 (2) The parties also met several times for joint 'informal' sessions under UN auspices. In the second and third 'joint informal' meetings (4 and 5 February), for example, the parties exchanged views on Dr Bunche's draft armistice agreement page by page. These sessions were valuable for the parties to come to grips with the real differences that separated them. Not surprisingly, the informal meetings gave rise to some very heated and angry exchanges. 75 Important practical work was accomplished in smaller military and legal working-groups composed of one Israeli and one Egyptian presided over by a UN official. 76 (3) Outside the formalities, Bunche and his aides met frequently with members of the two delegations, probing quietly but persistently for the terms of possible compromises which would be transmitted to the other side. Sometimes Bunche would write a very personal 'Dear Walter' letter to plead for greater Israeli understanding of Egyptian sensitivities. If an agreement were reached in these ways, it would afterwards be translated into progress at the official bargaining table or through an exchange offormal notes.77 Apart from this procedure which called upon him to display his personal powers of persuasion (described by Eytan as a 'melange of charm and high-pressure diplomacy'),78 another of the acting mediator's techniques was to formulate working-papers which helped to clarify the issues by outlining the points of divergence between the delegations.79 It was during some of the private meetings between individual Egyptians or Israelis and the acting mediator that the true feelings and obstacles to success became evident. For example, during their informal talk of 23 January, Ralph Bunche attempted to convey to Dr Eytan a sense of the Egyptian delegates' frustration and 'complete disillusionment'. Offering only his own 'purely personal views', the acting mediator expressed his disappointment at finding such little understanding of the Egyptian situation among the Israeli delegation. While, on the formal level, Bunche was perceived by at least one participant as displaying unique sensitivity by having the 'delegations [meet] on a footing of complete equality' ('he would

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not tolerate any idea that one was "victor" and the other "vanquished"'), SO the acting mediator, in private, appealed for Israel's 'generosity toward what was, at this stage, a beaten foe'. He said that he felt 'that there was a real opportunity for great statesmanship on the part oflsrael which in his purely personal view would pay handsome dividends in the future'. Concluding his 22-page account of their meeting, Dr Bunche could assure Mr Eytan that although he himself was notoriously tight fisted he could find no evidence of the Israeli delegation having given something away. Future generations would certainly not regard them as being in any sense a Santa Claus.Sl Another example of Dr Bunche's personal diplomacy in action was the acting mediator's four-hour 'intensive consultation' with Col. Chirine and his legal adviser on 12 February, during which Bunche became aware of a stiffening of the Egyptian position. His report to the UN Secretary-General, deploring the fact that the 'prospects for agre[e]ment appear very slight', added to the pressure being exerted by New York and Washington on Egypt.82 (4) A fourth avenue of communication, once the 'personal ice' had been broken, was the direct Egyptian-Israeli channel: informal talks between members of the Israeli delegation and some of the advisers to the Egyptian delegation. Both parties used this channel to indicate informally and (ostensibly) frankly what conditions would have to be met in order to produce changes in their delegation's official posture, or to confirm whether a public stance was truly the immovable 'bottom line'. The Israelis used this channel effectively, for example, to convince the Egyptians of their determination to have all of the Negev, as well as to insist upon their terms for the lifting of the Faluja siege.83 The direct channel also provided opportunities for floating trial-balloons (and seeing them shot down) without fear of jeopardizing the talks as a whole. For example, while the official Israeli bargaining stance called for an Egyptian evacuation of the Gaza strip (to be replaced by an international regime or mixed Egyptian-Israeli administration), there appears to have been unofficial feelers from the Israelis for a separate and full

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peace treaty with Egypt if the latter would accept a permanent frontier which would have left Gaza inside Israel. In reporting this alleged offer to British Ambassador Sir Ronald Campbell, Foreign Minister Dessouky Abaza added that the Israelis had said 'that Israel would prove an excellent neighbour with whom Egypt would find that she would get on swimmingly and that the other Arab States counted for nothing'. The Egyptians, according to Abaza, had replied that they 'could not contemplate this: the present talks were military ones confined to drawing up of the truce and armistice lines'.84 The most intensive period of direct meetings seems to have been during the second week of February, and involved Abd al-Mun'im Mustafa (whom Israelis identified as the 'real boss of the Egyptian delegation'),85 Omar Lutfi, Eliahu (Elias) Sasson, and Reuven Shiloah, with the occasional participation ofYitzhak Rabin and Yigal Yadin. 86 These face-to-face encounters left Sasson with the impression that the Egyptian position was becoming 'more compromising', and a joint meeting between the two delegations (without UN participation) was planned 'in order to remove the contradictions between us in a direct manner and in a friendly atmosphere'.87 An added incentive to the Israelis' longstanding enthusiasm for direct bilateral meetings was their doubts as to Dr Bunche's reliability as a rapporteur of the views of the two delegations (cf. below, page 55). During the Egyptian-Israeli meeting of 14 February, Walter Eytan was able to offer some compromises recently approved by the Israeli cabinet, principally an agreement to create a demilitarized zone around al-Auja. Thanks to 'the friendly atmosphere and the smallness of the room', the meeting made 'rapid progress'.88 Egyptian reports from Rhodes following the joint meeting were 'less pessimistic, or even more optimistic', with 'the Jews' reported to be showing signs of being 'less uncompromising'.89 On 16 February Eytan wrote that the parties were 'now clearly in sight of the end' of the negotiations. Even though the draft would have to be flown to Cairo for approval, the Egyptian delegates sounded confident that there would be no undue delay. Dr Bunche began preparing for a post-signature party, 'with souvenirs and champagne'.90 In private conversations, Egyptian and Israeli delegates began discussing the best ways for the local press in Tel Aviv and Cairo to present the achievement of the armistice, so as to avoid unpleasant public

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reaction if one party chose to gloat and to represent the agreement as a 'triumph' over the 'machinations' of the other.91 But Cairo's approval did not come as easily as expected, with the Egyptians suddenly adopting a tough line against Israeli control over Beersheba. According to Sasson's information, the Egyptian Foreign Ministry had been prepared to concede the issue on Beersheba, but Ismail Chirine (who represented King Faruq and his court) recommended not yielding on the issue, even at the risk of provoking a breakdown of the conference. 92 In taking this stand, the Egyptian government was putting itself in the awkward position of refusing to sign a document which was the product of joint Israeli-Egyptian efforts at Rhodes, and which bore the endorsement of the acting mediator as a 'thoroughly honorable agreement'. Faced with the Egyptian rejection, Bunche appealed to members of the UNSC and to Egyptian politicians over the heads of the delegation.93 The Israelis added their voices to the effort to overcome this last-minute hitch. Aubrey Eban's letter to UN Secretary-General Trygve Lie complained about the obstacles created by the Egyptian stand on Beersheba, adding: By going so far to satisfy Egyptian interests in Gaza, Faluja and Auja, Israel has shown a conciliatory attitude towards an invading army which entered Palestine for the destruction of Israel and the subjugation of its population. The agreements already reached on these and other points offer an honourable opportunity for both sides to sign an effective armistice.94 Eban lobbied members of the Security Council and joined Shertok and Epstein in concerted appeals to American officials underlining the reasonableness of the Israeli position and asking for pressure to be applied on Egypt to sign. Simultaneously, Israelis found themselves having to deflect new American probes for an Israeli 'gesture' or concession to overcome the latest deadlock. 95 BREAKTHROUGH: SIGNING THE ARMISTICE AGREEMENT

The combination of these appeals and pressures from the powers led to an Egyptian reconsideration and retreat, followed by the signing of an agreement at 10:45 a.m. on Thursday, 24 February.96 The agreement drew the armistice lines largely in conformity with

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the military status quo, leaving Israel in control of most of the additional territory captured in operations Yoav and Horev- a fact which would undoubtedly make the armistice more difficult to 'sell' in Cairo than in Tel Aviv. The vastly differing effects of the announcement of the signing of the EIGAA on 24 February could be graphically seen in the juxtaposition of sub-headlines on the next day's front page of Israel's leading English-language daily, the Palestine Post. Under the banner headline, 'Signing of Armistice Ends War with Egypt', one report datelined Cairo stressed that the agreement was 'purely military', while a Tel Aviv story announced: 'Arab World Has Accepted State of Israel as Fact'. In personal cables to James McDonald in Tel Aviv and Jefferson Patterson in Cairo, US Secretary of State Acheson expressed his appreciation for the 'vital role' each had played through their 'energetic representations' which had 'undoubtedly' given Dr Bunche 'material assistance' in concluding the GAA. Acheson said he was 'greatly encouraged' by the signing of the armistice, and 'particularly by the public and cordial association of Egyptian and Israeli delegations in [a] normal negotiation relationship'.97 Likewise, President Truman's public statement praised the patience and statesmanship of the main protagonists and the skill of the acting mediator. 98

Immediate impact of the signing Acheson's optimistic references to the 'cordial association' of the two delegations, along with the 'relaxed atmosphere' at the Rhodes signing reported on the front page of the Palestine Post, captured a rare and fleeting moment in the history of Egyptian-Israeli relations. In the final days of the armistice negotiations, Eliahu Sasson wrote of the atmosphere being 'most cordial and really friendly', and offering 'an important basis upon which it would be worthwhile to continue and to build'. For his part, he would be leaving Rhodes very optimistic: In light of the conversations I had here and the contacts waiting for me in Paris, I am full of hope that the transition period between the armistice and a full-fledged peace will not be a long one.99 According to one Egyptian delegate who had been close to Sasson at Rhodes, a six-month transition period - with no political

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-.a.aw. ..... llrMN'I'I 1.10. 'taL ,..,.,

p,e&l~lll1

Front page of The Palestine Post, 25 February 1949

· . , , ... r.I)II.WI-'N. . .t

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pressures or military actions - was envisaged as necessary to allow the Egyptian and Israeli public to build up feelings of mutual trust before considering the next steps towards peace and recognition. But, as Ismail Chirine confided to an American official in mid-1950, Israel's credibility and professions of peaceful intentions were seriously damaged by the IDF's conquest of the southern Negev to gain access to the Gulf of Aqaba- an operation (code-named 'Uvda', - foit accomplt) which was carried out only two weeks after signing the armistice.100 Indeed, the cordiality and goodwill which had characterized the last hours at Rhodes quickly evaporated and were to have no spillover effect as political leaders turned their attention to presenting the armistice to their own people in Egypt and Israel. Israeli leaders would have to justify, before militant opposition politicians, why Israeli negotiators had 'allowed' Egypt to remain in control of the Gaza strip.101 In Cairo, politicians faced a far more difficult job of selling the agreement to a public which had beoo continuously fed the official version of an Egyptian victory in the Palestine war. A brief communique issued by Prime Minister Abdel-Hadi referred to the difficult negotiations that had resulted in the signing of an agreement which had 'no political character', which dealt 'with purely military questions' and which did 'not in any way affect the political future of Palestine' .102 At first, Egyptian censors had banned publication of the text of the agreement, fearing a possible 'violent reaction' from the public, but they soon relented and permitted the publication of a seven-point summary. A week later, the American Embassy was able to report that fears of violence had not materialized, largely because public statements were focused on the 'valor and honor' of the Egyptian army and on Egypt's respect and support for peace and international order.103 Several years later, Walter Eytan would look back and compliment the Egyptian government of the day for having shown 'the utmost skill in selling the Armistice Agreement to their own public opinion, which had previously believed firmly that the Egyptian armies were continuing their victorious march on Tel Aviv' .104 Indeed, the legend of an Egyptian military victory which was lost owing only to international pressure took root at this time, bolstered by a victory parade for the returning 'heroes of Faluja' .105 As Egyptian-Israeli relations headed towards a crisis in 1955, it would be one of these 'heroes ofFaluja'- Gamal Abd al-Nasir- who would challenge the

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'fable' of Israel's 1948 victory in an effort to inspire his country's troops along the Gaza frontier. In the final months of the Palestine War (he recalled in March 1955) 'it was not Israel that was victorious ... but rather the Security Council', acting as 'Israel's ally'.106 FROM ARMISTICE TO PEACE?

While the negative Arab reaction to news of the Rhodes agreements was not as immediate or as visible as some had expected, it started to make itself felt as the PCC sought to organize peace talks at Lausanne (below, Chapter IV). Between February and July 1949, Dr Bunche continued to work for the conclusion of three additional armistice agreements between Israel and neighbouring Arab states: Jordan, signed at Rhodes on 3 April; Lebanon, signed at Ras Nakoura (Rosh ha-Nikra) on 23 March, and Syria, signed in the noman's-land near Mishmar ha-Yarden on 20 July.l07 But problems of legal interpretation were compounded by political obstacles to prevent a smooth transition between the signed 'military' agreements and still-to-be-concluded treaties of peace. Everyone involved in the drawing up of the GAAs had anticipated their duration to be short. In October 1950, the PCC noted that [t]he fact that the Armistice Agreements provide undertakings of non-aggression of unlimited validity has had the effect of eliminating military considerations and of greatly reducing, in the minds of the parties, the immediate necessity of taking further steps towards a final settlement. lOS At least one participant has expressed his regret, in retrospect, that no time limit was written into the agreements.I09 As the months and years went on without movement from armistice to peace, the frustrated protagonists would return to reinterpret the spirit and letter of the agreements signed at Rhodes (and elsewhere) in 1949. Much of the argumentation was legalistic, as the texts of the GAAs offered sufficient ambiguity to allow the parties to draw diametrically opposed practical conclusions.liO Israeli hopes to proceed easily from armistice to peace hinged, for example, on the wording of the preamble and also Article XII(2) of its GAA with Egypt (Document 5), both of which referred to the armistice as being concluded in order 'to facilitate the transition

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from the present truce to permanent peace in Palestine'. The Israeli view was also based on Article I, which read, in part: With a view to promoting the return of permanent peace in Palestine ... [t]he establishment of an armistice between the armed forces of the two Parties is accepted as an indispensable step toward the liquidation of armed conflict and the restoration of peace in Palestine. Those arguing the more restrictive Egyptian interpretation of the GAA would point to Article IV(1 ), which recognized'[ t ]he principle that no military or political advantage should be gained under the truce', and would cite Article XI which stated explicitly that 'No provision of this Agreement shall in any way prejudice the rights, claims and interests of either Party in the ultimate peaceful settlement of the Palestine question.' But political considerations were paramount in the inability of the parties to move from armistice to peace. Israel tried to obtain maximum political advantage from the existence of the armistice agreements (for example, by validating its claims to captured territory, or discrediting acts which implied the continuation of a state of war), while Arab analyses underlined the limited military character of the document and/ or bemoaned the imbalance of forces which had produced a humiliating or otherwise unsatisfactory agreement.111 When the militant Muhammad Salah ad-Din took over the office of Foreign Minister of Egypt in March 1950, he at first referred to the GAA as 'the only agreement Egypt would have with Israel'. Only after considerable argument was he brought round, begrudgingly, to accepting the British Charge d'Affaires' point that 'that agreement itself provided that the armistice was the first step towards the restoration of normal peace conditions' .112 In the summer of 1951, Israel complained to the UNSC that Egypt's blockade oflsraeli shipping through the Suez Canal was a violation of the GAA. Despite a ruling to the contrary by the Security Council in September of that year, Egypt maintained the thesis that the armistice had not ended the state of belligerency between it and Israel, but had merely 'suspended' the war.113 In practice, all future overtures from potential Arab negotiators would be based on the 1947 partition plan or the 1948 Bernadotte plan, without reference to the GAAs. The Israelis, for their part,

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would reject both 1947 and 1948 as valid starting-points, and would insist on negotiations which took the status quo, as enshrined in the GAAs, as the appropriate point de depart. As Moshe Sharett argued six years later, 'the United Nations itself' had superseded the territorial division of 1947, by urging the parties in 1948 to negotiate their own frontiers and by sanctioning in 1949 the Armistice Agreements which confirmed Israel in possession of her present territory and laid it down as an immutable condition that the boundary lines fixed in them can be altered only by mutual consent.ll4 Although we have been focusing here on the Egyptian-Israeli GAA, brief mention should be made of the armistice agreement signed between Israel and Jordan. Because of additional complications (difficult boundary demarcation splitting Palestinian communities and farmlands; Abdullah's parallel secret talks which dictated terms to the negotiators at Rhodes), the Israel-Jordan General Armistice Agreement (IJGAA) was perhaps the least stable and satisfactory of the four. The implementation of several provisions of that agreement soured the Jordanian position at the Lausanne talks (below, Chapter V). The odium faced by Jordanian leaders for having signed such 'a document of surrender and concessions' was particularly strong. During the final stages of the failed secret Israel-Jordan negotiations for a non-aggression pact in early 1951,Jordanian Prime Minister Samir Rifai would refer to the Rhodes agreement as 'an accursed document in Arab eyes'.115 Although Dr Ralph Bunche's mediating skills have been highly praised (especially by Israelis) in the years following the signing of the GAAs, it should be pointed out that the Israeli delegation at Rhodes was not impressed at the time with the accuracy of his formulations; in fact, some temporarily questioned even his honesty and integrity. Shabtai Rosenne and Walter Eytan were both critical of Bunche's ability to transmit positions effectively and accurately between the parties, and regretted that this procedure served as a substitute for direct face-to-face talks.ll6 Israelis' awareness that the acting mediator had been the real author of both ill-fated Bernadotte plans further weakened their confidence in his mediation skills at the time.ll7 Despite his reputation for impartiality, there have been rather more accusations of the acting mediator's pro-Israeli

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sympathies than the reverse. liS Bunche's true leanings remained a 'bewildering mystery' to Ahmad Shuqayri.ll9 As the discussion in the following chapters will amply demonstrate, Arab feelings of bitterness, coupled with divergent interpretations which the parties were to give to the GAAs, would ultimately prove too strong to allow for the intended transformation of the armistice into peace treaties. Although the Rhodes agreement has been widely portrayed retrospectively as a success story (especially in comparison to other attempts at peacemaking, such as the Lausanne talks), a closer look at the record leads to the conclusion that this 'success' was only a qualified one.

CHAPTER IV

The Lausanne Conference: Prenegotiation 1

THE PALESTINE CONCILIATION COMMISSION

As we have already noted, by the beginning of 1949 the United Nations had established two tracks for dealing with the aftermath of the first Arab-Israeli war. While the 'Rhodes track' sought to achieve armistice agreements under the guidance of Acting Mediator Ralph Bunche, the 'Lausanne track' was based on UNGA resolution 194(111) of 11 December 1948, which established a threemember Conciliation Commission for Palestine. The governments of the United States, France and Turkey designated representatives to sit on the PCC, whose chairmanship initially rotated among the three on a monthly basis. The formal mandate of the Commission was UNGA resolution 194 (Document 4), which called upon the PCC to 'take steps to assist the Governments and authorities concerned to achieve a final settlement of all questions outstanding between them'. The resolution also called upon Israel and the Arab states to extend the scope of negotiations provided for in the Security Council's resolution of 16 November 1948 and to seek agreement by negotiations conducted either with the Conciliation Commission or directly, with a view to the final settlement of all questions outstanding between them. In accordance with other clauses in this historic resolution, the

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Commission was to seek agreement among Arabs and Israelis regarding • the Palestinian refugees who had fled or had been expelled from their homes during the 1947-48 fighting, and who should 'be permitted to return to their homes at the earliest possible date', • the final delimitation of the boundaries of the new Israeli state, and • the establishment of an international regime for Jerusalem. The latter item would be relegated to a sub-committee operating separately from the overall peace effort at Lausanne. Like the better-known UNSC resolution 242 ofNovember 1967, UNGA resolution 194 became a benchmark in its own day, frequently invoked by the conflicting parties as an authority on which they based a whole range of claims and complaints. The wording of the resolution also contained several politically-significant ambiguities. The phrase 'either with the Conciliation Commission or directly' was a reflection of the impasse created by the Arab states' hardening position against direct dealings with the newly-created Jewish state. The practical outcome was that the PCC, while paying lip-service to the possibility and desirability of direct Arab-Israeli talks, assumed the role of go-between, or 'postman', between parties in conflict who would never actually meet around the same table. A second underlying ambiguity in the PCC's mandate was whether it was to undertake 'conciliation' in the narrow sense, dealing only with proposals put forth by the parties themselves; or, whether, as successor to the late Count Bernadotte, its functions should properly include 'mediation' in a broader sense- i.e., the ability to propose its own peace plan for the consideration of Arabs and Israelis. There was also an 'informal' mandate under which the PCC would operate- one drawn up not at the UN but in Washington. In preparing Mark Ethridge to serve as US representative on the PCC, Acting Secretary of State Robert Lovett outlined the basic positions of the US government on the various issues in mid-January. With regard to the territorial lines of an Arab-Israeli settlement, Ethridge was asked to bear in mind the US position on record as favouring the possible addition to Israel of Western Galilee in exchange for cession to the Arabs of the southern Negev- the principle enunciated several months earlier by US representative Philip Jessup at the

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United Nations (Document 3). If the parties should, in the end, fail to reach agreement, Ethridge would 'be authorized to join with the other members of the Commission in an effort to persuade the parties to agree upon the frontiers' in accordance with what later became known as the 'Jessup principle'. The United States, Lovett added, was also planning to co-ordinate its efforts with the British government in an 'attempt to induce the parties to reach agreement on this basis'.2 In spite of the admirable clarity of Lovett's instructions, the State Department would later disappoint its PCC delegation by deciding against taking responsibility for actively promoting a settlement based on these- or any other- precise territorial arrangements. PREPARING THE GROUND

Even before the conclusion of the Israeli-Egyptian armistice talks in late February 1949, the PCC began attempting to prepare the ground for a peace settlement in accordance with the terms of its mandate under resolution 194.3 Although spread over five months, rather than six weeks as at Rhodes, the PCC's Lausanne effort followed a similar course, beginning with prenegotiation and involving recurring deadlocks and appeals to the US for assistance in the role of an outside 'enforcer'. From the start, the PCC's work-style included two parallel channels of communication with Arabs and Israelis: • formal meetings with Arab or Israeli representatives. These usually involved all three commissioners. Formal demands or replies would be submitted and discussed following informal preparatory sessions. There were no joint Arab-Israeli meetings held under PCC auspices. • informal, off-the-record talks. These often involved a single Commissioner or staff member. Most of the real attempts at persuasion and conciliation were made during these meetings. The activities of the PCC surrounding the Lausanne conference can be broken down into the following stages:

( 1) Prenegotiation (February-April 1949) (2) Formal opening sessions (late April)

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(3) Signing the Lausanne Protocol (12 May 1949), followed by incompatible Arab and Israeli 'offers' (4) Recess (1-18July) (5) Return to Lausanne (19 July), followed by Israel's offer to repatriate 100,000 refugees (6) Deadh:>ck and adjournment (August-September) (7) Post-scripts: New York and Washington (October-November), unsuccessful attempts to reconvene. On 7 February 1949, the PCC held its first informal talks in the Middle East. The commissioners began with a 'preliminary exchange of views' with Moshe Shertok and his aides in Jerusalem -talks which they hoped would facilitate the schedulf:d discussions in Arab capitals. By all accounts, the five-hour encounter was not an encouraging one for either side. The meeting began with the exposition of diametrically opposed views on the internationalization of Jerusalem. On the issue of refugees, Foreign Minister Shertok repeated his government's view that the problem could 'only be settled as part of[a] peace settlement' and that there could be 'no significant return of refugees before and possibly after that event'. Israel would recognize its obligation to pay compensation for abandoned property. As for a peace settlement, Shertok indicated Israel's preference for separate treaties with each neighbour, rather than a 'general conference'. In response to a request, the Foreign Minister promised to provide the PCC with a memorandum outlining his government's views on the refugee question.4 The commissioners were reportedly 'offended' as they listened to Shertok's statements regarding the refugees, feeling that Shertok had 'insulted [their] intelligence' with a repetition ofhis 15 November 1948 speech in the UNGA. Ethridge was personally 'astonished' at these Israeli attitudes, in view of the 'imperative necessity for friendly relations'. While the PCC representative believed that it might, in the end, prove necessary to resettle the 'greater proportion' of Arab refugees in the neighbouring Arab states, he felt it was 'contrary to Israel's best interest at [the] outsetto take [an] inhuman position' .s Initial Arab reaction to the activities of the PCC was, on the surface, more hopeful and positive. The Syrian Prime Minister, Khalid al-' Azm, welcomed this 'new approach to [the] Palestine problem', hoping it would result 'in some satisfactory settlement more in keeping with [the] principles of right and justice than has

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heretofore been evident'. In a conversation with the American .Minister in Damascus, the Syrian leader decried Israel's 'aggressive tactics' and its repeated 'flaunt[ing]' of UN resolutions, but suggested that 'some conciliatory gesture' which might take the form of [a] public statement by [the] Israeli Prime Minister that if [the] armistice were accepted by all parties Israel will withdraw [its] forces in accordance with UNSC resolutions [of 4and 16 November] as [a] preliminary to boundaries negotiations, would doubtless help [the] embarrassed Arabs such as Syria and Iraq to save face and might ease [the] way for [a] negotiated settlement through [the] Good Offices of [the] PCC. 6 The Iraqi Foreign Minister was more cynical about the latest UN effort, pointing to the need for the US to prove its 'good faith towards [the] Arabs' by 'putting pressure on Israel' to accept the right of refugees to return and to allow Jerusalem to 'remain [an] Arab city'. 7 SHUTTLE DIPLOMACY

The PCC began its official tour in Transjordan, where it met Prime Minister Tawfiq Abul-Huda on 11 February and learned of that country's preference for separate peace talks, even if the other Arab states objected. Abul-Huda also indicated his country's interest in having land access to the eastern Mediterranean through Gaza. 8 More intensive meetings were held in Cairo between 13-15 February. The Egyptian Foreign Minister tentatively indicated Egypt's preference for 'direct negotiations' as opposed to a general peace conference, but added that 'Egypt would have to wait to see if Israel wanted peace and would abide by S.C. resolutions'.9 Both he and Prime Minister Ibrahim Abdel-Hadi elaborated Egypt's firm position on the return of the Palestinian refugees, but their attitude left the commissioners dissatisfied. Ethridge and his colleagues felt the Egyptians were 'failing to impart frankly and fully what was in their mind regarding the final settlement'. Their impression, they reported to British Ambassador Campbell, was that the Egyptians were merely using the refugee issue as a manoeuvre to gain time and postpone the necessity of signing a final agreement which would, in effect, admit Egyptian defeat.IO The PCC's tour of Arab capitals concluded with stops in Saudi

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Arabia, Iraq, Syria and Lebanon. According to one experienced British diplomat, the tour had 'brought the Commission up against the realities' of Arab bitterness about the refugees and Israel's military successes, and had 'removed a number of their previous misconceptions' regarding the chances of reaching a peace accord.!! Following its tour of Arab capitals, the Commission returned to Israel. The first of two high-level meetings with Israeli leaders took place on 24 February, the day of the signing of the EI GAA at Rhodes. Ethridge and his colleagues presented the two major Arab concerns as being (a) the return of the refugees, 'but not necessarily' as a 'condition precedent' for a final settlement, and (b) suspicions of Israel's general intentions. Foreign Minister Moshe Shertok pointed to the Rhodes signing to argue the case that concessions ought to be the result of direct Arab-Israeli negotiation, and not of Israel indicating possible concessions indirectly through third-parties, such as the PCC. Regarding the substantive issues, the Israeli Foreign Minister went on to stress that two fundamental changes on the ground - 'Arab aggression in Palestine' and the 'exodus of Arab refugees'- had drastically altered the situation that had existed in late November 1947, when the UN partition resolution was adopted. Shertok felt resettlement of the refugees 'elsewhere' was 'essential', and affirmed that 'Israel would be unable to consider repatriation'. When pressed by Ethridge for an Israeli endorsement of the principles embodied in UNGA resolution 194, the Foreign Minister was evasive, except to restate Israel's rejection of the 'abstract principle' that 'as a matter of juridical right .... anyone wishing to return must be allowed to return'.l2 The following morning, the PCC met with Prime Minister David Ben-Gurion. The commissioners again portrayed the Arab position as being one of wanting peace but fearing and distrusting Israel. The Prime Minister did not share this assessment, and replied that Israel's need for military security had to take precedence over its own genuine desire for peace: 'If we had not been capable of defending ourselves,' affirmed Ben-Gurion, 'they would have exterminated us without the world lifting a finger.'l3 QUEST FOR AN ADVANCE GESTURE FROM ISRAEL

By this point, Ethridge and the Commission were adopting a definite -if ultimately misguided- prenegotiation strategy. The PCC would

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work first towards obtaining an advance gesture from Israel (especially on the refugee issue, which it considered to be the 'key'). With such a gesture in hand, the Commission would then achieve Arab agreement on the holding of talks for an overall settlement. On the basis of the PCC's preliminary talks with Arab representatives, Ethridge followed in the steps of Bernadotte and Bunche before him by concluding that the only way to make progress toward negotiations would be to obtain from the Israelis, in advance, a conciliatory gesture regarding the return of refugees. This was to become a dominant pattern oflsrael-PCC-US relations during the early 1950s. In his 24 February meeting with Shertok and his aides, 14 Ethridge claimed that the PCC had found a 'genuine desire for peace' during its tour of Arab capitals, but that the Arabs were 'sincerely apprehensive re[garding] Israeli intentions'. He therefore urged Israel to 'find some way of indicating its concern' about the suffering of the refugees and to 'demonstrate magnanimity' so that 'Arab fears might be allayed and [a] new spirit might prevail which would permit progress'. A 'conciliatory statement by Israel re[garding] refugees' at this time would assist the PCC in convening a meeting with the Arab states to consider the refugee problem and would, Ethridge argued, ultimately facilitate progress towards a peace settlement. In reply, Shertok raised several reservations about the utility of such a statement, and pointed to the direct Arab-Israeli contacts during the Rhodes talks 'as proof as to what can effectively dissipate such fears'. The Israeli Foreign Minister also warned that, if his country were 'drawn into making a statement' explicitly on the return of refugees as defined in the 11 December resolution, 'it would have to be a negative statement' .15 In his subsequent meeting with Ben-Gurion, the PCC Chairman repeated his view that the refugees constituted such a 'human and psychological problem' and that if Israel could make an 'advance gesture regarding refugees, beyond concessions which might be made in negotiations' a general settlement would be 'greatly facilitated'.16 Both Shertok and Ben-Gurion remained unmoved by Ethridge's argument, yet for several weeks the PCC chairman was somehow under the mistaken impression that the Israeli government was planning to provide him with a conciliatory statement. Having defined the refugee problem as the 'immediate key to peace negotiations if not to peace', the PCC believed there could be

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no fruitful negotiations 'until the Arab psychosis as to [the] refugees has been wiped out and Arab public opinion prepared for [the] fact that not all refugees will return'. Ethridge envisaged the first step towards peace negotiations as coming from Israel in the form of 'some gesture of agreement in principle' with UNGA resolution I 94's clauses regarding the refugees. Such an 'action or statement' on Israel's part would, he felt, then allow the Commission 'entry to other problems' during forthcoming meetings with the Arab states. Reflecting the view, held by all parties, that representations from the State Department had been instrumental in persuading the Egyptians and Israelis to overcome their differences at Rhodes, Ethridge, on behalf of the PCC, sought Washington's help in 'encouraging' the appropriate Israeli and Arab behaviour, namely, a conciliatory Israeli gesture on the return of Palestinian refugees, to be followed by a favourable Arab response once that gesture were made.l7 PCC BEIRUT CONFERENCE, MARCH 1949

The PCC was slightly more successful in pursuing the second prong of its two-pronged approach to prenegotiation. On 1 March 1949, invitations went out to the Foreign Ministers of the seven Arab League states to meet in three weeks' time with the PCC in Beirut. On 17 March, the Council of the Arab League adopted a resolution demanding the right ofPalestinian refugees to return to their homes, and recommending that Arab representatives 'consult together ... before meeting the Conciliation Commission in Beirut on 21 March'.J8 Indeed, the 'central question on the inter-Arab agenda' since the beginning of 1949 had been 'how, or even whether, to formulate a collective Arab formula for political dealings with lsrael'.l9 A few initiatives were pursued, but a pan-Arab consensus remained highly elusive. While Egypt had taken the lead in entering separate armistice talks in January without co-ordinating its moves with any Arab state, Iraq's Nuri Sa'id had formulated his own plan which he hoped would guide Arab negotiations with the PCC, based on the following four points: • Palestinian Arab rule over all of Jerusalem; • Israel's frontiers to be guaranteed by the UN, UK and US, and Israel's army to be disbanded;

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• Arab refugees to be allowed to return to their homes or be compensated; and • the Port of Haifa and the terminal of the Anglo-Iraqi Oil Company pipeline to be placed under international control.20 According to the Iraqi Chief of Staff, the thinking behind Nuri's plan was that, once the Israelis submitted their own far-reaching claims and rejected these key Arab demands, Israel's 'intransigence' would be demonstrated and would lead to a US-Israel rift, which would be followed by a strict arms embargo on the Jewish state. During this time, he hoped, Iraq and the Arabs would be rearmed with British assistance, while the US and UK would be drawn away from supporting the Jews.21 While Nuri's plan did not appeal to every Arab regime and remained highly unrealistic in other respects, the British entertained some modest hopes of seeing Egypt and Jordan develop a common stance, especially regarding the Negev. But the potential for inter-Arab co-operation even on this issue was also to be left unrealised. 22 In preparing for its Beirut meeting with high-ranking representatives of the Arab states, the PCC saw its task as making the Arabs realize two things: '(a) That not all refugees will go back, [and] (b) That they must help find homes for those to be resettled outside Israel.' The Beirut meetings were also seen as a delicate step towards Arab-Israeli peace negotiations, although much would depend on the Israelis' acceptance in principle of UNGA resolution 194 on refugees.23 British diplomats in the Middle East joined their American counterparts in urging Arab leaders to attend the conference and to adopt a constructive attitude.24 In a discussion with Syrian President Shukri al-Quwatli, the US Minister, James Keeley, even suggested that a favourable American attitude to foreign aid to Syria would be linked with progress toward a Palestine settlement25 - a precursor to later, sustained US attempts to practise 'dollar diplomacy' in the quest for an Arab-Israeli settlement. A week before the scheduled opening of the conference, Ethridge reported to the State Department that the Commission's work in Beirut was being 'seriously prejudiced' by recent Israeli statements and by Operation 'Uvda', in which IDF troops conquered the southern Negev, extending Israel's boundaries to the Gulf of Aqaba. The PCC was especially hampered, he reported, by the continued 'failure or refusal of[ the] Israeli Government to make any statement

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re[garding] refugees that would put [the] Commission in [a] position to find a key for peace negotiations'. Ethridge asked whether the State Department could 'do anything useful during Shertok's visit' to the US 'to induce him to make one conciliatory gesture'. 26 On 21 March 1949, the PCC convened with Arab Foreign Ministers and representatives of Palestinian refugee groups at Beirut's St. George's Hotel. Mark Ethridge summarized the Israeli position, as he had understood it from his talks with Ben-Gurion and Shertok, and invited the Ministers' responses. Ahmad Shuqayri, who attended the meeting as an aide to Syrian Prime Minister Khalid al-' Azm, recalled that the Ministers 'explained the right of the refugees to return to their homeland as being a natural right' and 'spoke at length about the Palestine question with emphasis on [their] rejection of the partition resolution and [their] nonrecognition of all that derived from it'. Shuqayri himself took the floor to complain about the Israeli government's lack of commitment to UNGA resolution 194 which spoke of the return of refugees.27 Following the 21 March session with Arab Foreign Ministers, the PCC met to consider its next steps, which included the need to impress upon the Arabs that it was 'doubtful' whether Israel would be able to absorb 'more than a small number of refugees' and that the Arab states should prepare themselves to 'attempt [to] resettle refugees and initiate projects for absorbing them'.28 At the close of the Beirut conference, the PCC informed the Arabs that it had found the discussions useful, but that a proper study of the problems involved would 'necessitate continuous meetings with the two parties in a neutral place'. Egypt, Jordan, Syria and Lebanon indicated their readiness to attend such meetings, but only after the Commission had made it clear that no direct Israeli-Arab meetings were contemplated.29 The PCC then proceeded to make plans to convene talks with Arabs and Israelis in Lausanne, Switzerland. CONTINUING PRESSURE FOR AN ISRAELI GESTURE

Most of the energies of the PCC during April were devoted to obtaining an advance Israeli commitment for the 'maximum possible repatriation' of refugees as a 'necessary precedent to any satisfactory solution [of the] refugee population through resettlement'. The PCC believed that it had succeeded in coming away from Beirut with 'a real concession' in the form of Arab agreement to go ahead

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with what the commissioners termed 'peace talks' (although not involving direct meetings between the parties) prior to implementation of resolution I 94's call for the return of the refugees. The Commission was now, more anxiously than before, looking for the Israeli gesture on refugees that would help assure a successful start for the proposed talks. 30 The persistent quest for such a gesture continued even though Mark Ethridge appreciated that the refugees had become, for the Arab states, 'a political weapon against theJews'.31 The campaign advanced on two fronts simultaneously: in the US by Secretary of State Acheson, and in Israel by members of the PCC. Throughout the month of April, the US State Department became increasingly involved in supporting the Commission's efforts to put pressure on the Israeli authorities. On 5 April, Dean Acheson met in New York for talks with Foreign Minister Sharett (who had recently Hebraicized his name from Shertok). The Secretary was as forceful as he could have been on behalf of the PCC, but fell short of hinting at any actual American sanctions. Invoking directly the views of President Truman throughout the conversation, Acheson's phraseology overtly stressed a 'carrot', but contained a 'stick' between the lines: a statesmanlike move by Israel with respect to refugees would make it possible for the President to continue his strong and warm support for Israel and efforts being made by its Government to establish its new political and economic structure on a firm basis. Acheson also noted that the President was particularly anxious that an impasse not develop on this subject, with one side refusing to negotiate for a final settlement until a solution is found for refugees, and the other side refusing to take steps to solve the refugee question until there is a final political settlement. We must avoid the argument as to which is the horse and which is the cart. The Secretary even advanced concrete suggestions regarding a proposed announcement by Israel about its readiness to repatriate 'a portion, say a fourth, of the refugees eligible for repatriation', and outlined a possible timetable for the phased implementation of

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repatriation, to go hand-in-hand with progress in talks about a political settlement. But the Israeli Foreign Minister stood his ground against the American Secretary of State. His reply was a restatement of the wellknown Israeli position 'That the refugee problem [could] only be solved in terms of [a] final peace settlement and that basically resettlement [was] the proper solution for [the] refugees.' While appreciating the American concern for breaking the 'vicious circle' between repatriation and a final peace settlement, Sharett remained opposed to any 'pre-peace commitment' to repatriating a specific number of refugees. 32 Following the Acheson-Sharett conversation, the Commission's scheduled meeting with Prime Minister Ben-Gurion on 7 April took on all the makings of a showdown. During the two-and-a-half-hour session 'no punches [were] pulled [on] either side'.33 Against PCC Chairman Yal~in's repetition of the Commission's long-standing request for Israel to accept the 'principle of repatriation, resettlement and rehabilitation' as laid down in UNGA resolution 194, BenGurion's reply dwelt on the phrase in paragraph 11 of that resolution about 'those refugees wishing to return to their homes and live at peace with their neighbours'. In the Israeli view, as long as peace had not yet been achieved, and since 'it was not yet clear [that the] Arabs wished to live at peace', the implementation of this resolution would 'depend on whether peaceful relations were established between Israel and [the] Arab states'.34 Yal~in warned the Israelis that 'world sympathy which had assisted [the] Jews in reaching [the] promised land' would be 'alienated' iflsrael, 'like Hitler, use[ d) methods incompatible with standards of western civilization'. Ethridge pointed to the 'great concession' the Arabs had made to the Commission by backing down from their previous 'unrealistic' position of not wishing to discuss anything until the refugee problem had been satisfactorily settled. Again he appealed to Israel to make a 'conciliatory gesture' which was the 'key' to a solution. An Israeli gesture, Ethridge argued, would be appreciated not only by the Arab states, but also by the US government, the American people and world opinion, which was growing increasingly critical of the Israeli role in the flight of Arabs from their homes and lands. In reply, Ben-Gurion spoke 'with considerable emotion' of the refugee issue as being 'an organized plan by [the] Arab states or [the]

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British or both'. Resettlement of the Arabs in Arab states, he argued, would be 'more humane than in Israel', but he pledged that Israel 'would not forget [the] humanitarian side of [the] question' once these issues were raised as part of a peace settlement. Inverting the prevailing US-PCC 'horse-and-cart' logic, the Israeli Prime Minister affirmed that 'The key to peace in Palestine [was] not a solution to the refugee problem, but vice versa: the key to solving the refugee problem [was] peace.' Ben-Gurion remained firm in refusing to make such a move prior to a peace settlement, adding that the re-introduction of large numbers of Arabs into his small country would create a potential 'fifth column'. As much as Israel valued international opinion, 'self-preservation' was more important than world sympathy. Israel was prepared, if necessary, to 'contradict [the] PCC which represented great individual states and [the] UN'. Thus, both Sharett and Ben-Gurion were united in rejecting pressure for an advance gesture, even at the cost of incurring US and PCC displeasure. On this issue, at least, there was no evidence of the recurring dispute between the diplomatic Foreign Minister and the Prime Minister, whose calculations did not attach great weight to international opinion. The PCC continued to press Israeli leaders for a conciliatory gesture on refugee repatriation in a memorandum addressed to the Government of Israel, formally suggesting that Israel 'might well' undertake several 'preliminary measures ... for the purpose of creating an atmosphere favourable to the success of the forthcoming exchanges of views' at Lausanne. The list of seven confidence-building measures began with a request for a general declaration that the Government of Israel would 'cooperate to the fullest possible extent in the solution of the refugee problem', and was followed by six specific assurances regarding absentee property rights, treatment of the Arab minority, etc. Weeks later, Ethridge would still be complaining of his disappointment at Israel's failure to provide a satisfactory reply to this memorandum. 35 After delivery of his 11 April memorandum, Ethridge wrote personally to President Truman, offering a frank assessment of Arab and Israeli positions and the prevailing mood he encountered in both camps. As Ethridge described it, the Arabs had made 'what the Commission consider[ed] very great concessions', while the Israelis had 'made none so far'. He was appreciative ofTruman's previous support, and hoped the President could 'keep the pressure up'.36

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Yet, after a wide-ranging talk with Michael Comay of the Israel Foreign Ministry, Ethridge reported dejectedly that, in spite of all the State Department had done since January, Israel had 'stiffened rather than modified her position'.37 Throughout April Mark Ethridge's disappointment with Israel grew stronger. On 18 April, he was invited to an informal meeting with the Israeli Prime Minister in the resort town ofTiberias. The American PCC representative responded to Ben-Gurion's initiative under the impression that the discussion would be about the longsought 'conciliatory statement' on the refugee question. As the conversation progressed, however, Ethridge waited in vain for BenGurion to commit himself to making a public statement, and heard instead only a repetition of the basic Israeli positions on Jerusalem, territory and refugees. Regarding the latter, the Prime Minister emphasized resettlement, and spoke of the possible reunion of separated families, compensation, etc. During the following months, Ethridge would frequently single out this conversation with varying degrees of bitterness and anger, at one point suggesting that Israel had 'lost [the] peace' by ignoring his memorandum of 11 April and by Ben-Gurion's attitude at Tiberias.38 As the date for the Lausanne conference approached, the cumulative criticisms by the PCC, the US and Britain of the Israeli attitude to the refugee question found their way into the Arabic press, 39 no doubt contributing to a stiffening of the opening stance of the Arab states. Meanwhile, Washington's disappointment in Israeli 'intransigence', as evidenced in Ben-Gurion's last conversation with Ethridge, became linked with the question of the imminent UN vote on Israel's admission to that body. A stern warning to Israel was drafted in the State Department on 20 April, but was not sent.40 Instead, Secretary of State Acheson met with Israel's Washington and UN representatives, Eliahu Elath (formerly Epstein) and Aubrey Eban, and expressed his disappointment at the continuing lack of moderation in Sharett's and Ben-Gurion's positions. Acheson reassured them that the US 'had supported Israel's application for membership and would continue to do so'. But, while disclaiming any intention of 'trying to tell the Israeli Government what it should do', the Secretary informed them that it would be 'difficult for the US Delegation to go to the other nations at Lake Success and endeavour to persuade them they should also vote for Israel's admission this session' unless the Israeli

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Government was 'willing to make its position known' on the important issues of refugees, Jerusalem, and territorial adjustments.41 But the threat of receiving only lukewarm American support at the UN was not sufficient to produce any far-reaching conciliatory statements in time for the opening of the Lausanne talks. Israeli spokesmen issued several rhetorically-pleasing statements which contained no change in their government's basic stand on the issues in dispute. At the same time, the Israelis argued that the lack of US 'active interest' in a speedy resolution of the admission question at the UN would lead to 'inevitable difficulties [at] Lausanne' and would 'increase Arab unwillingness [to] conclude peace [with] Israel'. The Israeli argument seems to have had at least some effect in muting American criticism and pressure.42 THE SHADOW OF RHODES

'After nine weeks', Ethridge reported proudly (if not altogether accurately), 'We have persuaded [the] Arabs to sit down for peace talks with the Jews.'43 Secretary Acheson instructed American envoys in the Arab world to make the 'strongest diplomatic approach' to Prime Ministers and Foreign Ministers in an 'endeavour to soften their ... attitudes ... and to support [the] PCC in its task' at Lausanne. The British Foreign Office was being asked to make similar approaches to Arab governments. 44 It was difficult for the PCC to be optimistic regarding the forthcoming talks. The momentum leading up to the Lausanne conference was adversely, rather than positively, affected by signing of the Israel-Lebanon and Jordanian-Israeli45 armistice agreements (23 March and 3 April, respectively), which followed the initial EIGAA. Mark Ethridge remained frustrated at not having obtained the desired gesture from Israel; while American pressure on Israel continued and even increased, it was having little impact upon Israeli preparations for Lausanne. Those preparations reflected, in the words of one Israeli scholar, 'a mood anticipating threats and pressures rather than a welcome breakthrough'.46 On 11 April1949, thelsraelicabinetvoted 6-2 toacceptthePCC's invitation to attend talks with representatives of the Arab states.47 During the first of several day-long strategy sessions devoted to the forthcoming talks, the Israeli Prime Minister stressed the centrality of immigration and security to Israel's future, and placed the need

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for peace with the Arabs in this context. This obliged Israel to 'spare no effort in achieving peace'. A further advantage was that peace with the Arabs would reduce the interference of foreign powers in Middle Eastern affairs. Tactically, Ben-Gurion suggested that Israel strive for direct and separate negotiations with each Arab state, if possible without the knowledge of the others.48 In addition, Israel hoped to replicate the Rhodes experience with opportunities for direct, informal contacts outside the framework of the official meetings under UN auspices. 49 But Israel was practically alone in hoping that the precedent of direct negotiations with individual Arab states at Rhodes would provide a model which the PCC would follow in setting up the forthcoming Arab-Israeli discussions in Lausanne. Only Jordan's King Abdullah seemed to share this view. Ten days after the signing of the IJGAA, the King declared to the American Charged' Affaires in Amman that 'Any meeting in which all Arab states took part would not result in progress toward peace.'SO But the bilateral Rhodes experience could not simply be imitated or replicated at Lausanne, which was organized as a multilateral event. For the same reasons that Israelis had come to look on the Rhodes model as the one to be followed at Lausanne, most of the Arab states had rejected the 'island of shame' 51 when it was first suggested as a possible venue for PCC talks. One indication of the mood in mid-April could be seen in Mark Ethridge's complaint that the Israelis had taken advantage of every Arab weakness to produce armistice agreements based on 'unfair arrangements' that would have 'serious repercussions in [the] Middle East and tend to discredit' the US and the UN. 52 Indeed, the humiliation of defeat symbolized by Rhodes would constitute, for the Arab side, a serious psychological obstacle to progress at Lausanne. The Arab governments had not adequately prepared their people for the true nature or extent of the military setbacks which their armies had suffered in the battle for Palestine. As the date of the Lausanne talks approached, the Arab public was just beginning to realize that its leaders had signed armistice agreements in which they were not the victors, but the vanquished.53 In this atmosphere Arab spokesmen dared not admit openly that they had agreed to attend a 'peace conference' with the Israeli enemy - an enemy which they repeatedly accused of defying UN resolutions calling for the return of the refugees. On the eve of the opening of

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the conference, an Arab League spokesman described the Lausanne talks as merely a continuation of the Beirut meetings, with the refugee problem as the major issue on the agenda. 54 STRAINS IN THE ARAB COMMON FRONT

Below the surface, the invitations to attend the conference at Lausanne put a strain on the common front which the Arab states sought to maintain. Fearing the concessions which would have to be made, Iraq simply refused to attend. The British Ambassador in Baghdad reported that the Iraqis were 'using [the] refugee question as an excuse and [said] that they will not negotiate until [the] refugees return to their homes'. 55 King Abdullah ofJordan, anxious to preserve his freedom of manoeuvre, outlined his plans to send a delegation to Lausanne in a conversation with the American Charged' Affaires in Amman, but indicated that a peace settlement between his country and Israel 'would be reached in direct talks held in this area'. 56 Following a secret meeting with senior Israeli officials at the King's Shuneh Palace on 15 April, Abdullah became even more committed to the idea of a separate peace with Israel, with or without approval of the other Arab states, although the Jordanian monarch did want such an arrangement to be guaranteed by either the PCC or one or more of the Western powers. 57 Ethridge and other observers saw Abdullah as 'so anxious' to deal directly with Israel that they felt it necessary to caution him against going too far, fearing that his independent action would provoke sharper opposition among Palestinians and the other Arab states, thereby jeopardizing PCC efforts at Lausanne. 58 Despite the clear signals which Abdullah sent secretly to British, American and Israeli officials, his public stance called for the joining of forces of Arab delegations in solidarity at the Lausanne conference. This declared position was in harmony with contemporary newspaper editorials warning against allowing separate negotiations like the ones from which Israel had benefited at Rhodes. 59 Notwithstanding such public statements, there was a 'growing conviction' in Jerusalem that the Jordanian delegation to Lausanne would become, like its counterpart at Rhodes, 'mainly a cloak for negotiations [between Abdullah and Israelis] at Shuneh'.60 Indeed, Foreign Minister Sharett himself met with the Jordanian monarch on 5 May, 61 and the existence of this separate track of secret bilateral

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Israel-Jordan talks necessarily resulted in both the Israeli and Jordanian delegations at Lausanne devoting less serious attention to the PCC's multilateral conference. In the end, the representatives of four states and several Palestinian refugee organizations prepared to attend the Lausanne talks. This multiplicity of Arab actors, encompassing potentially divergent grievances, interests and policies, threatened to create complications for both the Arabs and the conference organizers. This problem would be resolved, from the point of view of procedure at least, during the first week of the talks, when the PCC agreed to deal with the various Arab delegations as a single group (see below, Chapter V). Both inside and outside of the formal sessions, the Egyptians, Syrians and Lebanese did their best to ensure that 'Jordan in Lausanne' behaved better than 'Jordan in Amman'.62 Another issue, of minor importance to the invited participants at the time, was the question of Palestinian representation. Some behind-the-scenes manoeuvring took place in Amman regarding inclusion of a Palestinian in the Jordanian delegation to Lausanne. 63 The most visible Palestinian presence at the conference came, however, from outside the Jordanian delegation. Muhammad Nimr al-Hawwari and Aziz Shihadeh, heads of the General Refugee Congress based in Ramallah, spent most of their time and energy in a frustrating struggle for acceptance and credibility on three fronts: to be formally received by the PCC, to co-ordinate strategy with the Arab delegations, and to persuade the Israelis to recognize their delegation and deal directly with it towards an acceptable solution. Hawwari's credentials were not accepted by the Arab delegations, and at one point representatives from the All-Palestine Government based in Gaza visited Lausanne in order to discredit him. The Israelis, while pleased to maintain regular contacts with the refugee delegation, did not wish to negotiate with it officially, and attempted in vain to enlist Hawwari's people in the quest for direct negotiations between Israel and the Arab governments. 64 Adding to the confusion was another Palestinian, Ahmad Khalil, then serving as Military Governor of the northern area of the West Bank, who attempted to win British, American and Israeli support for a peace settlement based on the partition boundaries, annexation of Arab Palestine to Jordan, and the implementation of the UNGA resolution 194 on refugees. He claimed to have Abdullah's blessing for his efforts and, on the eve of the Lausanne talks, signalled to

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Israelis in Jerusalem that a three-man Palestinian delegation in Switzerland would 'try and enter into direct negotiations with Israel, as was favoured', he claimed, 'by many of the local inhabitants'. 65 There is no record of the contribution of this particular Palestinian delegation to the Lausanne negotiations. Thus, after several months of difficult prenegotiation, the PCC was ready to meet the parties in Lausanne. On the eve of the opening of the conference, however, the chances of reaching a successful compromise between Arab and Israeli positions did not appear very great. On the Arab side, at least two elements militated in favour of the delegates taking a firm line against concessions to the Jewish state: • Discord among the Arab delegations and fears of Abdullah arriving at a separate deal with the Israelis. • The knowledge that the PCC and the US State Department were pressing Israel for a conciliatory gesture on the return of the refugees. Israeli apprehensions about the forthcoming conference were enhanced by the repeated requests for an advance gesture, which Israel's leaders were determined not to give. Some participants and retrospective commentators have singled out this aspect of the Commission's approach as its most serious flaw, condemning its efforts to eventual failure. While our reconstruction of PCC peacemaking efforts in this and the following chapters largely confirms the validity of this assessment, it does not appear that the outcome would have been any more successful had the Commission taken a different approach- for example, by insisting first on convening direct Arab-Israeli talks without imposing any preconditions on Israel (see below, Conclusion, pages 270-3). While both parties dutifully pledged their sincere co-operation in the forthcoming peace conference, below the surface each was preparing its strategy to avoid concessions while using the conference to manoeuvre the other into giving way on the key issues of territory and refugees.

CHAPTERV

Manoeuvring at Lausanne

OPENING THE CONFERENCE 1

The first Lausanne meeting between the Israeli delegation and the PCC took place at the Hotel Beau Rivage on 27 April1949. It was a straightforward affair which covered familiar ground. Israeli delegate Gershon Hirsch (later Avner) described it as beginning with heartfelt greetings and Ethridge's renewed request for a declaration oflsrael's stand on refugees, Jerusalem and boundaries. On the major issues, Hirsch's reply contained nothing the commissioners had not heard before. The Israeli delegation expressed its hope that the proceedings for Israel's admission to the UN would not be allowed to interfere with the progress of the current talks, and declared that it was not willing to negotiate with Syria at Lausanne until after the signing of an armistice agreement between the two countries.Z On 30 April Walter Eytan, who arrived to head the Israeli delegation, met the press and distributed a government communique which expressed Israel's determination to do everything possible 'towards the attainment of an honourable and lasting peace under the auspices of the United Nations Conciliation Commission and by direct contact with the delegations of the Arab states.' Israel looked forward to a permanent settlement and to the 'rehabilitation ofall those who left their homes in the course ofarmed attacks against Israel') But earlier recriminations between Mark Ethridge and Israeli representatives spilled over into the first weeks at Lausanne. In formal and informal meetings, the commissioners repeatedly

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requested a reply to the PCC memorandum of 11 April in the form ofa conciliatory statement on repatriation. This, they felt, was necessary for any progress in the coming talks. Ethridge grew impatient upon noticing no change in the Israeli stand as originally outlined to him by Ben-Gurion. He was especially disappointed that several weeks of pressure from Washington had 'apparently fallen on deaf ears'.4 During the PCC's first sessions with the Egyptian and Lebanese delegations, the latter offered expressions of their willingness to cooperate with the Commission and their desire for peace. But the PCC's horse-and-cart dilemma still remained, as the Arabs insisted that a solution to the refugee problem and Jerusalem was 'essential before peace talks could progress'.5 Public statements from Arab delegates down played the 'peace conference' aspect to the meetings, stressing instead their function in efforts at resolving the refugee problem and the Jerusalem issue, and noting that there would be no direct contacts with the Israeli delegation.6 Walter Eytan reported that the Arabs, continuing the stance adopted during the previous months, 'seem(ed] to have agreed among themselves to talk refugees and nothing else'.7 In private conversation with Mark Ethridge, however, Jordanian delegate Fawzi al-Mulqi indicated 'in no uncertain terms' that his government considered the achievement of a 'quick peace' to be the primary objective of the meetings. Signals such as these made Ethridge even more upset with the Israelis, who, he felt apparently fail(ed] to appreciate [the] importance of (a] conciliatory approach toward outstanding problems. Arab fears re[garding] public opinion at home [were] deprecated. Maximum concessions from [the] Arabs appear[ ed] to be more important to [the] Israelis than [a] constructive conclusion to [the] recent conflict. 8 After one week of formal opening sessions and private conversations, the commissioners reported their impression that both sides were 'sincerely desirous of making peace arrangements' as soon as possible, but were 'manoeuvring for position'. In particular, discussions were stalled because the question oflsrael's admission to the UN was 'overshadowing everything else'. 9 In response to State Department pressures, Aubrey Eban issued a statement on the refugee question at the United Nations on 4 May. The seven-point

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statement began by declaring that the refugee problem was one for which the Arab states were 'entirely responsible'; Israel was nevertheless anxious to contribute to the solution of this problem, although it is none of its making. This anxiety proceeds from moral considerations and from Israel's vital interest in stable conditions throughout the Near East. After weighing the advantages and disadvantages of rehabilitating the refugees in Israel or in the neighbouring countries, the Government of Israel 'contend[ed] that resettlement in neighbouring areas be considered the main principle of solution'. Israel was 'ready to make its own contribution to the solution of the problem', but the extent of that contribution would, 'inter alia, depend on the formal establishment of peace and relations of good neighbourliness between Israel and the Arab States'. Absent from the statement was any Israeli commitment (or reference) to repatriation. Eytan forwarded a copy ofEban's statement to Ethridge at Lausanne with a covering note describing it as 'an earnest attempt to meet the views of the United States Government on the solution to the refugee problem'. Ambassador-designate Elath conveyed the same message to the State Department.IO The French member of the PCC, Claude de Boisanger, found Eytan's statements on compensation 'wholly unsatisfactory and in complete contradiction with the terms of the [UN December 1948] resolution' .II Two days later, Eytan provided a supplementary statement making specific reference to points raised in the PCC memorandum of ll April, in an attempt to go further towards 'creating an atmosphere favourable to the success' of the conference. This too fell short ofPCC expectations.IZ It was not until the second week in May that some movement in Lausanne was possible, overcoming the delays and hesitations surrounding the US-Israeli tug-of-war regarding the gesture on refugees and Israel's admission into the UN. Following the vote admitting Israel to the United Nations on 11 May 1949, Ethridge was 'glad to report' that, despite his earlier fears, the Israeli delegates' attitude had 'not seemed to change for the worse'. The PCC representative did, however, note renewed expressions of Arab mistrust of American policies and cynicism regarding America's

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willingness or ability to obtain assurances regarding Israeli adherence to UN resolutions.B One potential improvement in the atmosphere at Lausanne was the reported instruction of the Egyptian government to its delegation: 'Since Israel [is] now [a] member [of the] UN, if she accepts [the] principle of [the] right of refugees to return, you are authorized [to] discuss [a] territorial settlement. '14 But the Israeli delegation did not regard this as a significant opportunity for progress and chose not to pursue it. This was the first of several repetitions, during the coming years, of an Arab overture whose follow-up was conditional on Israel's acceptance of the principle of the refugees right to return. Then, as afterwards, Israel was not prepared to acknowledge such an absolute right. Structures and procedures

During the opening weeks at Lausanne, structures and procedures were established which came to constitute a distinctive 'Lausanne format' for PCC peacemaking efforts. This format consisted of a series of parallel PCC-Arab and PCC-Israel meetings, with no official, direct Arab-Israeli meetings. For this reason, some have taken to placing quotation marks around the word 'conference', 15 as others have done in the case of the similarly-structured StJames' Palace 'round-table conference' convened by the British in February and March 1939. Yet, despite the absence of direct negotiations, the Lausanne discussions do qualify as a 'conference' within the definition proposed by most international relations specialists.16 In the following pages we shall outline the elements of the distinctive Lausanne negotiating format, reserving an assessment of their effectiveness for the Conclusion {pages 270-3). 1. Two-track PCC operations- The commissioners continued their

practice of alternating formal meetings with informal conversations involving individual members of the Commission and members of the various delegations. 2. Indirect negotiation at the official level- Although not in principle opposed to direct Arab-Israeli meetings at the conference, the PCC kept its word to the Arab delegates that they would not be expected to hold face-to-face meetings with their Israeli counterparts. During its first official meeting with the Israeli delegation, the PCC announced that it intended to meet separately with Arab

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and Israeli delegations, but that it would be ready to assist Israeli and Arab delegates to meet each other, with or without its participation.I7 But the PCC never tried to force Arabs and Israelis to meet around the same table- an omission which would become the centrepiece of the Israeli critique of UN mediation efforts. 3. Direct, secret and informal Arab-Israeli contacts- As one scholar has pointed out, 'One of the few positive results of this singularly futile international conference was the cover it provided for direct contacts between the principal protagonists themselves.'18 Over the course of the entire Lausanne conference and outside its formal framework, unofficial, direct Arab-Israeli contacts took place on at least twenty occasions.19 As far as Israel was concerned, such informal contacts proved more valuable than the formal conference; yet, they were no substitute for the direct talks which it persistently demanded between the delegations on the official level. Some of the unofficial meetings were held with the knowledge of either the commissioners, the various delegations, or both. But they were not as easy to arrange as they had been at Rhodes where all delegations had been housed in the same hotel. In Lausanne, Israeli delegates stayed at the same hotel with the PCC, while the Arab delegations were installed in another part oftown.2° Given the state of public opinion in the Arab countries, the conference served as a necessary fig-leaf to cover such secret contacts. Both Israelis and Arabs appreciated these informal and unofficial meetings - not because they led to any breakthrough, but because they enabled the parties to probe for any prospect of compromise behind the inevitable hard-line posturing by the delegations before the PCC. In the end, these behind-the-scenes probings only confirmed the existence of a wide gap between the positions of Arabs and Israelis without offering any real opportunities to bridge it.21 Such informal meetings were not, however, endorsed by the US State Department, which looked on them as a factor undermining rather than enhancing the effectiveness of the main efforts of the PCC towards a comprehensive settlement. 22 4. Arab representation: a single delegation - After initially holding separate meetings with the Egyptian and Lebanese delegations, the PCC was confronted with the Arab delegations' joint 'decision in principle to negotiate with the Commission only en

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bloc'. Although French representative De Boisanger considered this a 'dangerous precedent', the PCC soon acquiesced in the Arab demand. To the chagrin of the Israelis, the pattern established for the remainder of the Lausanne conference was for the Arab delegations to negotiate with the PCC only en bloc.23 S. No PCC proposals for a settlement- One of the recurring dynamics of the Lausanne conference was the push and pull between the PCC and the Arab delegations over where the initiative lay for outlining the possible terms of a solution. The commissioners declined the Arab delegations' request on 5 May for 'a working paper presenting the complete outline of a settlement', and attempted instead to elicit further position papers from the Arabs on issues other than the refugee question. The line which the PCC followed fairly consistently- and one which corresponded to the US State Department and Israeli positions on this issuewas for the Commission to hold back and wait for Arabs and Israelis to submit their own proposals for a settlement. The PCC would allow itself an interventionist role only if 'the positions taken up by the Arab and Israeli delegations proved irreconcilable'. 24 In throwing the ball back into the Arabs' court, Ethridge was conscious of the tactical manoeuvring ofsome Arab delegates who want[ ed] to be in a position to say that peace was imposed by [the] UN. In fact, two of them have told me that ifl will draft a peace plan they will consider it as [an] 'instruction'. I have of course refused to do so both on behalf of the US and [the] UN.25 The only real exception to this rule ofPCC non-intervention was the submission to the parties of a declaration of principles soon to be known as the Lausanne Protocol. A BASIS FOR DISCUSSION: THE LAUSANNE PROTOCOL, 12 MAY 1949

In early May, the PCC embarked on the first steps of a process that ultimately produced the Lausanne Protocol. The Commission's approach was modelled deliberately on the methods used by Ralph Bunche during the Rhodes talks. The Principal Secretary of the Commission, Pablo de Azcarate, drafted a 'Declaration ofPrinciples' which was circulated unofficially to all delegations for comments.

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The PCC's aim was to use the 'device of [a] preamble of general principle' on which both parties could agree to 'create [a] favourable atmosphere and provide [a] point of departure for further discussions and for further agreement'.26 After four days of informal discussions, the negotiators overcame several difficulties, including the 'obstructive line' adopted by the Syrians (then in difficult armistice negotiations with Israel) against Arab agreement to discuss anything until satisfaction was obtained, in advance, on the return of the refugees.27 Another obstacle that had to be overcome was Israel's preference to use the map of the existing ceasefire-lines, rather than the 1947 UN partition scheme being proposed by the PCC as a working document. Following much haggling and arm-twisting, the Israeli representative agreed to de Boisanger's proposed protocol, 'on the understanding that no communication [was] made to the press', and it being 'clearly understood that this readiness in no way prejudice[ d] the right of my delegation to express itselffreely on matters at issue, on which it fully reserve[ d] its position•.28 It was an open secret that the Israelis were being forced to sign a document which they considered unsatisfactory under US pressure and in order to facilitate Israel's admission into the United Nations.29 During parallel PCC meetings with Israeli and Arab delegations on the morning of 12 May 1949, separate copies of the document which came to be known as the Lausanne Protocol were signed. At 10:30 a.m., Walter Eytan signed on behalf oflsrael. At 11:30 a.m., Abd al-Mun'im Mustafa signed for Egypt, Fawzi al-Mulqi for Jordan, Fuad Ammoun for Lebanon and Adnan al-Atassi for Syria (Document 6).30 The short and 'curious' document31 was a masterpiece of diplomatic engineering. It said very little, but was significant in that it succeeded in marrying the refugee and boundaries issues. The first of its two paragraphs stated that, in the interest of achieving the objectives of the 11 December 1948 resolution regarding refugees and territorial questions, the PCC had submitted a 'working document'- the November 1947 partition map adopted by the UN G A- 'as a basis for discussions'. The second paragraph announced the agreement of the delegations to cooperate with the Commission 'with the understanding that the exchanges of views ... will bear upon the territorial adjustments necessary to implement the above-indicated objectives'. The simplicity of the formulation served the very practical purpose of

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enabling the stalled Lausanne talks to proceed by responding to Arab insistence on making the refugee question the first priority while simultaneously acceding to Israeli wishes by unblocking the way to discussions on territorial issues. In subsequent months and years the Protocol would become a source of conflicting interpretation and recrimination. Within weeks, Aubrey (Abba) Eban informed Eytan that he believed it had been a 'mistake' to sign the Lausanne Protocol. Privately, he was hoping to see the suspension of the PCC and a 'new start', forgetting the Protocol and 'other waste products'.32 While Eban's wish did not materialize, Israeli spokesmen immediately took to ignoring and undermining the Protocol, characterizing the document as merely a 'procedural device' and attributing no political significance to their country's signature. Israel's main concern after 12 May seemed to be 'how to appease the Americans in order to be able to undo the harm caused by the [P]rotocol' to Israel's position by encouraging the unrealizable expectation of an Israeli withdrawal to the 1947 partition lines and a large-scale return of refugees. 33 Ten years after Lausanne, Eytan wrote bitterly that the Protocol, 'like so much else at Lausanne, was a sham'.34 At the time, Ahmad Shuqayri also belittled the Lausanne Protocol, referring to the historic document in his memoirs as being 'neither fish nor frog'. He wrote mockingly of the commissioners' 'total delight over this great triumph which [they] had achieved in the signing of the Protocol'. For his part, Shuqayri claimed it was 'no stronger than the 1948 UN resolution' and that he didn't see 'anything new in it'. In informal conversation with the commissioners following the signing ceremony, Shuqayri claimed there was little value in obtaining Israel's signature on a document which committed the signatories to discussions based on the UNGA resolution of 11 December 1948 and on the 1947 partition map.35 Yet, despite this derisive attitude, there can be no doubting the historical significance of the Arab delegates' signatures to the Lausanne Protocol. As Shuqayri himself later recalled, it was evidence of a change in Arab tactics, from a sterile "'no" complex' to a tactical 'positivism'. 'Attached to that Protocol', he wrote, 'was the partition map to be a basis for discussion, and this was the partition which we had rejected in 1947 and 1948.'36 Even Walter Eytan would not have disagreed; three days before the signing, the head of the Israeli delegation had recognized that it would have been

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'a great thing for us if the Arabs, who had never been willing to touch November 29th with a barge pole, agreed to take this as a "base de travail'". The Israeli official had, in fact, mistakenly predicted that the Arabs would never agree to sign.37 It was not long before Arab spokesmen began presenting their case to the PCC, the US and the world, based on the Protocol, accusing Israel of bad faith by failing to honour its signature which, they claimed, had amounted to official acceptance of the 1947 partition boundaries.38 Consistent with this view, some Arab writers have used the Arabic translation 'mithaq' when talking of the Lausanne 'Protocol', with the effect of elevating the importance of the document into a 'pact' or 'covenant'. 39 In later years, the Lausanne Protocol would serve as the starting-point for occasional Arab trial balloons for a settlement with lsrael.40 Yet, while proceeding to obtain much tactical mileage from their signatures to the Lausanne Protocol, many Arab officials at the time could not bring themselves to state publicly and clearly that this meant that they now indeed accepted the partition plan- including the creation of a Jewish state - which they had rejected in 1947. 41 STAKING OUT THE POSITIONS: THE FIRST DEADLOCK

Once the Lausanne Protocol was signed, with differing interpretations as to what the document implied, the operative question became: where do we go from here? The existence and contents of the Protocol remained secret for several weeks, which allowed each of the delegations to begin practical discussions quietly, while maintaining intact their opening public stances.42 In the immediate wake of the signing of the Protocol, the Commission hoped to achieve progress by dividing its work into sub-committees, including a 'general' committee (dealing with refugees and territorial issues) and one dealing with the internationalization of Jerusalem (under James Barco). Later, a 'technical' committee was formed to deal with practical matters relating to the return of refugees and the protection of their property. 43 Soon enough a semblance of a bargaining situation emerged in which some 'offers' and 'counter-offers' were transmitted from one party to the other, using the PCC as 'postman' or 'mail-box'. The position papers of the Arab delegations predictably dealt almost exclusively with refugees, while those submitted by the Israeli

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delegation focused, also predictably, on territory. Equally quickly, however, it became obvious that the opening stances of the two sides were too far apart for successful reconciliation, and deadlock loomed. On 18 May the Arab delegations addressed the first of two memoranda to the General Committee of the PCC, listing nine demands dealing with 'urgent measures concerning the protection of the rights and property of the refugees'.44 Three days later, a second memorandum reminded the Commission that the 'immediate execution of these measures was indispensable to the creation of an atmosphere favourable to the success of the conversations'. The refugee problem was, the memorandum repeated, 'of primary importance', and 'the solution recommended by the United Nations on 11 December 1948 must be put into effect in its entirety at the earliest possible moment'. As a 'first step toward this end', the Arab delegations pointed to the 1947 partition map- now initialled as a working document of the Lausanne Protocol- and urged that those refugees coming from the areas outside Israeli territory on that map 'be enabled to return to their homes forthwith'.45 During their first post-Protocol meeting with the PCC, the Israelis 'startled' and 'confused' the commissioners by taking a deliberately hard and legalistic stand on the withdrawal of all Arab forces from the territory of mandatory Palestine and by formally proposing that the former Palestine-Lebanon and Palestine-Egypt frontiers should constitute Israel's future frontiers with Lebanon and Egypt, respectively.46 After receiving the Arab memorandum of 18 May transmitted by the PCC, Walter Eytan forwarded it to his government for study, but not without taking the opportunity to write at length to the Commission Chairman to challenge 'certain misconceptions' which seemed, to him, to underlie the Arab attitude. He warned against any 'attempt to found a solution of the refugee problem on assumptions which [bore] little or no relation to fact'. There could be 'no return to the status quo ante', he wrote on 25 May. The problem facing all the participants at Lausanne, as he defined it, was 'how to solve the refugee problem on the basis of the existing situation'. Any attempt to recreate the conditions of eighteen months or a year earlier would be 'profitless and doomed to failure'. Any wishful thinking on the part of the Arab delegations, any failure to realise that the situation is what it is, must act as a

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brake on the progress of our negotiations and ultimately lead to their collapse. E ytan closed with the hope that those commissioners who negotiated with the Arab delegations would 'take an opportunity of explaining ... fully' to the Arabs 'the situation as it exists at the present time and the consequences that flow from it'.47 A second letter of the same date gave Eytan's observations on the horse-and-cart dilemma: the refugees versus an overall settlement. A fundamental gap separated the approaches of the two sides. While Israel had always stressed the 'organic link between the problems still outstanding', the Arab delegations had, with equal consistency, refused to talk of an over-all settlement and [had] concentrated their attention on one of the many problems that still await[ ed] solution, wholly disregarding the others. Eytan repeated Israel's willingness 'to co-operate in the solution of the refugee problem . ; . if this solution [was] seen organically as part of a final settlement between the Arab States and ourselves'. Placing the onus back onto the Commission, the head of the Israeli delegation suggested that the PCC undertake a 'determined effort ... to persuade the Arab Governments to face the problems at issue in a spirit of greater realism'. To persist in making demands that bear no relation at all to realities cannot possibly advance the cause of the Arab States, and still less the cause of the refugees which they have at heart. Proposals such as those set out [in the Arab delegations' memorandum] ... offer no sort of basis for negotiation.48 By this point in the proceedings Mark Ethridge was describing the situation at Lausanne as a 'virtual stalemate', caused largely, in his view, by an Israeli delegation which had 'stiffened' its demands. 49 He also reacted to Eytan's approach by explaining that the PCC 'could not be expected to embrace [the] views of either [party] for [the] purpose of persuading [the] other'. With the blessing of the Commission, he informed Eytan that some of his 'assumptions and conclusions' were 'at variance [with] my [Ethridge's] views and

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[there was] no useful purpose in discussion'.50 This would be the first of a number of occasions on which a Lausanne 'postman' would feel the need to exercise some discretion and not indiscriminately transmit any and all messages from one party to the other. Although studiously avoiding any public criticism of the PCC's performance or personalities, Dr Eytan was clearly losing patience with the Commission. In a telegraphic report to Moshe Sharett, he wrote contemptuously of the PCC's lack of 'guts' and 'initiative' because of its hesitation over whether to inform the Arab delegations of Israel's territorial proposals. The Commission seemed either 'unwilling or impotent [to] talk horse sense to [the] Arabs'. The head of the Israeli delegation also predicted that the Arab delegations' 'insistence on talking refugees and nothing else at all, repeat, at all' would 'sooner or later blow up [the] conference'.51 On 31 May, in response to PCC requests, Eytan summarized Israel's stand on frontiers, refugees, and an international regime for Jerusalem, repeating that these issues were to be seen in the context of the Israeli delegation's 'primary aim ... to negotiate a final settlement of all questions outstanding between Israel and the Arab States, with a view to achieving permanent peace and continuing stability in the Middle East'. With regard to refugees, Eytan referred to Israel's proposals for the inclusion of Gaza and its refugees into Israel (see below) and for family reunification. The return and rehabilitation of those refugees would be 'subject to the conclusion of a final peace settlement between Israel and the Arab States'. The Israeli delegation declared that it was 'not within the capacity of Israel to resettle and rehabilitate all the refugees' (which it numbered at approximately 550,000), and that the Arab states should absorb all those not resettled in Israei.52 Just as the Arabs felt that the Israelis were using the refugees' suffering as a lever to pressure them into considering a final settlement based on the status quo, so too were the Israelis coming to view the Arab states' interest in the refugees as nothing more than a stick with which to beat them. But the continuing gap between the Israeli and Arab positions on the return of refugees was not the only area of dispute at Lausanne. Direct contacts in Paris between members of the Israeli and Lebanese delegations soon confirmed the existence of an equally unbridgeable gap between the Arab states and Israel on territorial issues. 53 From the Arabs' point of view, their signing of the Lausanne Protocol and the positions outlined in their

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memoranda of 18 and 21 May constituted serious concessions which had not been reciprocated by the Israelis. 'On the contrary,' Jordanian delegate Fawzi al-Mulqi complained to Mark Ethridge, 'the Jews ha[ d] given nothing and [were] demanding more. No Arab politician could dare to make any further concessions.' Mulqi pointed specifically to public feelings of humiliation following the signing of the Armistice Agreements as a factor limiting the Arab delegates' room for manoeuvre at Lausanne. His own country's attitude had 'hardened considerably' in the wake of Israel's 'excessive gunpoint demands' regarding the handing over of territory in the Tulkarm triangle, in accordance with the IJGAA, and because of lingering disputes in the Jerusalem area. In the hope of avoiding the break-down of the conference, Mulqi announced that he would raise the possibility with his Arab colleagues of asking the Commission again to submit its own proposals to the parties. 54 Presidential rebuke to Israel

Although the PCC remained reluctant to provide Arabs and Israelis with its own proposals for a solution, several other attempts were made at this time in an effort to break the post-Protocol deadlock. American pressure reached its highest point in attempts to persuade Israel to agree to declare its readiness to repatriate a significant number of refugees and to procure Arab agreement to large-scale resettlement of those who would not be returned to Israel-held territory. On 29 May 1949, Ambassador J.G. McDonald delivered a stern, accusatory message from President Truman to Prime Minister BenGurion, underlining the divergences between American and UN policy and that of Israel regarding a territorial settlement and the refugee question. 'The Government of the United States', Truman began, was 'seriously disturbed by the attitude oflsrael ... ,'and he expressed his 'deep concern' that American representations over the preceding months had 'made so little impression upon the Government oflsrael.' The note warned, 'in candor', that 'the rigid attitude of the Government oflsrael' was liable to cause a 'rupture' of the Lausanne talks, and concluded ominously: If the Government of Israel continues to reject the basic principles set forth by the resolution of the General Assembly

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of Dec. 11, 1948 and the friendly advice offered by the US Government for the sole purpose offacilitating a genuine peace in Palestine, the US Government will regretfully be forced to the conclusion that a revision of its attitude toward Israel has become unavoidable. 55 The Presidential note was the second direct US-Israel confrontation regarding the Lausanne peace process (after the AchesonShertok meeting in New York) and caused the most severe strain in relations between the two countries since the founding of the state. Israeli representatives in Tel Aviv, Washington and New York devoted much of the following weeks to 'damage control' and toreestablishing their credibility and improving their image in American eyes. These efforts must have had their impact, as evidenced in the American Ambassador in Israel's remark that'[ t]he next few months marked a steady retreat from the intransigence of the United States May note', as well as a disinclination to 'lay down the law to Tel Aviv' or to suggest solutions to either side. 56 The Jewish state's ability to withstand American and British criticism and pressure without significant loss of political and economic support left Arab observers scandalized, concluding that diplomatic gestures on the part of the powers were 'empty of any real substance'. 57 ISRAEL'S OFFER TO INCORPORATE THE GAZA STRIP

Towards the end of May, Israeli representatives at Lausanne undertook several initiatives aimed at getting the talks moving again. The most serious of these was a proposal to incorporate 'the Gaza area and its present Arab population' into Israel. After some preliminary gestures, Dr Eytan put forth this proposal in earnest on 29 May58 - coincidentally, the very day the presidential rebuke was being handed to Ben-Gurion. The suggestion had been advanced in Lausanne some ten days earlier and seems, inexplicably, to have gone unnoticed by both the President and State Department.59 The origins of this proposal most probably go back to Israeli leadership circles during March and April 1949.60 During his wide-ranging conversation with Mark Ethridge in Tiberias on 18 April, David Ben-Gurion had mentioned the possibility that the 'present Gaza strip might become autonomous like Luxembourg. IfEgypt did not want Gaza because of [the] refugees therein', Ethridge reported

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Ben-Gurion as saying, 'Israel would accept and permit those refugees to return to their homes.'61 Israeli officials subsequently weighed the advantages and drawbacks of annexing Gaza- while at times attempting to attribute the authorship of the idea to Mark Ethridge.62 The American representative on the PCC was indeed a strong supporter of the idea, as he had admitted to Walter Eytan during their first informal meeting at Lausanne. 63 Responding to Eytan's request for guidance, the matter was brought before the Israeli Cabinet on 3 May, when a majority voted (with Sharett among the dissenters) that 'Should the annexation to the state of the Gaza Strip with all its inhabitants be proposed, our answer will be positive. '64 The Israeli delegation at Lausanne then waited for an opportunity to respond to a Gaza proposition emanating from Ethridge or elsewhere, preferring to avoid the appearance of being too anxious to annex the strip. When, after several weeks, this did not happen, the Israeli delegation was forced to assume responsibility for advancing the Gaza offer. The territorial proposals which Israel made to the PCC on 20 May 'implied' taking over the Gaza Strip, thereby making, as Eytan argued, a 'notable contribution towards [a] solution [of the] refugee problem'. Eytan was appalled that the PCC was hesitant about transmitting the proposals to the Egyptians. On 27 May, Eytan met with the PCC and, in the course of defending his country's stand on repatriation, reminded the commissioners of Israel's standing offer to incorporate Gaza. 65 The Gaza proposal was further elaborated on 29 and 31 May, with Eytan touting its advantages as a practical way of ending the misery of 'the people now herded in the Gaza strip' and giving them 'a hope of rebuilding their lives'.66 Meanwhile, the Arab delegations informed the PCC that they considered Israel's territorial proposals, including the Gaza offer, to be a 'flagrant violation of the terms of the Protocol of 12 May'. 67

State Department support One Israeli historian has labelled the Gaza plan 'a mirage'- but one which 'riveted the attention of policy-makers in Washington', holding out 'the promise of a miraculous deliverance' from the stalemate at Lausanne. 68 Indeed, during the months of June and July, unexpected support for Israel's Gaza proposal came from the US State Department, where officials began to look on it as a possible

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key to unblocking the stalled negotiations. The proposal managed to sustain the serious interest ofDean Acheson and the State Department during this period thanks to a combination of wishful thinking and confusing signals as to whether the Egyptians would be willing to contemplate such a territory cum refugee arrangement. Not only was State Department optimism maintained in the face of growing indications of Egyptian rejection, but a decision was made to risk American political capital by offering American 'good offices' to the Egyptians and Israelis for the purpose of discussing the Gaza proposal. On 4 June, the State Department informed the US delegation at Lausanne that the American government would approve the incorporation of Gaza into Israel as part [of a] final territorial settlement provided this c[ou]ld be achieved by negot[iation] with and full consent [of the] Egyptian Gov[ ernmen]t and provided territorial compensation [was] made to Egypt according [to the] Pres[ident]'s formula [i.e., the 'Jessup principle'] ifEgypt desires such compensation. The State Department also listed several measures designed to protect the rights of the refugees and residents ofGaza. Several days later, the US Ambassador in Tel Aviv was instructed to inform the Israeli government that the US saw 'no reason why [the] area might not be incorporated' into Israel, with the same provisos regarding negotiation and the possible exchange of territory. 69 As for Egyptian reactions, American sources in Cairo initially indicated that 'Egypt might well be willing [to] cede Gaza', along with its 'refugee burden', in the course of future bargaining,70 Mark Ethridge's return to Washington gave added momentum to the State Department's pursuit of the Gaza proposal as a good basis for a territorial, not just a refugee, settlement - 'providing that it [was] accompanied by a quid pro quo: some part of the Negev'.71 But contradictory signals about Egyptian intentions regarding the Gaza strip abounded. In one of several reports from Lausanne, Elias Sasson quoted the head of the Egyptian delegation at Lausanne as stating categorically that: Not only would Egypt not cede the Gaza area, but she would also insist on receiving the Negev south of a line between

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Majdal and the Dead Sea .... Egypt strongly rejects Ethridge's plan [sic] for Gaza and its refugees.72 Independent British sources also reported that the Egyptians would be reluctant to abandon the Gaza Strip, with one report underlining Egypt's 'psychological' need to keep the territory as the 'sole tangible trophy of [the] Palestine campaign'. 73 The Egyptian Ambassador in Washington informed Acting Secretary of State James Webb that his government regarded Israel's proposal as 'cheap barter'. 74 Acting upon Webb's instructions, the American Charged' Affaires in Cairo, Jefferson Patterson, sounded out government views and confirmed the negative attitude expressed by the Egyptian Ambassador.75 Meanwhile, in Lausanne, the Arab delegations once again rejected the Gaza proposal, this time stressing to the PCC that they considered it as contrary to UN GA resolution 194.76 Good offices offered to Israel and Egypt State Department support for Ethridge's line of thinking persisted throughout the early summer of 1949. In mid-June, Aubrey Eban was able to report that the Gaza proposal was still attractive to State Department officials, and recommended that Israel continue to follow up its diplomatic initiative. Ambiguous signals from Abd alMun'im Mustafa to Mark Ethridge just prior to the latter's departure from Lausanne added to the confusion, and helped to keep the Gaza proposal alive during the coming month. Ethridge's advice to Dean Rusk in favour of exploiting the potential oflsrael's Gaza offer seems to have helped to convince the State Department not to abandon its pursuit of the scheme.77 On 24 June, an aide-memoire handed to the Israeli Charge d'Affaires in Washington repeated the US government's hopeful position that it saw 'no reason why the [Gaza] proposal might not become the basis for discussions between the Government oflsrael and other interested Governments'. In his accompanying remarks to Uriel Heyd, Dean Rusk went further, indicating that 'The Gaza strip proposal was perhaps the key which would unlock the whole problem.' For this reason, the State Department was 'most anxious that the Egyptians and Israelis get together and see what could be worked out'. The Israelis, Rusk added, might wish to utilize the contacts they already had with the Egyptians; '[O]n the other hand[,]

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if these were not satisfactory we were willing to help in arranging an exchange of views. '78 Thus began the brief episode of America's offer of its good offices (sometimes erroneously referred to as its offer of 'mediation') to Israel and to Egypt to discuss the Gaza proposal. Believing that British advice to the Egyptians carried great weight, Acheson immediately appealed to the Foreign Office for backing of the plan as 'the only means [for] breaking [the] Israeli-Arab impasse re[garding] refugees' in the context of 'common US-UK objectives'. He regarded Egyptian interest in 'frontier rectifications' along the SinaiNegev border as an important bargaining chip, and had originally hoped that minor rectifications might satisfy the Egyptians. But, since it appeared that the Egyptian Foreign Minister was interested in a line from Gaza through Beersheba to the Dead Sea, Acheson proposed that the British and Americans 'take [a] strong line with [the] Egyptians, based on [the] overriding consideration of getting constructive action re[garding] refugees'. The US Secretary of State 'urgently request[ ed the] firmest UK support' for his government's representations on behalf of both the Gaza plan and moderating Egypt's 'unrealistic attitude' regarding frontier demands. 79 The British reaction was disappointingly lukewarm. One official took the cynical view that the Gaza plan was a 'subtle' one that 'would give the Israelis something for nothing in the way of territory and would not prevent them from driving the Arabs out of the area after they had occupied it. •80 Part of London's reluctance was no doubt connected to the Foreign Office's own drafting of an eight-point proposal (Document 7) reflecting British preferences for territorial adjustments involving Gaza, the Negev and central Palestine.81 In reply to Acheson's appeal, the FO told Washington that it 'did not wish to give Egypt advice one way or [the] other', but was 'inclined to think it would be better for Egypt to keep [the] Gaza strip and its refugees and for Israel to take another 150,000 refugees from elsewhere. ' 82 Reacting to the Foreign Office rebuff, Acheson instructed the American Ambassador in London to inform Foreign Secretary Ernest Bevin that the US government was 'disturbed by' the British attitude to the Gaza proposal. After providing detailed counterarguments on 'strategic security' issues, the US Secretary of State remained 'firmly convinced' that the Gaza proposal should become a 'basis for discussion between Egypt and Israel', as this would

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'probably pave [the] way for [an] Israeli-Egyptian final settlement and thereby constitute [a] decisive step towards [an] overall Palestine settlement.' Acheson closed by reiterating the United States' 'urgent request for firm UK support' of its efforts to gain Egypt's co-operation. 83 Acheson would find even less satisfaction from his representations to the Egyptians, who were prepared to resist heavy American pressure to discuss the Gaza proposal. The Secretary's instructions to Charge Patterson in Cairo were to express firmly to the Egyptian Foreign Minister the US government's 'profound disappointment' in the 'negative attitude' which Egypt had been showing regarding the refugee problem. The Arab states, Acheson warned, should give 'most serious attention to [the] consequences during recent years of their steadfast refusal [to] accept [the] realities [of the] situation re[garding] Pal[ estine ]'. Brandishing the sole American lever for persuading the Egyptians, the Secretary of State pointed ominously to the uncertain future of refugee relief funding (most of it coming from US charitable organizations), and noted that Egypt had thus far failed to provide information regarding its plans for the permanent disposition of the refugees in Gaza. By contrast, the Israelis had undertaken to 'assume full responsibility' for the refugees and residents if that area were incorporated into Israel as part of a settlement. In this light, Acheson concluded, the Israeli proposal should be given most serious and constructive consideration by [the] Egyptian Gov[ ernmen)t. [The p ]roposal sh[ ou ]ld serve as [a] basis [for] urgent discussion between [the] states concerned, through direct or indirect negot[iation]s. The US government was prepared to 'lend all possible assistance [to] facilitate such negot[iation]s'. 84

Reactions to American good offices During his meeting with Foreign Minister Khashaba on 27 June, Jefferson Patterson's mention of Egypt's 'negative attitude' triggered a sharp retort. How, asked Khashaba, could 'Egypt's steady insistence on [the] positive implementation of numerous UN resolutions' be called 'negative'? The Minister, who frequently

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interrupted Patterson 'in a rather agitated fashion', became particularly annoyed at the US view of the refugee problem being 'a joint responsibility' of the Arab states and Israel. The Israelis' proposal for Gaza, in Khashaba's view, 'amounted to their insistence on being paid for fulfilling a prior obligation imposed upon them by [the] UN', and he feared that Gaza's refugee population would be 'turned off in all probability into the desert of the Negev'. In conclusion, however, the Minister stated that Egypt 'would not refuse to give serious consideration to any plan designed as [a] humanitarian measure and susceptible of bringing stability to an area or situation'. He requested a written brief of the US position. 85 On 28 June, Secretary Acheson authorized the transmission of an aide-memoire to the Egyptian government along the lines of his earlier instructions to Patterson, with the following additional considerations: • The US government remained 'firmly convinced' that the Gaza proposal formed the basis of an 'important contribution to [a] final settlement' of the Palestine problem as well as a 'constructive approach to [a] solution [of the] grave humanitarian problem of [the] refugees'. • In response to the Foreign Minister's expressed concerns for the welfare ofthe refugees under future Israeli rule, the US was prepared to seek information regarding Israeli plans for their resettlement and to advocate the establishment of 'appropriate international supervision'. • The US government 'recall[ed] with deep appreciation' what it termed Egypt's 'constructive action' as the first state to conclude an armistice agreement with Israel, and was 'deeply hopeful' that Egypt was 'now prepared [to] give [a] similar stimulus to [a] final settlement [of the] outstanding issues by entering into early discussions with Israel re[garding the] Gaza proposal'. The US aide-memo ire reiterated that, 'if so requested', the United States stood 'ready to facilitate such discussions by all [the] means at its disposal'.86 During the July recess of the Lausanne talks (see below), several developments contributed to preventing the Gaza breakthrough on which the State Department was pinning its hopes. While American energies concentrated on eliciting a positive response from Cairo,

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Israelis gradually developed second thoughts about the relative advantages of an American-brokered deal with Egypt. By late June, Walter Eytan was under no illusions about the price which Israel would be asked to pay. If Israel declined American good offices then we are the ones that don't want peace. If we say yes, we lose [Eilat]. I don't believe the Americans would have proposed mediation, nor could they get they Egyptians to accept it, if it were not clear from the start that we should be forced to make this territorial concession.87 Despite Israeli misgivings and uncertainties, Foreign Minister Sharett sent a positive response to the State Department's offer of assistance in bringing about conversations with the Egyptians on the Gaza proposal. 88 In elaborating Israel's position on possible talks with Egypt, Aubrey Eban stressed the need to avoid showing 'any sign [of] eagerness for Gaza'. Israel should agree, he felt, to consider 'territorial adjustment' on the Sinai-Palestine border - but 'not including Eilat', which was 'in no circumstances surrenderable'.89 As rational or consistent as the Israeli bargaining position on the Gaza offer was, it was inherently weakened by at least two factors. One was the negative perception, already current among Israel's Arab and other critics, that the offer was little more than an expansionist attempt to take land. Even though it was now the Americans, rather than the Israelis, who were actively pushing the proposal, the Arab view of Israel's ulterior motives was not easily reversed. A senior Egyptian Foreign Ministry official not only regarded the Gaza scheme 'as an indication of Israeli predatory intent', but also stated that 'As long as Israelis felt they could obtain American support, they would never accept any proposition from any quarter.'90 Jefferson Patterson reported from Cairo that American backing for the plan had contributed to 'a growing suspicion of [the] inability or unwillingness of[the] US G[overnment] to view [the] Palestine controversy impartially'. 91 The second element undermining the chances of success was the Israeli-American disagreement, glossed over at first, regarding the need for territorial compensation to Egypt, preferably in the Aqaba area, to create a land-bridge between Egypt and Jordan. From the start, the State Department had clearly stated that territorial compensation for Egypt, and perhaps also 'another Arab state,' would

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be required but, during July, Israel made known its utter opposition to any such territorial compensation.92 The issue was further complicated by suspicions, held by many Israelis as well as members of the PCC, that a land corridor between Egypt and Jordan was more of a British strategic interest than a legitimate Arab demand or need. 93 These factors would again come into play during the secret 1949-50 negotiations for an lsraeli-Jordanian peace treaty, when Israeli negotiators were prepared at some points to concede the principle of providing Abdullah with a corridor to the Mediterranean. 94 But several years later, reacting to the Anglo-American attempts at promoting an Egyptian-Israeli peace settlement through Operation Alpha, Israelis would be adamantly opposed to ceding a proposed land-link between Egypt and Jordan. Throughout the month of July, the State Department tried to persuade the Egyptians to agree to discuss the Gaza plan, still hopeful of using the proposal to 'break ... [the] entire ice'.95 On 7 July, the first of several decidedly negative reports arrived from Cairo. In a conversation with American Charge Patterson, the UnderSecretary at the Egyptian Foreign Ministry 'reacted vigorously' to the former's suggestion that Israel's Gaza proposal had been the 'sole constructive measure' to be advocated in pursuit of a solution to the refugee problem. Not only that, but Abd al-Khaliq Hassuna was reported to be 'hotly antagonistic to [the] Israeli desire [to] take possession [of] additional territory ... and expressed surprise that [the] US G[overnment] could regard such [a] measure as [a] constructive proposal. '96 The Secretary of State reacted to the reservations expressed in Cairo by reassuring the Egyptians that the US was not 'insisting they agree to [the] Gaza strip proposal', only that they should not summarily dismiss it. The American government felt that the proposal 'ha[ d] merit' and believed it was 'essential that it be discussed between [the] parties'. Agreement to discuss was not, Acheson argued, a commitment to accept. Agreement to meet with the Israelis would be seen as a 'concrete statesmanlike gesture', while outright refusal would leave Egypt open to accusations ofbad faith and would 'undoubtedly be used' by the Israelis as an 'opportunity for [a] propaganda campaign'. 97 At the same time, the American Secretary resumed his quest for British support for the Gaza initiative, but found the Foreign Office still reluctant to press the Egyptians on the Gaza proposal 'in isolation from other points'.98

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Between 15 and 17 July, the American Charge in Cairo was hard at work under instructions to elicit an affirmative Egyptian reply through meetings with British and Egyptian officials. Jefferson Patterson's colourful report of these talks described a unanimous Egyptian reaction of 'great ... and ... contemptuous surprise that the government of a great nation such as [the] US should lend itself to such [a] disreputable scheme.' The American diplomat feared that the State Department's 'continued harping on [the] merits of [the] Gaza plan'- which he described as 'completely invisible to Arab eyes'- would cause the Egyptians to view the US government 'as an accomplice of an expansionist and aggressive Israel'. The American Charge d'Affaires had 'never seen [Foreign] Minister [Khashaba] so violent in manner or so contemptuous of any proposal made to him'. In another conversation, Arab League SecretaryGeneral Abd ar-Rahman Azzam was less emotional in tone, but nevertheless criticized the US government for being 'wittingly or unwittingly ... [the] stooge or dupe of[the] Israelis who, according to his information, were preparing to attack Gaza ... and to seize the area by force'. Azzam could 'not perceive how [the] State Department ... could be so artless or so base as to lend itself to such an intrigue'. Why, he asked, did the US not lend its support to the Protocol of 12 May, instead of the 'disreputable' Gaza scheme, which was 'unworthy of consideration of any self-respecting government'?99 Jefferson Patterson ended his six-page report with the suggestion that 'Egypt ... might adopt [a] more conciliatory attitude towards [the] proposed settlement' if the State Department could 'guarantee Egypt territorial compensation sufficient [to] provide [a] land bridge between Egypt [and]Jordan.' This may well have led Washington to interpret the Egyptian expressions of indignation more as bargaining tactics than genuine moral outrage and rejection. In hopes of winning Cairo's co-operation regarding the Gaza proposal, the Americans hinted more strongly at their willingness to support 'reasonable' Egyptian territorial claims on the Negev.100 In the course of working for Egyptian agreement to discuss the Gaza proposal, the State Department quietly but substantially altered the nature of the proposed American involvement. Originally, Secretary Acheson had no intention of 'participat[ing] as [a] third party in [the] discussions or act[ing] as mediator' .101 But gradually the Americans were forced by expressions of Egyptian distaste for Israel's Gaza proposal as being 'straight barter of

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refugees against territory' 102 into intervening more actively. A deal over Gaza seemed possible now only if the US could extract a sufficiently large territorial quid pro quo from Israep03 Eytan's predictions had been proven correct. In going this far in its promotion of the Gaza proposal, the US had by now clearly exceeded the normal limits of offering its good offices. Only recently the Israeli Foreign Minister had questioned 'Why indeed should the Arab States be considered entitled to territorial compensation?' and had declared before the Knesset that [w]hoever, wittingly or un wittingly, encourages the Arab States to believe that they may succeed in wringing territorial concessions from Israel, i.e. that they can obtain by political pressure what they have failed to gain by a war of aggression, will not be serving the cause of peace in the Middle East. A special word of warning [Sharett added] must be uttered against any renewed attempt which might be made to rob the State ofIsrael of the southern part of the Negev.104 Washington now seemed to be undertaking to provide something which it really had no power to deliver.Indeed, the awareness that the Americans were backing Egyptian claims to the southern Negev105 may have been prominent among Foreign Minister Sharett's

reasons for ordering a significant hardening of his Lausanne

delegation's bargaining position after 25 July. In any possible

discussions of the Gaza proposal,Israelis were told to reject out of hand any proposal for territorial compensation to Egypt and/or Jordan.106 Pouncing upon Abd al-Mun'im Mustafa's reported willingness to continue discussions, Secretary Acheson cabled the American delegation at Lausanne, suggesting that the PCC 'take the initiative privately' to raise the Gaza question with the Egyptian delegate, and to offer to sound out theIsraelis confidentially on the extent of the territorial concessions they would be prepared to make in exchange for Gaza.107 But there was little reason for optimism that the Gaza offer would serve to unblock the deadlock at Lausanne. When approached by the Americans, Mustafa (contrary to assurances given in Cairo) rejected the Gaza proposal outright, while Reuven Shiloah ( who replaced Eytan as head of the Israeli delegation) followed his instructions by not appearing overly eager to pursue the matter.108

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On 25 July the long-awaited official Egyptian reply came as somewhat of an anticlimax. Egypt's formal rejection of the American proposal was prefaced by complaints about the inability of the powers to enforce compliance with the General Assembly resolution of 11 December 1948 regarding the right of the refugees to return to their homes. The Egyptian government regretted that international authorities were 'docilely lending themselves to the game' being played by 'the Jews'. Egypt could 'only refuse' the American proposal which under humanitarian guise [could] serve only and solely the interests of the Jews who [were] merely making use of the refugee question as a means to extend their dominion over [the] largest part if not the entirety of Palestine.109 Thus, in late July, after more than two months of negative signals from Cairo, Israeli and American officials finally put 'on hold' the Gaza plan as a focus for either direct Egyptian-Israeli negotiations or American mediation. The State Department informed its Cairo Embassy that, although it could not agree with the contentions in the Egyptian reply, it now believed it was 'undesirable to continue to press [the] Egyptian government re[garding the] Gaza strip proposal', and that the 'proper focus of discussions [of] this subject' should be Lausanne.110 Through the medium of their own secret contacts, Israelis and Egyptians in Switzerland confirmed that their respective stands on Gaza and the Negev were utterly irreconcilable. Ill During the coming months, a few Israeli and American officials continued to entertain the faint possibility ofone day reviving Israel's offer to incorporate the strip and its refugees, 112 but the scheme proved to be a mirage. More important than the attractiveness of the contents of the original Israeli offer, the episode served as a reminder of the stubborn determination of the Egyptians to avoid direct dealings with the Israelis. Moreover, officials at the State Department learned the important lesson that Egypt's ability to resist fairly heavy American pressure on this issue was at least as effective as Israel's successful avoidance of the calls for it to make an advance gesture on the refugees.

CHAPTER VI

Lausanne: The Final Stalemate

JULY RECESS

While soundings continued in Washington, London and Cairo about the feasibility of the Gaza proposal, the delegations in Lausanne continued their manoeuvring and shadow-boxing without progress and amid increasing frustration. 1 On his last day in Lausanne before returning home to the United States, Mark Ethridge reported 'no progress' in reconciling Arab and Israeli positions. Ethridge left Lausanne 'in a mood of great bitterness', mostly against the Israelis, although, Walter Eytan conceded, 'fairminded enough to admit that the Arabs' attitude was unrealistic'.2 The head of the Israeli delegation, for his part, was weary of the PCC's 'idee fixe' regarding the Israeli position, which he characterized as follows: If only you [Israelis] would accept the principle of repatriation, everything would be fine and dandy, and we'd get along like a house on fire. But as long as you maintain your obstinate, stubborn, rigid (choose your epithet) refusal, we are in no position to get the Arabs talking on other things, and there's no prospect of peace. You - Israel - are the ones who are preventing peace, and it's no good your saying you want peace. We don't believe you, because if you really want peace, you know how to get it. All you have to do is to declare your acceptance of the repatriation principle. 3

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At one point in June 1949 Eytan confessed that he was 'sorely tempted' to call the Arabs' 'bluff' by accepting the principle of repatriation, contingent on numerous provisos. In the end, however, the Israeli delegation kept closely to the official line that the return of refugees could not be considered separately from an overall peace settlement. 4 Israeli tactics at the conference consisted of bombarding the PCC with paperwork aimed at 'undermin[ing] the Protocol of 12 May, which [Israel] had signed only under ... duress'.5 In the second half of June, the head of the Israeli delegation submitted a series of formal letters to the PCC, including the long-awaited official - but hardly sympathetic - reply to the Arab delegations' nine-point memorandum of 18 May.6 On 18 June, the State Department advised its delegation to the PCC that, 'After [the] fullest consultation' with the recently-returned Mark Ethridge, it was recommending the Commission adjourn for two or three weeks 'during which delegations w[ ou]ld have [a] fresh opportunity [to] consult their gov[ernmen]ts with [a] view to advancing constructive proposals upon reconvening [in] Lausanne. '7 The move came as no surprise. Speculation had already been brewing about the possible suspension of the talks, with both sides admitting their 'futility' but no one wishing to be blamed for causing the break. 8 The views of the departing American chief representative on the PCC had changed little over the preceding months. Reporting from Paris en route to Washington, Mark Ethridge's assessment of the Lausanne stalemate again laid 'primary responsibility' on Israel, which he blamed for having consistently avoided the requested concessions on refugees. Ethridge went further than his previous despatches to denounce Israel's attitude toward the refugees as being both 'Morally reprehensible and politically short-sighted ... Her position as conqueror demanding more [did] not make for peace.' There had 'never been a time in the life of the commission', he concluded, 'when a generous and far-sighted attitude on the part of the Jews would not have unlocked [the door to] peace'. 9 Unlike the privately held opinions of the outgoing chief US delegate, the PCC's Third Progress Report to the UN summarized the irreconcilable positions of the parties on refugees, territory, and Jerusalem, assessing responsibility more even-handedly and in more diplomatic language. Its conclusions contained an admission, in typically understated phrases, that the Commission now found itself having to 'arrest' the 'tendency' towards failure of the talks.lO

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The recess (1 to 18 July) provided an opportunity for the Americans, Israelis and Arabs to 'fine tune' the positions they had been adopting at Lausanne. It was also seen by the British as an opportunity to develop joint Anglo-American proposals for a settlement for submission to the PCC (Document 7). In the end, however, the eight-point plan drafted by the Foreign Office did not win whole-hearted American endorsement and remained a scheme defining only Britain's vision of an ideal solution.11 Just prior to the decision to adjourn the Lausanne talks, some American officials wondered whether, beyond the continuing need for a 'firm line' and pressure on the Israelis, the time had come for 'making strong specific suggestions [to] both sides, particularly re[garding] boundaries and refugees' .12 The case for greater American involvement of this sort was reinforced by Raymond Hare, acting head of the US delegation after Ethridge's departure. Hare doubted whether the proposed short break and a return to Lausanne would, by themselves, lead to anything more than negotiations 'renewed ... on essentially [the] same basis as [the] present impasse'. 'The basic fact, of course', he wrote in late June, was that 'neither side [was] actually ready for peace at this time. '13 But State Department proposals for strengthening US support for the PCC efforts at Lausanne fell short of advocating any specific solutions to the territorial and other issues, and dealt mainly with how the US might assist the PCC in persuading the main protagonists to be more forthcoming. Assistant Secretary of State George McGhee also proposed the speedy creation and despatch of an 'Economic Survey Mission' to make an authoritative study of the numbers, distribution and conditions of the refugees.14 In the spirit ofMcGhee's recommendations, instructions were sent to US missions in France, Turkey and all Middle Eastern capitals, affirming American determination to strengthen the PCC and appealing to all parties to return to Lausanne 'with a new and constructive approach' and with 'full authority ... to enter into discussion and negotiation of all issues which fall within [the] purview of [the] PCC' .15 In addition, the appointment of Paul A. Porter, a Washington lawyer reported to have close ties with the President, as chief US representative on the PCC, was meant to appear as evidence of American determination to increase the Commission's chances of success.16 During the recess of the Lausanne talks, the Israeli Cabinet and

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Foreign Ministry both devoted much attention to reformulating their delegation's strategy with a view to improving the conference's chances of success and avoiding a renewal of the Palestine debate at the UNGA in the autumn. On 5 July, the Cabinet defined the maximum numbers of refugees it would allow to return both ifGaza was incorporated and, alternatively, if it was not incorporated thereby setting the stage for the offer to repatriate 100,000 (see below, page 106).17 On 7 July, the Government of Israel officially announced administrative details of its family reunification scheme. In conveying this information to the PCC at Lausanne, Gershon Hirsch pointed out that this represented 'a substantial relaxation' of his government's previous stance that 'Any return of Arab refugees to Israel must take place within the framework of a general settlement which assures peace and security to the State oflsrael. '18 The terms of the reunification scheme appeared, to the State Department, to have been reduced somewhat in scale from the original, but the United States nevertheless 'welcome[d] this first tangible step toward commencement [of] the immediate repatriation long requested by [the] US G[overnment]' and expressed the hope that Israel would make 'every effort [to] enlarge [the] scope [of] this process' .19 Among the Arab states, Syria, in particular, seemed to be seeking American goodwill at this time, having accepted American advice on a compromise formula that had finally brought the protracted Syrian-Israeli armistice negotiations to an end on 20 July. Prime Minister Muhsin Barazi reacted favourably to Acheson's exhortations for a more 'constructive' attitude at Lausanne and contemplated making changes to the instructions for, and membership in, his country's delegation. The Prime Minister went further, suggesting that 'he would use his influence with other Arab states to get them to adopt [a] more positive attitude'. The American Legation in Damascus dared to hope that Syria might now offer the 'best Arab leadership in reaching [an] overall peace settlement'. 20 The State Department seemed favourably impressed with Barazi's stand on Lausanne, which was one of the by-products of the brief US-Syrian 'honeymoon' period under Colonel Husni Za'im.21 The Jordanian Foreign Minister likewise informed the US Charge d'Affaires in Amman that he had instructed his Lausanne delegation to discuss all outstanding issues without regard to previous Arab priorities. 22

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RESUMPTION OF THE CONFERENCE

On the surface, the atmosphere at Lausanne following the break appeared more positive than before, although participants were still guarded about the chances of ultimate success. The new head of the Israeli delegation, Reuven Shiloah, was able to establish friendly relations with Paul Porter of the US delegation, and also reported some signs of moderation in the Arab position. 23 The signing of the last remaining armistice agreement in the Israeli-Syrian demilitarized zone on 20 July seemed to augur well for more fruitful negotiations at Lausanne. Given Syrian strongman Husni Za'im's extraordinary earlier offer to resettle 300,000 (soon reduced to 200,000) Palestinian refugees in his country, Americans had reason to hope, for a short while, that the Syrian delegation might 'facilitate [a] solution of[ the] refugee problem' and use its influence to 'induce other [Arab] del[egation]s to adopt [a] similar position simultaneously at Lausanne'. 24 Israel was also interested in sending peacefeelers towards Syria at this time. 25 Overall, both Arabs and Israelis 'showed less intransigence' on their return to Lausanne, due in large part to internal and external pressures that had operated during the recess.26 There were, however, also reasons for pessimism. In early conversations with Egypt's Abd al-Mun'im Mustafa and Israel's Gershon Hirsch, Stuart Rockwell of the American delegation found the two sides espousing the same mutually incompatible positions on refugees and territory. The only apparent improvement was the Egyptians' broadened mandate to discuss matters other than refugees. Rockwell also noted that the Arab states had been unable to come up with a common position of territorial issues during the recess.27 Within a few weeks, Israelis reported a turn for the worse in Egypt's attitude, while the Jordanians appeared more uncooperative and disillusioned after the recess than the other Arab delegations. 28 The mid-August visit to Lausanne of representatives of the All-Palestine Government in Gaza and a Gaza refugee organization was seen by some as an effort, through 'advising' the Egyptian delegation, to subvert any chance of Arab-Israeli understanding or agreement.29 Following the 14 August coup d'etat which ousted and led to the execution ofHusni Za'im, the Syrian attitude towards cooperation with the US and the PCC noticeably hardened.30 On the Israeli side too, several factors undermined the apparent

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signs of optimism. Rather than leading to greater flexibility among Israeli planners, Reuven Shiloah's good relations with Paul Porter contributed to a belief that there was little need to fear further pressure from Washington, and that there was therefore no need to contemplate additional concessions at Lausanne.31 Paradoxically, the conclusion of the final GAA with Syria - which might have produced added momentum towards a comprehensive settlement at Lausanne - led some Israelis instead to question the urgency of achieving a formal peace at this stage. Now that there was calm along the borders, and now that the ceasefire lines had acquired a certain measure of international legitimacy as armistice lines, a subtle but important shift took place in the thinking of many Israeli policy makers regarding the need for a peace agreement at this time. This change of emphasis affected not only 'hardliners' and sceptics like Ben-Gurion, but also men like Sharett, Sasson, and Eban, who were normally committed to exerting maximum efforts to reach a satisfactory agreement with the Arab states at Lausanne. A consensus was developing in the Ministry of Foreign Affairs that Israel should stop reiterating declarations about our desire for peace, since the Arab world interprets them as a sign of weakness and as an indication of our willingness to surrender. We should say the opposite [Sharett lectured his Mapai party colleagues]: We do not need peace. We are satisfied with the present agreement. Perhaps the Arabs need peace.32 Although such cavalier attitudes were not overtly displayed by the Israeli delegation at Lausanne, they certainly operated as an undercurrent to the ongoing diplomatic manoeuvring and posturing of the Israeli delegation. ISRAEL'S OFFER TO REPATRIATE 100,000 REFUGEES

With the demise of the prospect oflsraeli-Egyptian talks based upon the Gaza offer, the resumed discussions at Lausanne would face only one further initiative - also an Israeli one - aimed at breaking the deadlock. Upon his arrival at Lausanne on 27 July, Reuven Shiloah informally advised Paul Porter about a tactical retreat in his country's position, a change that Shiloah candidly attributed to the latest

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manifestations of US pressure.33 Israel was now prepared, he said, to discuss solutions to the refugee problem 'outside [the] context of [a] final Palestine settlement' - so long as there was convincing evidence that 'real progress' was being made toward such a 'final settlement'. The long-standing Israeli insistence on linking a refugee settlement to an overall peace agreement was thus somewhat moderated. On the other key issue, however, Shiloah reacted to the unofficial and informal US preference for a substantial Israeli concession in the Negev by making it clear that the PCC would have a 'bitter wrangle' with the Israeli delegation over any plans involving a 'reduction' of territory currently occupied by Israel. Israel 'might', Porter reported in quotation marks, consider suggestions for territorial 'adjustments' which did not involve the loss of the Negev. The American delegate was 'not encouraged' by what he had heard.34 Several days later, when the Israeli position on the refugee problem was submitted in writing, it included the additional condition that discussions on the issue 'must be held directly between Israeli and Arab delegates in [the] presence of [the] PCC'. After several days of confusing signals, the Arab delegations confirmed that they were willing to discuss the Israeli proposals with the Commission, but that face-to-face discussions with the Israelis were 'out of the question'.35 During a meeting with the PCC on 3 August, the Israeli delegation formally announced that the number of refugees Israel would allow to return would be set at 100,000- a figure which had been decided upon during the Lausanne recess in response to persistent requests from the PCC and the US government. 36 As a negotiating position, Israel's 100,000 offer had little success in winning American favour or in moving the Lausanne talks forward. Israel's recent proposal to incorporate the Gaza strip whose refugee population was variously estimated at between 150,000 and 300,000- turned out to be a liability to Israel's current negotiating position, making the 100,000 offer seem a paltry token by comparison. Secretary of State Acheson noted that, 'on balance', the US did not consider the Israeli offer to be a 'satisfactory ... basis for [an] ultimate solution of [the] refugee problem'.37 Most American officials, as well as the British Foreign Office, regarded the 100,000 as a constructive first step- but one that would need to be improved upon.38 Despite the lukewarm international response

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and the fact that it did not result in breaking the Lausanne deadlock, Foreign Minister Sharett nevertheless believed that the offer had 'vastly improved' Israel's 'tactical position' vis-a-vis the UN and the Arabs.3 9 The '1 00,000 offer'- which many realized would only amount to between 60,000 and 70,000 refugees, after deducting 'illegal infiltrees' and others who would be taken back under proposed family-reunification arrangements40- became further undermined when a press leak unleashed a major political explosion in Tel Aviv. Hostile criticism of the government's offer, even within the governing Mapai party ranks, led to 'the angriest session of the Israeli parliament's brief history'41 and reflected: • security fears of the reintroduction of a 'fifth column'; • fears that Israel would be forced beyond the 100,000 to allow the return of larger numbers; • distaste for the apparent surrender to US pressure; and • a popular backlash against the return of any of the refugees. One American-Jewish reporter visiting Israel was struck by the efforts made to absorb new immigrants and toward the fortification of 'Israel's exposed frontiers against the constant threat of fresh invasion. After all this', he asked, 'who could see any realistic possibility that the people oflsrael would seriously entertain propositions that they should surrender some of this territory or welcome home an army of destitute Arabs?'42 Foreign Minister Sharett pointed to this internal opposition to reinforce the point that 100,000 was the absolute maximum Israel would consider. Under the circumstances, the offer was being made on a 'take-it-or-leave-it' basis.43 At first the PCC decided not to formally transmit Israel's offer regarding the refugees to the Arab delegations, 'since if it did so instant rejection would result and [an] impasse [would] be created'. Private talks between commissioners and Arab delegates revealed an 'emphatic' rejection of the offer as a 'mere propaganda scheme' and 'less than token'. At a subsequent private meeting with Shiloah, PCC members attempted in vain to get the Israelis to improve on their offer -leaving Porter convinced that although the atmosphere 'appear[ ed] more conciliatory on [the] surface[,] basic positions remain[ed] unchanged'.44 The Arab delegations denounced the inadequacy of the Israeli offer, and referred again to the Protocol of

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12 May as the basis for their request for an immediate return of refugees to Israeli-held lands lying outside the 1947 partition boundaries. Rockwell found this counter-proposal so 'unrealistic and unhelpful' that he decided not to forward it to the lsraelis.45

Suspension of US loan payments to Israel From Washington, the American government tried quietly to induce Israel to increase its repatriation offer. The chosen form of pressure for greater Israeli flexibility was a suspension of the payment of the unallocated balance of a $100-million loan previously granted by the Export-Import (Exlm) Bank ofWashington. The main reason cited for the suspension was the non-realisation of anticipated peace in Palestine. The idea of applying this financial stick against Israel had first been proposed by the State Department as a possible follow-up to Truman's note of rebuke of 29 May, and had been endorsed by the President. While the State Department refused to admit to the Israeli Ambassador that it was exerting a 'political veto' in the loan matter, this is the clear message that the Israelis drew (and were expected to draw) both from the Exlm Bank itself and from Stuart Rockwell in Lausanne. The latter had been taking a 'strong line' in his talks with Israeli representatives on the 'unlikelihood ... of large[-]scale US-Israel economic cooperation [in] view [of the] Israeli attitude on [the] main issues [of the] Palestine problem'.46 Ifthe Americans were hoping to change Israel's position by the loan suspension, Sharett warned, they were 'mistaken in their estimation of our moral and physical capacity to stand firm'. The Israeli Foreign Minister added that, since the Arabs were hoping for Israel's economic ruin, the American move would also encourage extremists and put off the chances of peace. 47 In late August, Israelis in Washington undertook a counter-offensive behind closed doors, requesting that the issue be reconsidered and threatening that, if the matter became public, they would denounce the political interference as a breach of faith hindering Israel's economic consolidation. During a meeting with George McGhee, Ambassador Elath called it the 'worst blow we [have] ever suffered' at the hands of the American government, and hoped the reversal ofthe State Department veto would become a 'turning point to force [an] improvement [in] our relations and compel [the] USA government [to] relinquish [its] methods [of] coercion and blackmail'. 48

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Owing to a combination of poor timing, confusing American political signals, and Israeli counter-action, the suspension (or 'postponement', as McGhee apologetically termed it) of the loan payments had no impact on the offer to allow I 00,000 refugees to return. If anything, the American action had the opposite effect of sparking Israel's outrage and determination, especially when coupled with the latter's frustration at the lack of US understanding shown towards the Gaza and refugee offers.49 The episode illustrated the limited effect of Great Power sanctions on embattled client-states.50 The Israelis were pleased when the State Department finally backed away from its attempt to use the loan payments as political leverage at Lausanne, but the Arabs were left with the impression that US support for UNGA resolutions and the 'reported American threats against Israel' were merely 'empty talk'. 51 CONTINUED CONCILIATION OR IMPOSED SETTLEMENT?

On the major issues of refugees and territories, the parties were once again at an impasse. Nor was there any thaw or increase in mutual goodwill resulting from attempts to resolve relatively minor or technical matters. Israel's proposed practical arrangements for the reunification of refugee families, modest though they were, led to a delayed, begrudging and conditional Arab response- producing, in turn, bitter complaints from Israelis both in Lausanne and Tel Aviv. 52 The only tangible achievement was the creation of a mixed technical committee to study the implementation of an accord on the unblocking of frozen bank accounts. 53 By mid-August, it appeared that the latest stalemate in the Lausanne talks might be broken in one of two ways. Either the PCC would transmit its own set of proposals to the delegations for discussion, and thereafter continue (indirect) negotiations on this new basis, or else the Commission would adjourn the talks and report to the UNGA on the failure of the parties to reach an agreement at Lausanne. This report would conceivably provide the Assembly with recommendations for an equitable solution.

Calls for PCC proposals Pressure for the PCC to submit its own proposals had periodically come from the Arab delegations, but in August the initiative came

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from Paul Porter, who began urging the State Department for guidelines in this direction. After only one week at the resumed talks, the head of the American delegation informed Secretary Acheson that there were 'no grounds for optimism', as the parties were 'apparently ... willing to continue endless and aimless discussions'. He suggested to his PCC colleagues that, if no agreement were to emerge after two more weeks of talks, the Commission itself should then be prepared to 'initiate proposals that in its view [were] equitable'. Porter requested State Department advice on the recommended lines of a settlement, and urged the need to have a wellformulated position ready for presentation. 54 While concurring with Porter's idea of a self-imposed two-week deadline, Acheson instructed the Lausanne delegation to avoid 'anything in the nature of a PCC plan' at least until after a further stage during which the commissioners would informally advance tentative, ad hoc practical suggestions for discussion. 55 Despite these requests from Lausanne, and despite the availability of the FO's 'Eight Points' as a potential basis for a settlement, Washington was now firmly committed to a cautious, non-interventionist approach. The State Department was no longer so sure of the feasibility of living up to its own January instructions which had spoken of resorting to American or Anglo-American proposals on a territorial settlement and refugees if needed to break a deadlock. At Lausanne, however, the members of the Commission began the process of formulating their own preliminary proposals for territorial compromises, with the French, Turkish and American representatives pulling in different directions and reflecting the different sensitivities of their respective governments. On 5 August, Paul Porter pressed for State Department approval to have the Commission proceed to elaborate those tentative proposals in private meetings with each delegation. 56 Recognizing differences within the Commission itself and some divergences from the existing American position on territorial adjustments, Acheson again warned his Lausanne delegation against attempting to hammer out a single PCC position. The Secretary preferred the PCC to seek agreement on 'various alternative plans as [a] basis for possible discussion between the parties' _57 It was perhaps during this brief, confusing interlude of Porter's quest for a PCC package of proposals that the Arab delegations reported the appearance of an attractive eight-point 'American plan' which left the Israeli delegates 'outraged'.58

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The principal parties took up irreconcilable positions on the very idea of the PCC submitting its own proposals. The Israelis reacted negatively when they first began to suspect that the PCC was considering such a course. 59 In late July, when the prospect seemed more likely, Aubrey (Abba) Eban advised the Lausanne delegation that whenever a territorial proposal is made we should enquire from which Arab States [sic] it comes and express readiness to discuss it directly with that Arab State. After all[,] we are not discussing our common frontiers with the US, France or Turkey [members of the PCC], and nothing could be more futile than to think of territorial adjustments outside the framework of direct Arab-Jewish negotiations.60 The American Ambassador to Tel Aviv supported the Israeli position on the inappropriateness of the Commission proposing a territorial solution, warning that any PCC initiative, especially if it contemplated territorial compromises, would be futile and perhaps even dangerous. 6l Likewise, the French member of the PCC, Claude de Boisanger, dissented from his American and Turkish colleagues in Lausanne, claiming that their mandate was to 'conciliate' but not to 'arbitrate'. 62

The coming General Assembly session After only a short time at Lausanne, Paul Porter was reported to have argued in favour of the Commission reconvening in New York in order to prepare its report for the UN General Assembly. Israeli delegates gained the impression that Porter was considering returning to Washington to offer his resignation, 'depressed and convinced that he could do nothing more at Lausanne' and believing that the time had come for vigorous American intervention at the UNGA.63 The prospect that the Palestine question would be placed on the agenda of the September UN G A became a factor which complicated and overshadowed the last stages of the Lausanne discussions. Americans hoped that the fear ofbeing blamed before the Assembly for the failure of the conference would have a salutary effect on all delegations by inducing greater flexibility and a commitment to the success of the negotiations. 64 Contrary to such expectations,

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however, this was not the effect on the Arab delegations. Ever since the Beirut conference in March, Arab representatives had been dismayed by the non-committal attitude adopted by the commissioners. In August, most Arab delegates were still expecting the Lausanne meetings to work out the ways and means for implementing the 1947 partition boundaries and to reaffirm the December 1948 resolution regarding the return of Palestinian refugees. The new 'threat' that the PCC might call upon the General Assembly to adopt resolutions imposing a solution along these lines was, to most Arab delegates, no threat at all, but precisely what they had been demanding. 65 Hence, all talk about winding up the conference and reporting to the UNGA amounted to a disincentive for the Arabs to try to achieve any of their goals through compromise or concessions at Lausanne. The impact of the coming UNGA on the Israeli delegation was somewhat different. Unlike the Arabs, the Israelis had been hoping to avoid a debate in the General Assembly at all costs. In attempting to prevent such an debate, Reuven Shiloah protested that it would be 'unwise for [the] PCC to deal with [the] important problems involved in [a] Palestine settlement in [a] hurried atmosphere of working against [the] G[ eneral] A[ssembly] deadline'. Israel, he affirmed, would not be pressured into concessions by anyone brandishing the threat of the forthcoming Assembly. American manoeuvres in this direction, he warned, would only lead Arabs and Israelis to concentrate on preparing their cases rather than negotiating the issues at Lausanne.66 From the UN, Aubrey Eban advised the Lausanne delegation to convince the PCC of the advantages of continuing the talks even during the fall UNGA session. At the same time, he himselflobbied against an imposed settlement and in favour of keeping the Assembly committed to its earlier resolutions based on the principle of allowing the parties to settle their disputes 'by negotiation and agreement'.67 What Israelis really feared most at this time was that, through the medium of the PCC and the UNGA, the parties might be forced to accept the US position on territorial arrangements, which continued to be, throughout 1949, essentially the 'Jessup principle' enunciated in late 1948, namely that: lflsrael wishes to retain any areas in Palestine allocated to the proposed Arab state under the UN resolution of November

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29, 1947 and now occupied by Israeli forces, Israel should, if

the Arab states so demand, make territorial compensation elsewhere and/ or make other concessions of a non-territorial character as are required to reach an equitable agreement which could provide the basis for a lasting peace. 68

Throughout the conference, several Israeli negotiators came to view the US, by its quiet but persistent advocacy of this formula, as 'the eminence grise behind Arab non-compromise' at Lausanne. 69 In early June, Eban in New York had warned Walter Eytan in Lausanne that the State Department's reiteration of the Jessup principle might tempt the Commission 'to turn aside from mediating [sic] functions in order to adopt a policy of reviving Bernadottism'- in other words, full 'mediation' including the formal submission of proposals unacceptable to Israel.70 Israeli spokesmen now devoted their efforts to preventing the implementation of the US position, which would have required Israel to give up part of the Negev in exchange for territorial adjustments in the Galilee, via the United Nations.71 In the final stages of the Lausanne conference, Eytan predicted that the US was about to present a 'prefabricated proposal' to the PCC, which would then be 'impose[ d] upon the Arabs and ourselves', with subsequently 'practically one hundred percent certainty of acceptance by the General Assembly whether the Arabs and we like it or not'. In sketching out the probable lines of such an imposed settlement, Eytan speculated that it would end up being 'thoroughly acceptable to the Arabs' and 'thoroughly unacceptable to us'. This would leave the Israelis 'in a very difficult position indeed at the forthcoming General Assembly, with the Arabs appearing as moderate and reasonable beings, while we shall be traditionally stiff-necked'.72 The Israelis were not alone in suspecting- incorrectly, as it turned out - that the Americans were manoeuvring for an opportunity to impose their own ideas for a settlement, especially the Jessup principle (Document 3) through the UNGA.73

Calls for an imposed settlement In the course of the Lausanne peace process, Western diplomats were confronted with the reappearance of a paradoxical phenomenon which we noted during our discussion of Count Bernadotte's talks

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with Arab leaders (above, pages 28-33): the hints of an apparent willingness to be coerced. Indeed, this notion seems to reinforce what scholars and analysts have noted at various stages of the Arab-Israeli conflict: namely, an Arab preference for a more interventionist international role in resolving the dispute, partly because submitting to outside force majeure (despite its political costs) would partially remove from the Arab leadership any charges of treason and 'the onus of apparent surrender by making concessions directly to Israel in face-to-face bargaining'. 74 In mid-August 1949, the British Foreign Office received signals, via the Turkish representative on the PCC, that the Arab governments were anxious to reach a solution for Palestine as soon as possible, but that owing to the state of public opinion in Middle East countries and to other difficulties they could not put forward a solution themselves .... [T]hey would probably accept a reasonable solution if it were imposed on them by the United Nations. They therefore hoped that the United Nations would take the initiative.75 This was consistent with earlier expressions by Arab leaders of the view that, given the impossibility of them ever contemplating direct negotiations and an agreement which would recognize Israel, and given the prospect that the Jewish state was 'here to stay', the only solution possible would be one imposed by Britain and America. 76 In early July, Lebanon's Minister in Washington, Charles Malik, went so far as to suggest that the Americans, French and British (rather than the PCC) take time out immediately to devise - and impose, with 'firm political guidance'- a durable peace plan on the Middle East. 77 Egypt, in particular, seemed eager for a speedy resolution of the Palestine problem, and its UN delegate indicated privately that his government would accept 'reasonable proposals' if they came from the UN, rather than Israel. Mahmud Fawzi hoped the PCC would direct the talks by sounding out the parties on its own proposals.78 Direct, secret Egyptian-Israeli contacts in Lausanne, which disclosed absolute deadlock over claims to the Negev, had the effect of reinforcing this Egyptian inclination. 79 Given the expected terms of settlement which would be imposed by the United Nations, it is not surprising that Israelis mounted a

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diplomatic counteroffensive against such an eventuality. On 11 August, Aubrey Eban offered elaborate arguments for continuation of the conciliation effort and against the imposition of a settlement through the General Assembly. The Israeli representative at the UN glowingly endorsed the conclusion of Ralph Bunche's recent report on the armistice agreements between Israel and its neighbours, to the effect that 'once the parties could be brought together they could reach an honourable agreement'. so If the Lausanne talks should fail, Eban's view was that this would be 'due not to any impossibility of reaching an agreement between the parties, but to the circumstances surrounding this particular conciliation effort', by which he meant, above all, the failings of the PCC itself. Basing himself on the fifth paragraph of the much-invoked UNGA resolution 194 of 11 December 1948, Eban went on to warn against attempts of the Assembly to dictate terms of a territorial settlement which really ought to be arrived at through negotiation. He argued that 'to abandon conciliation would lead us into a far worse atmosphere than to continue it, even in the present difficult situation'. The Ambassador concluded by urging that the 20 September opening date for the General Assembly should not serve as an arbitrary and harmful deadline to the Lausanne talks.Sl In summarizing the above arguments for the benefit of Eliahu Elath in Washington, Eban stressed that the question of a final territorial settlement was 'important but certainly not urgent in terms of weeks. The world will not come to an end if this question is not fully settled by the forthcoming Assembly'. Displaying his penchant for the bon mot, Eban went on to argue that [t]he Governments directly concerned cannot be pushed or jostled by outside factors either into premature agreement, or what is more important, into premature conclusion of chronic disagreement. Since the present situation was 'not one of warfare or imminent violence, USA and UN policy [did] not have to keep on restlessly forcing the pace'.82 With the passage of UNSC resolution 73 (11 August 1949), which found 'that the Armistice Agreements constitute[ d] an important step toward the establishment of permanent peace in Palestine', Eban felt the Israeli position on continuing to seek an agreement by negotiation was vindicated. He

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would use the resolution in continuing his lobbying against the prospect of a hasty adjournment of the Lausanne talks and the imposition of a settlement. 83 WINDING UP THE CONFERENCE

On 15 August, the PCC presented each delegation with a memorandum which consisted of a summary of what had been achieved thus far, followed by a brief questionnaire soliciting more specific details on the positions of parties regarding refugees and a territorial settlement (Document 8). 84 The delegations were asked to respond within eight days, and Stuart Rockwell, acting head of the American delegation, cabled the State Department, again calling for the appropriate representations to be made to the Israeli and Arab governments in the quest for helpful replies.85

Economic versus political approaches Meanwhile, on the basis of consultations with Ethridge and Porter in Washington, the State Department was reaching its own clearcut negative conclusions on the usefulness of prolonging the Lausanne talks: [N]o real basis for conciliation between the parties exist[ed] at the present time .... Although both sides w[ou]ld welcome peace, neither side is prepared at this time to make concessions which w[ou]ld make [a] settlement possible. Given the political impasse, the Department wished to reorient its policies and procedures to reflect an economic approach. The key element of the new approach, inspired by the State Department's George McGhee, was the placing of the Palestinian refugee problem in the context of a 'Marshall Plan' for the Middle East. The preparation of such a plan was assigned to the long-discussed Economic Survey Mission [ESM], which would soon begin examining practical possibilities for refugee resettlement in the region. The report and recommendations of the ESM were expected by November, and would 'cover all possible aspects of [the] Palestine question on econ[omic] grounds'.86 With this in mind, chief US delegate Paul Porter visited senior French officials in Paris to persuade them that the Lausanne talks

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should be wound up without unnecessary delay.87 The State Department proceeded to sound out American diplomats in the region on the prospects of obtaining an advance commitment from the governments to which they were accredited to co-operate in the work of the ESM. Besides shifting the emphasis from political deadlock over formulas to practical arrangements and economic inducements, Porter personally felt that the work of the ESM would also provide a means to 'let the dust settle'.88 The Israelis were already predisposed to welcome the new approach. Reuven Shiloah felt confident that the Arab states' dependence on the US for development assistance would help convince them of the advantages of accepting refugee rehabilitation schemes. The head of the Israeli delegation went so far as to believe that the Arabs would acquiesce in any settlement firmly advocated by the Americans even if it should entail coming to terms with the present territorial situation and absorbing the majority of the Arab refugees. 89 But the usually realistic Shiloah was seriously misjudging the mood in Arab capitals in late 1949. The Lebanese Foreign Minister was reported to have expressed his 'greatest reservation concerning (the ESM's] usefulness and considerable scepticism as to its true objectives', which he suspected of being to relieve the desperate economic situation in Israel and to 'force [the Arabs] into economic cooperation with lsrael'.90 US Consul-General William Burdett in Jerusalem added his own doubts as to whether the ESM would meet with Arab approval since it appeared to accept the current political status quo, which the Arabs viewed as favourable to Israel.91 Likewise, the FO in London expressed its concern lest the new economic orientation allow the 'present territorial situation to freeze'. The American Ambassador in London agreed, recommending that Washington 'not relax (the] pressure for [a] political settlement'.92 On 24 August, Gordon R. Clapp was appointed to head the ESM, and on 1 September the ESM's terms of reference were published at the United Nations.93 Meanwhile, in Lausanne, the PCC announced its decision to bring the conference to a close by 15 September and to make use of the delegations' replies to its questionnaire in formulating its report to the UNGA. All the

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delegates realized that only conciliatory statements, offering new concessions, could have salvaged the Lausanne talks and avoided a debate in the General Assembly. Yet the responses submitted by the Israeli and Arab delegations did little more than recapitulate previously announced positions.94 In his reports to Washington, Stuart Rockwell accentuated the positive and described the replies as 'fairly satisfactory in [the] circumstances'. All delegations, notwithstanding their reservations, had committed themselves to facilitate the work ofthe Economic Survey Mission. Despite conflicting interpretations and disagreements between the Arab states and Israel, Rockwell believed that their replies could be 'considered as [a] political agreement on sharing responsibility for [a] solution [to the] refugee problem'.95 In an attempt to end the Lausanne conference with a new and useful protocol, the Commission then proposed that the delegations sign a draft declaration (Document 9) regarding the refugee question embodying what it felt was the minimal consensus that appeared to emerge from the questionnaire responses - notably, that [t]he solution to the refugee problem should be sought in the repatriation of refugees in Israeli-controlled territory and in the resettlement of those refugees not repatriated in such areas ofPalestine as may be under Arab control, or in Arab countries. 96 As was half expected by the American delegation at Lausanne, the Arabs and Israelis soon indicated that they were not prepared to sign such a declaration. The Arabs cited 'public opinion at home' and the fact that the declaration 'mention[ed] concessions they ha[ d] made re[garding] refugees without reference to their territorial position'. 97 It was, in Rockwell's view, the 'wide divergence' in the parties' stances on the territorial question which 'once more reveal[ ed the] unlikelihood [of] arriving at [a] voluntary agreement'. While he described the latest statement of the Arab states' position as 'unreasonable' and weakened by a conflicting mixture of motives, the American representative chose to dwell on the 'rigidity [of the] Israeli position'. He saw no hope in proceeding from [the] present armed truce line to more stable conditions unless Israel [could] be persuaded to relinquish

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some of [the] territory it has occupied beyond [the] partition lines. While he saw some 'measure of agreement' on the refugee issue, Rockwell felt that the Arabs would 'not accept any territorial solution which makes the armistice lines, perhaps with minor modifications, the final boundaries oflsrael'.98 On 8 September, the State Department urged its representative on the PCC to bring the Lausanne talks to a close as soon as possible, partly as a means of giving 'added emphasis to [the] importance' of the ESM, but also in the belief that prolonging the conference unduly would 'result in [a] further hardening of[the] positions of [the] del[egation]s'.99 The final act of the PCC at the Lausanne conference came in the form of an official Note addressed to Arab and Israeli delegations on 12 September, containing the Commission's critical observations on their replies to the questionnaire of 15 August. The PCC informed all delegations of its view that it would be 'premature' and not 'useful' for it to put forward any detailed suggestions regarding refugees or territory at this time. If the Arab and Israeli governments 'did not make substantial modifications in [their] proposals or advance new suggestions', it would be 'very difficult or even impossible to carry on constructive negotiations' .100 Among its comments addressed specifically to the Israelis, the PCC felt 'bound to note' that the Israeli view on resettlement of the majority outside of Israel was 'not in conformity with the terms of pa:ragraph 11 of the General Assembly's resolution of 11 December 1948'. It believed that a detailed consideration of numbers would best be left until after the report of the ESM. On the territorial issue, the Commission announced its conclusion that Israel's demands far 'exceed[ed]' the negotiation of 'adjustments' to the partition map which was the agreed 'basis for discussion' in the Protocol signed by all parties on 12 May. It asked the Israeli government to 'reexamine' the question with a view to presenting a new proposal during the talks scheduled for New York. The Notes to all delegations concluded by urging that 'no excessive territorial demands should be allowed to impede the realization' of the restoration of 'normal conditions of political and economic life ... at the earliest possible moment in the Middle East'.IOI On 17 September, Secretary of State Acheson called for a temporary halt to further approaches and representations to the

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parties so as not to encumber the work of the ESM by the 'injection [of] political questions' .102 The ensuing waiting period for the report of the ESM had the effect of granting Israel 'precious time and a break from the American pressure'.l03 The PCC's Progress Report to the UN expressed the hope that it would receive Arab and Israeli replies to its note of 12 September 'which will be of a nature to permit the successful pursuit of its efforts to conciliate the points of view of the parties' .104 LAUSANNE POSTSCRIPTS

By mid-October 1949, the momentum towards a general settlement which the PCC and the US State Department had orchestrated via the Lausanne talks had fizzled out. As Dean Acheson reported to US diplomatic missions, the positions of the parties in the wake of the Lausanne meetings remained 'too far apart to offer hope [of a] definitive settlement [in the] foreseeable future, or even hope of producing [an] area ofagreement on which [a] final settlement might be based'. As the American Secretary of State rightly noted, the impasse was 'aggravated by [the] apparent conviction [of] each side that time work[ed] to its advantage'.l05 On 19 October, the commissioners met in New York without Arab or Israeli delegations, with whom it was decided to hold pro forma meetings 'in the near future'. Members of the Commission shared the State Department's view that no useful meetings could be held until after receipt of the ESM report. In any case, the main focus of the PCC's attention had shifted from attempts at a comprehensive settlement to defending its proposals for an international regime for Jerusalem before the UN General Assembly.I06 President Truman gave the Commission an opportunity for a fresh start at this time by appointing Ely Palmer as chief US representative, replacing the discouraged Paul Porter whose resignation had been received on 15 September.l07

The last word: Arab delegations It remained, however, for the parties to issue their replies to the PCC Note ofl2 September. On 22 October, Fawzi a1-Mulqi declared that the Commission 'must consider the present stand of the Arab delegations as their final one, beyond which they could not go until

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the Commission itself presented suggestions or proposals' .108 This 'invitation' would be taken up by the PCC two years later, in Paris (below, Chapters IX-X). During a meeting on 24 October, the Arab delegations, led by Egypt's Abd al-Mun'im Mustafa, complained to the commissioners about the still-unfulfilled December 1948 UNGA resolution on the return of Palestinian refugees. The delegates refused to sign a PCC draft declaration dealing with holy places outside Jerusalem, apparently in protest against the lack of progress on more important issues. The Egyptians proposed to submit a draft declaration on the rights of Arabs in Israeli-occupied territory for the Commission's consideration and transmission to the Israelis.! 09

The last word: Israel Israel delayed its official response to the PCC's final Lausanne Note until27 October. A week earlier, Ambassador Aubrey Eban felt that the time was ripe for active lobbying in favour of eliminating UN conciliation agencies altogether, recommending that Israel adopt the following line: an affirmation of its willingness to make peace with the Arabs, while pointing to the 'political [and] psychological impossibility thereof if they will not meet' face-to-face. He also suggested that Israeli spokesmen 'develop [the] theory [that] time and life may bring reconciliation'.110 In his formal reply to PCC chairman Yalyin, Eban repeated his government's stand on refugees- namely, that, apart from the family reunification scheme recently underway the question oflsrael's contribution to the resettlement of the refugees [could] only arise in the context of a general peace settlement and as part of a comprehensive and final solution of the whole refugee problem. The Ambassador rejected the Commission's call to 're-examine' its position on territories as 'neither equitable nor realistic, and ... not based on a correct application or interpretation of the Protocol of May 12, 1949'. Eban went on to offer the first of several post foe to clarifications of Israel's interpretation of the Lausanne Protocol. That document, he wrote, had been

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accepted by the delegation of Israel merely as a procedural device for canalizing the discussion and helping the Commission to make some practical start with its conciliation efforts. The Protocol in no way committed the Government of Israel to a reversion to the boundaries of the Jewish State as defined in the General Assembly's resolution of November 29, 1947.111 While the Commission's secretary, Pablo de Azcarate, tended to share this restrictive and procedural interpretation of the Protocol, the PCC as a whole did not accept the Israeli view. liZ Eban's letter to Yals;in also denounced the 'selective validity' that Israel's critics were reading into the partition resolution, and went on to list some of its 'basic assumptions' that had not materialized. The Government of Israel 'now assert[ ed] its title to the territory over which its authority is actually exercised', and was concerned that, in its endeavour to bridge the gap between the two parties, the Commission ha[ d] placed on record certain conclusions which tend[ ed] to prejudge the issue, thus defeating the purpose which the Commission [was] so earnestly pursuing. In particular, Eban objected to the PCC's assertion that Israel's proposals did 'not form a practical basis upon which the work of conciliation could be usefully pursued', as well as the depiction of its territorial claims as 'excessive'. The Commission's indication that it would be making specific suggestions was described by the Israeli representative as 'an approach which call[ed] in[to] question the whole method of conciliation hitherto followed, and the terms of reference of the Commission itself'. A final key ingredient in Eban's letter to the PCC was his critique of the 'stubborn refusal of the Arab States concerned to meet the Government of Israel around a conference table under the auspices of the Commission'. Invoking the wording of UNGA resolution 194, he accused the Arabs of foiling the PCC's mandate of seeking agreement 'by negotiation conducted either with the Conciliation Commission or directly'. It was, Eban argued, this 'persistent refusal' which was responsible for the deadlock, and which had 'led the Commission to adopt methods which, in the conviction of the Government oflsrael, [were] not conducive to success'.

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While the Arab States maintain their negative attitude on the basic issue of peace with Israel, no conciliation is of any avail. Indeed, their very refusal to meet Israel in normal direct negotiations can only be interpreted as a lack of intention to reach a final settlement at this time. The continuation of the conciliation effort under these circumstances can only serve to becloud the real position, to vitiate the issue and to conceal the responsibility of the guilty party from world opinion. Israel was therefore 'driven by experience' to the conclusion that 'the continuation of the conciliation effort under these circumstances' was 'fruitless' and might well prove 'harmful'. This apparent abandonment of UN conciliation efforts was accompanied by a renewed Israeli initiative for direct contacts with individual Arab states, along with a softening of Washington's and London's attitude against separate bilateral negotiations.ll3

Lobbying the State Department Even after commissioners received clarification from Jerusalem that Israel was not, in fact, boycotting further relations with them, Eban's letter became 'the principal matter of concern' during a rare PCC meeting with American officials at the State Department. While the meeting was devoted in part to preparing an 'unequivocal reply ... refuting the assertions made by Israel', Under-Secretary McGhee shifted the discussion by encouraging the PCC to 'make continued efforts to urge the parties to undertake direct talks', even though he appreciated the 'difficulties' involved. The French and Turkish representatives assured their State Department hosts that they remained committed to attempting such meetings, but pointed to their inability to compel the Arab delegations to do so against their will. The commissioners also came away from the meeting with some State Department encouragement for a proposal to move from 'conciliation' to a more active form of'mediation'.ll4 Several days later, Arab states began a concerted campaign for the United States government to bring pressure to bear upon Israel. The Iraqi government- which had abstained from both the armistice talks and the Lausanne conference - now took an active part in pressing the American government on this matter. An aide-memo ire handed to the US Embassy in Baghdad denounced 'the bad faith of

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the Jews' for failure to implement the Lausanne Protocol. This document was now presented as 'some kind of gentleman's agreement' between the Arabs and the US in that (a) it bore the signatures of representatives of the Arab states and the US government, and (b) the Arabs had been led to believe by several earlier official statements of American policy that the US would be prepared to implement a Palestine settlement which corresponded to Arab views of right and justice. IIS Despite its dissatisfaction and its reasons for remaining aloof in the past, the Iraqi government was now offering to 'agree to what the Arab states bordering on Palestine have agreed' (to endorse the armistice agreements) ifthe American government were to exercise its influence so as to 'bring the Jews to honour their signature [to the Lausanne Protocol] and the obligations resulting from it'.116 A week later, the Ambassadors of seven Arab states were received by Acting Secretary James Webb at the State Department where they submitted a joint memorandum. The Egyptian Ambassador spoke for the group, and explained that their visit was at the behest of the Arab League Council. The Ambassador referred to Israel's apparent refusal of 'further collaboration with the Palestine Conciliation Commission' as the latest example of its lack of goodwill and co-operation. The memorandum - large parts of which were identical in wording to the Iraqi aide-memoire - appealed to America's declared interest in 'preserving peace in this particularly sensitive part of the world'. The memorandum ended by expressing the Arab states' hope that the United States Government will not hesitate in giving them assurances that the peaceful solution concluded by common agreement at Lausanne in the protocol of May 12, 1949 will produce its full and complete effects, and that the United States Government will endeavour by using the effective means at its disposal and by direct action with the other interested party, to expedite this solution.ll7 In his oral reply to the Arab diplomats, Acting Secretary of State Webb pointed to the UN and the PCC as more appropriate channels for the Ambassadors' attentions, and added some remarks about the desirability of Arabs and Israelis taking 'the initiative in advancing towards a settlement' through direct talks. Both he and George

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McGhee reiterated the State Department position that the US 'would not advance any specific solution to either party', leaving it to 'the parties themselves [to] reach a mutually satisfactory agreement'.118 On the same day, during Anglo-American consultations in Washington, McGhee expressed the US view that, although 'there was no quick solution' in sight, his government supported the continuation of the work of the PCC. In the face of some arguments currently being advanced for abolishing the three-member Commission and/ or replacing it by a single mediator, 119 American policy remained committed to the PCC: Its affairs appeared at the moment to be in a critical state as a result of the Israelis' refusal to utilize it for indirect talks, and the Arabs' unwillingness to talk direct[ly] to the Jews. The United States delegate to the PCC would, however, urge the Commission to seek a solution in every way possible, including encouragement of direct talks. If acceptable to both parties, the Commission would mediate between the disputants.120 Thus, by late 1949, the Lausanne 'peace process' had run its course without result. It was to prove to be the most elaborate and sustained of all international efforts to promote Arab-Israeli negotiations in the immediate post-1948 period. The conference at Lausanne had enjoyed the solid, if at times incoherent, backing of the United States, but in the end the parties could not be budged from the irreconcilable positions into which they had manoeuvred themselves.I21 Lausanne may well have been, in the retrospective quip of one of the Israeli participants, a case of'too little, too early' .122 As we shall see in the following chapters, the PCC would move during 1950 and 1951 from 'conciliation' to 'mediation', gradually overriding Israeli reluctance and leading ultimately to one final ambitious attempt to achieve agreement between Arab and Israeli delegations at a new peace conference in Paris.

CHAPTER VII

Geneva Interlude The two years between the end of the Lausanne Conference and the beginning of the Paris Conference were uneventful in terms of military confrontations or progress towards a political solution. But they were crucial for setting the pattern of what has become the protracted Arab-Israeli conflict. Between 1949 and 19 51, the following features came to characterize relations between Israel and the Arab states: • Israel's determination to hold fast to the territorial status quo, while building up the new state through Jewish immigration and economic development; • the Arab states' determination to do everything possible to undermine Israel's 1948-49 military and political victories through economic boycott, blockade, and lobbying at the United Nations and in Western capitals; • the Palestinian refugees' growing despair that their plight would not be relieved either by the Arabs' regaining Palestine or through United Nations efforts at repatriation and resettlement; • repeated signs of the untenable nature of the Armistice Agreements signed between Israel and her neighbours; • the Western powers' periodic expressions of concern for the deterioration of the armistice regimes, especially if instability in the Arab-Israeli conflict threatened to weaken Western influence in a region which was fast becoming the object of East-West rivalry; • an arms race, in which all Middle Eastern states requested

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military equipment ostensibly for 'defensive' purposes and the maintenance of internal stability. YEARS OF DRIFT

Throughout the long history of this conflict, there has been an oscillation between periods of concern, initiative and involvement, on the one hand, and passivity, laissez-faire and drift, on the other. The years 1947-49 had seen not only military conflict, but also heavy international intervention. From autumn 1949 to autumn 1951, however, the conflict entered a phase during which a tacit consensus emerged that it was best to allow matters to drift- whether out of a preference to 'let sleeping dogs lie', to let 'time heal all wounds', or simply to wait for a more propitious moment for diplomatic initiatives. With the large-scale fighting ended (March 1949), with four armistice agreements signed (by July 1949), and with the obvious failure of the PCC's efforts at a comprehensive settlement of the outstanding issues of Jerusalem, refugees and territory (November-December 1949), all parties seemed increasingly content to let matters ride and allow some time to pass before taking any further initiative. The conflict now appeared to be, on the surface and for the time being at least, a low-grade one without the hallmarks of an international crisis. After Lausanne, the PCC seemed ineffective in discharging its major mandate to help Arabs and Israelis achieve an agreement, and found itself marking time and dealing with technical matters. 1 From mid-1949 until mid-1950, Israel's diplomacy was aimed at making the status quo - the existence of a Jewish state within boundaries defined by the GAAs- viable and eventually acceptable to the Arab states. The policies of the latter, on the other hand, continued to be geared towards persuading the powers to help them undo what they still regarded as the unjust creation of aJewish state and its expansion beyond the 1947lines recommended in the UN partition resolution. This new mood of allowing matters to drift seemed to suit the major protagonists and the Americans, each for its own reasons. Reflecting at least one segment of Israeli opinion, General Moshe Dayan (then commanding officer of Israel's Southern Command) informed the American Consul-General in Jerusalem in early 19 50 that both the public and the government were 'now inclined to stand pat on foreign political questions'.2 Prime Minister Khalid al-'Azm

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explained Syria's attitude as being analogous to the United States' approach to the Soviet Union: there is an armistice which Syria has no intention of violating; Syria will not attack Israel, but will defend itself if attacked. If Israel respects the Armistice, the existing 'peace' will continue. 3 Likewise, after Britain recognized the unification of the East and West Banks under Abdullah in May, Jordanians felt that the urgency of concluding a peace treaty with Israel had been lessened.4 For its part, the US politely rebuffed some British suggestions in early 19 50 that it was 'necessary that [the] US and UK take [a] more active role in promoting [a] settlement' of the Arab-Israeli problem. Later that year, both the UK and the US resisted pressure to intervene emanating from prominent UN personalities who argued that allowing matters to drift would lead to 'disaster'.S Despite the shared mood of apparent complacency, both sides were uncertain whether allowing the status quo to continue might lead to unfavourable results. In both the international and regional arenas, efforts at conflict resolution or conflict management continued to be made during and after 19 50. One of the most visible signs of the latter was the United Nations humanitarian relief effort for the Arab refugees displaced during the 1947-49 fighting. The report of the Economic Survey Mission headed by Gordon Clapp6 did not, as some had hoped, produce a breakthrough on practical matters relating to relief and reintegration. Neither did it have the expected positive spill-over effect leading to an improvement of the prospects of dealing with tough political questions. Increasingly, the debate over economic-versus-political approaches to the ArabIsraeli impasse resembled the chicken-and-egg dilemma.7 In the end, the relief aspect of the refugee problem became compartmentalized and enshrined in a new bureaucracy - the United Nations Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA)- created in December 1949.8 FROM CONCILIATION TO MEDIATION?

In the wake of the failure of talks at Lausanne, questions were raised as to the methods used by the PCC and the proper interpretation of its mandate. Had the Commission been correct- as the Israelis

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argued- in adhering to its self-imposed restricted role as conciliator, with no proposals of its own to make? Or, would the Commission fare better- as the Arabs argued- if it allowed itself to function as a mediator, submitting a peace plan to which the parties could react with their own counter-proposals? These questions were explicitly raised during the late autumn of 1949, and the PCC would spend all of 1950 and 1951 attempting to take on a successful mediation role. As we have seen, an Arab-inspired push for a more interventionist role for the PCC began in October 1949. During a November meeting with US State Department officials, Claude de Boisanger - who had earlier been opposed to using the Commission for 'arbitration'- now backed Arab suggestions that the PCC move from conciliation to mediation.9 The Commission informed the Israelis on 15 November 1949 that it was now ready to undertake this delicate task [of mediation] and to invite attention to concrete items or problems on which an agreement will be sought between the parties either through the offices of the Commission, or, if possible, by direct negotiation.IO During his visit to the United Nations General Assembly, Israel's Foreign Minister, Moshe Sharett, met privately with French representative de Boisanger and presented a frank expose which repeated his government's objections to the current and projected course of the PCC's work. He evaded Chairman Yalc;:in's request for a 'short pro forma reply' which would enable the PCC to carry on, and remained wary despite the latter's disclaimers of'any intention [to] mediate by [submitting its] own proposals' other than on minor matters. II Largely because of strenuous Israeli lobbying at the UN during the 1949 session and the general low esteem into which the Commission had fallen, the idea of active PCC mediation was not enthusiastically endorsed. BILATERAL NEGOTIATIONS

Far more important than any PCC efforts in the wake of the Lausanne failure were regional and bilateral initiatives - notably spurts of intensive secret Israeli-Jordanian negotiations and

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sporadic Israeli-Egyptian peace-feelers.12 The object of the former was a limited agreement on Jerusalem and a broader non-aggression pact. The Western powers had an important behind-the-scenes role to play during these bilateral peace efforts, with both Washington and London expressing their general encouragement of any efforts that might produce a settlement between Israel and its neighbours while studiously avoiding any concrete intervention. Rumours of Israeli-Jordanian peace talks also caused a great stir in regional politics and led to a solidification, under the aegis of the Arab League, of a pan-Arab consensus on the Palestine issue.B The preoccupation with bilateral Israeli-Jordanian contacts during early 1950 cast a shadow over the PCC's efforts to play a larger and more effective role in either conciliation or mediation on the major unresolved issues. Members of the Commission were kept fairly up-to-date on the talks which Israeli and Jordanian secret envoys had resumed in late 1949. Their attitude was generally positive, realizing that such direct negotiations should be encouraged and allowed every opportunity to succeed. As a result, there developed a complicated linkage between the lsraeli-Jordanian negotiations and the PCC's own efforts to convene talks in Geneva in late January 1950: • Israel sought the PCC's cooperation in avoiding anything that might jeopardize progress in its secret negotiations with Abdullah - e.g., the appearance that Jordan had more to gain via Geneva than through direct talks. • Israelis, Americans and the PCC itself hoped that the successful conclusion of Israeli-Jordanian negotiations might have a spillover effect in starting up direct bilateral talks with other Arab delegations in Geneva. • When, on several different occasions, the Israeli-Jordanian talks faltered, some hoped that Abdullah could be encouraged to consider redirecting his separate negotiations into a wider PCC framework.I4 By early March 1950, reports regarding Jordan's contacts with Israel in the Arabic press were accompanied by increasingly critical commentary. In Cairo, in particular, Abdullah's 'treason' was documented on the front pages with the help of Lt. Col. Abdallah at-Tall who had defected from the King's service. IS This antiAbdullah agitation became the focus of Egyptian efforts to assert

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leadership in inter-Arab affairs, and led to the passage of an Arab League resolution on 1 April which declared that no member-state 'may negotiate or actually conclude a separate peace (treaty] or any [other] political, military or economic agreement with Israel' on pain of being 'considered to have withdrawn from the Arab League forthwith' .16 In the end,Jordan's clash with the Arab League was resolved through a compromise whereby members of the League quietly abandoned their public objections to Abdullah's recent annexation of the West Bank (by redefining it as a form of'trusteeship' over 'East Palestine') in exchange for the King's commitment not to go ahead with a draft non-aggression treaty which had been prepared with the lsraelis.l7 Although aimed specifically at Jordan, the resolution condemning separate negotiations would have a negative effect on all the delegations attending the PCC's Geneva meetings, producing an unfortunate stiffening of negotiating tactics across the board.18 PCC GENEVA MEETINGS, JANUARY-JULY 1950

Within this inauspicious context, the PCC sought to resume its role as conciliator, and also to serve as mediator. At the invitation of the Commission, the governments oflsrael, Egypt, Lebanon and Syria appointed representatives to participate in discussions in Geneva. The meetings, which opened officially on 30 January, lasted intermittently until IS July, 19 marked by frequent working luncheons and dinners. Looking back 45 years later, Gideon Rafael, the sole Israeli delegate to the talks, characterized the Geneva interlude as a 'culinary carousel' in which 'never had so few consumed so much to produce so little'. zo

Modest goals The PCC at Geneva was held back by its leading member - the United States - from embarking on too active a course. The American delegation on the PCC had been advised by the State Department 'to avoid a situation where one or other of the parties might be led to refuse further cooperation or ignore the Commission altogether'. To this effect, the Commission's role, 'at the outset at least ... should be one of availability to the parties'. The PCC might decide to respond to the parties' desire for its suggestions, 'but for such suggestions to be at all effective there must be a mutual desire

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that such a procedure be undertaken'. The State Department entertained modest hopes for piecemeal progress on secondary issues: reunion of families, blocked Arab bank accounts, and farmlands divided by the armistice lines. The immediate task of the PCC, the Department urged, should be to try to arrange for 'consultations' among the parties in Geneva 'in certain limited fields ... largely of a technical character'. Washington also continued to argue that the PCC 'should take advantage of any opportunity to promote direct negotiations between the parties either in a conference under the auspices of the Commission or separately'.21 The modest and cautious US approach, consistent with the policy which had evolved in Washington by late 1949, continued to find favour with the Israelis. In contrast to Lausanne, Israelis in Geneva would express relief at the absence of US and PCC pressure on them. 22

Mediation versus direct talks: Israeli tactics As the parties began to assemble at Geneva, Israeli spokesmen began stressing two themes which were immediately captured in the headline of Al-Ahram's Geneva correspondent's report: 'Israel's Resistance to PCC Mediation- Israeli Representative Invites Arabs to Negotiate with Israel to Reach Settlement'.23 Following their earlier practice, PCC members held informal meetings in Geneva with various delegates prior to the convening of formal sessions. Ely Palmer, recently appointed to lead the US delegation, spoke with Egyptian, Lebanese and Syrian delegates and noted a 'marked unity [of] viewpoint' and little or no change from the positions taken previously. Again, and more forcefully than before, the Egyptian representative announced there would be 'no question of direct conversations since[,] for Egypt, Israel did not exist'. Ahmad Shuqayri offered a 'most cogent statement' of the Arab case and laid the blame for the PCC's past failures on the lack of sufficient 'persuasive power' exercised by the US on Israel.24 The Americans in Geneva also assured Israel's chief delegate privately that they too 'strongly favoured direct negotiations between Israel and [the] Arab states and would assist wherever possible to achieve that result'. The Israeli representative made his country's case against active mediation, arguing that any PCC proposals might do more harm than good- especially if they created the 'illusion' among the Arabs 'that they could obtain better terms

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through the Commission' than through direct negotiations with the Israelis. Rafael also informally advised the PCC members of the progress of Israeli-Jordanian negotiations in the Middle East and expressed his hopes that secret talks might be arranged with Egypt's Abd al-Mun'im Mustafa in Geneva.25 On 30 January 1950, Rafael's formal statement to the Commission's opening session invoked several diverse metaphors, calling the event the 'fourth round ofour prize fight for peace', and referring to the 'curious' and 'unique' situation in which PCC peacemaking had thus far involved communication through 'the letter-box ... instead of the Conference Table'. The Israeli representative now reviewed the Lausanne experience in order to highlight the Arab states' rejection oflsrael's offers to incorporate the Gaza strip (and absorb 250,000 Arabs) and to repatriate 100,000 refugees. Expressing disappointment that neither offer had 'advance[d] the cause of peace' as had been hoped, he went on to announce that: We extended our hand. The other party did not grasp it; how long can one extend his hand without getting tired? We need both our arms for the enormous task of upbuilding our country. Israel would 'leave the exact extent of such repatriation to be determined by the nature of the peace which would be achieved and by the relevant circumstances which would prevail at the time'. Turning to the current meetings, he declared that '[r]eadiness to enter into direct negotiations must be set as the only valid test of the sincerity of[each party's] desire for peace'. Rafael again elaborated his country's arguments against the submission of compromise proposals by the Commission. Such active mediation, he warned, was 'liable to give scores to the recalcitrant party without in any way forcing it to become more amenable to peace counsels', and was 'likely to add to the complexity of the problem and make the prospects of a settlement even more remote'. He called upon the PCC 'to prevail upon the Arab Governments to enter into direct peace negotiations'. 26 Attempts to arrange direct Egyptian-Israeli talks

In the first days of January 1950, members of King Faruq's circle had used the channel of the US Embassy in Cairo to signal their

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country's absence of aggressive intentions towards Israel and their interest in starting direct, informal talks with Israeli representatives. Those promoting such secret Egyptian-Israeli contacts saw the PCC meetings in Geneva as a convenient fig-leaf, and Moshe Sharett responded favourably to the overture, also via the American diplomatic pouch.27 During his informal conversations with members of the Commission in early February, Gideon Rafael seemed to detect a 'cautious optimism' regarding the prospect of direct Israeli-Arab negotiations. The American representatives, in particular, said they would appeal to the Egyptian government, via the US Ambassador in Cairo, for instructions to be sent allowing Egypt's delegate to enter into direct talks at Geneva.28Jt is not clear whether there was any strenuous behind-the-scenes intervention by American diplomats in Cairo or elsewhere. 29 If there were any serious chances of arranging either formal direct negotiations, or even secret private conversations under cover of the PCC fig-leaf, between Egyptian and Israeli delegates in Geneva, these were undermined by a Tel Aviv press report alleging that Abd al-Mun'im Mustafa was actually on assignment to contact Israeli representatives in Europe. The (largely inaccurate) report was repeated in Cairo and subsequently denied by the Egyptian Minister of Foreign Affairs.30 Americans in Geneva soon began to doubt whether Mustafa had 'sufficient authority, courage and desire to open talks'. 31 By contrast, Aubrey (Abba) Eban, Israel's UN Ambassador, arrived in Geneva with authority to negotiate with Egyptian representatives within or outside the framework of the PCC.32 Adding to everyone's confusion, a Reuters press release quoted the Egyptian Minister of War and Marine as announcing that Israeli and Egyptian delegations were scheduled to meet under UN auspices on 26 February to discuss a peace treaty. 33 In response to the build-up of PCC calls for face-to-face negotiations at Geneva, Arab delegates claimed that 'convincing evidence of Israel's good intentions' would be an 'essential preliminary to direct negotiations'. This, in turn, resulted in some gentle pressures by PCC members on the Israeli delegation for gestures that might 'convince the Arabs they have something to gain by direct negotiation'. 34 Another Arab response took the form of a diplomatic counteroffensive in Washington, where Lebanon's Ambassador, Charles Malik, engaged in a futile argument with Assistant Secretary George McGhee over US support for direct

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negotiations at Geneva. Dr Malik replied to McGhee's suggestion that the Arabs 'were not being very realistic' by accusing the US of constantly 'shifting its position toward the Jews'. When McGhee argued that the US government had 'no means by which we could impose a solution on the Israeli government any more than we could impose it on the Arab governments', the Ambassador retorted that the Arab peoples found it difficult to believe that the US would let an entity it had taken such a decisive part in creating escape from its influence. If indeed we did not exercise such influence [Malik warned], the US government should take steps to disabuse the Arab peoples of the illusion, for the Arab psychology on this point was a very serious matter for US interests in the Near East.35 After about a month of informal meetings at Geneva, the PCC admitted that it had just about 'exhausted' all the possibilities of convincing the Arab states to agree to direct negotiations. James Barco of the American delegation reported to Washington that there had been 'no break in the Arab line', despite deliberate efforts to lobby Arab representatives individually so as to avoid a repetition of the 'old approach of full Arab representation in all meetings' which had shown such 'barren results' at Lausanne.36 Prevented from presenting its own proposals by State Department instructions and by a potential Israeli veto, and unable to find a formula for convening direct Arab-Israeli discussions, the PCC was left directing its efforts towards small steps aimed at imitating the relative success of the sole mixed committee on the unfreezing of blocked Arab bank accounts in Israel. When the Arabs 'shied away' from a general, incremental approach, the Commission concentrated instead on trying to set up a single Egyptian-Israeli mixed committee to deal with local problems faced by refugees in the Gaza area. On this point it was the Israelis who demurred. They considered the agenda proposed by Egypt to be more appropriate for resolution in another body, namely the Egyptian-Israeli Mixed Armistice Commission (EIMAC). In fact, partial agreements on some Gaza grievances had just been signed by Israeli and Egyptian EIMAC representatives. In informing the PCC of his country's views, Gideon Rafael repeated Israel's 'readiness to discuss the settlement of all outstanding questions between our two countries

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with a view to the establishment of permanent peace'. This generalized 'readiness' for peace, coupled with a rejection of the specific Egyptian agenda items, was interpreted in Cairo as evasion on Israel's part, with Al-Ahram headlining its report: 'The Palestine Problem will not be Solved in Geneva.'37 In the end, a private meeting finally did take place between Abd al-Mun'im Mustafa, Abba Eban and Gideon Rafael on 27 February 19 50. During their unproductive encounter, Eban tried to convince Mustafa that Egypt and the Arabs had, since 1947, missed a number of opportunities for a favourable settlement with Israel, and that the Arabs' premise that time was on their side needed to be re-examined. Eban pointed especially to the reluctance of the powers and the UN to intervene forcefully in support of Arab demands, but the Egyptian representative remained unconvinced and cautious. Mustafa asserted that, for any negotiation to be possible, Israel would have to endorse the Lausanne Protocol of May 1949 and relinquish territory in the southern Negev.38 The Israelis replied that the extent of their country's concessions could be determined only after negotiations were begun, but emphasized that there could be no question oflsrael ceding the southern Negev or Eilat. The meeting ended inconclusively with Eban and Rafael suggesting that the Egyptians consider a non-aggression pact with Israel as an interim arrangement lying between armistice and peace.39 Both Moshe Sharett and Reuven Shiloah (the latter heavily involved at this time in the frustrations of lsraeli-Jordanian negotiations) were disappointed by Eban's reports of the discussion, especially Mustafa's persistent claims to territorial contiguity with Jordan through the southern Negev. While the Israeli Foreign Minister still hoped it would be possible to work for comprehensive negotiations with Egypt towards a non-aggression pact which would reinforce the existing GAA, Israelis also stepped up their expressions of fear that Egypt was preparing for a 'second round'. His talk with Abd al-Mun'im Mustafa also left Ambassador Eban with the impression that the Egyptians would 'not talk business unless pressed more seriously' by Washington.40 Genuinely believing that American pressure had been responsible for most Egyptian concessions during and since the Rhodes talks of early 1949, Israeli spokesmen increased their requests for US and PCC pressure on Egypt to agree to direct negotiations with lsrae1.41 As before, American officials were reluctant to press too hard, having

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less confidence in their supposed ability to influence the Egyptians in this direction.

PCC proposals: mediation and direct negotiations Recognizing the probable failure of using the mixed-committee model alone to launch fruitful Egyptian-Israeli talks on local Gaza problems, in early March the PCC began considering a more ambitious procedure aimed at breaking the impasse. This was an imaginative two-pronged approach which would have combined mediation- submission of some PCC proposals in response to Arab requests - with direct Arab-Israeli negotiation - using the mixedcommittee model, in response to Israeli requests. On 29 March 1950, following several weeks of consultations, the Commission addressed its 'mediation cum direct negotiation' proposal officially to the parties. The PCC's 'observations and suggestions' for proceeding in this fashion urged the parties to treat mediation and direct negotiation not as incompatible but as complementary procedures.42 Over the next six weeks, these PCC proposals became the focus of informal and formal discussions with Israel and the Arab states. The PCC's efforts in Geneva were supplemented by Chairman Claude de Boisanger's tour of Middle Eastern capitals in the hope of going over the heads of the delegations to enlist official government support. De Boisanger especially wanted to obtain mandates from Arab governments authorizing their Geneva delegates to enter into direct talks with lsraelis.43 Given the ongoing tensions between Jordan and Egypt, as well as the forthcoming elections in Jordan, de Boisanger's visit to Arab capitals was considered 'most ill-timed' by local British and American envoys. The PCC Chairman's discussions in Amman, Beirut and Damascus left him 'subdued' and discouraged.44 Israeli and Arab reactions to the PCC proposals were far from encouraging. Within two days, the Israeli government submitted its own lengthy memorandum on the conciliation process- a document not originally intended as a response to the PCC proposals, but one drafted earlier on the recommendation of its Geneva delegation to seize a 'unique opportunity [of] putting [the] Arabs in [the] wrong' by an aggressive campaign against their 'refusal [to] negotiate peace'.45 One of the memorandum's 35 paragraphs recalled the Arabs' 'consistent policy of ostracism and isolation' of Israeli representatives at Lausanne and argued:

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That any progress towards peace can be made between two parties, one of which refuses any contact with the other, is a self-evident absurdity. The act of negotiation does not by itself ensure success. But the absence of negotiation certainly predetermines failure. Criticizing the Arab call for the PCC to present its own proposals as a mediating body, the memorandum of31 March invoked UNGA and UNSC resolutions which 'require[d] the parties to "seek agreement by negotiations" on outstanding questions- not to seek arbitrary awards at each other's expense without negotiation or agreement.' If the Arab governments have any reasonable demands to make, they cannot evade their duty to make them at the conference table where they must simultaneously expose themselves to the reciprocal claims and counter-arguments of the other party. The final section of the Israeli memorandum pointed to evidence of Arab hostile intentions, namely 'active rearmament', blockade, and 'second round propaganda'. Israel 'deeply appreciate[ d) the recent efforts of the Commission to bring the Arab States to a conference table', but impatiently noted that [t]he time has surely arrived for the Arab States to declare unequivocally where they stand, and tor the Commission to proclaim where the responsibility lies if direct negotiations for a final settlement of all outstanding questions do not now begin.46 The hefty memorandum was rightly seen by the US delegation as 'an all-out attack on [the] Arab position'. Both its tone and its timing seemed certain, if publicized, to cause the Arabs to reject the PCC's proposal for 'mediation cum direct negotiation' which had been submitted confidentially to the parties two days earlier. In deference to PCC requests, the Israelis agreed to withhold publication for a while.47 It was during de Boisanger's stop-over in Cairo that the PCC learned, from Egypt's new Foreign Minister, Muhammad Salah

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ad-Din, of the Arab states' acceptance of the proposal for joint meetings with Israeli representatives- but on the condition that Israel accept the principle of the return of refugees as enunciated in UNGA resolution 194 of 11 December 1948.48 The Cairo press misleadingly reported that the Arabs and the PCC were now in 'complete' agreement, and that it was up to the Israelis to declare their endorsement of UN resolution 194. In response, the Israelis released a resume of their memorandum of 31 March to the press, hoping to counter the propaganda advantage which the Arabs seem to have gained.49 Rafael informed the PCC that Israel considered the Arab states' reply as 'completely "bogus"'. Viewing the precondition as unacceptable and tantamount to rejection, Israel continued to press the PCC to obtain an authoritative statement of a positive Arab attitude toward peace negotiations before providing its own reply to the memorandum of 29 March. so This Israeli stance, which shifted the onus back onto the PCC, led to great disappointment within the US delegation. In discussions with Gideon Rafael, the American members of the PCC were reported to have argued that Israel's unconditional acceptance of the proposals would 'score important points' and would be of'great assistance' to the PCC, giving it "'ammunition [to] smoke [the] Arabs out" clearly indicating they refuse peace'. Ely Palmer and James Barco also sought to reassure the Israelis by offering a very restrictive definition of the sort of mediation the Commission would be offering to the parties. 51 Palmer's impatience with the Israelis also led him to appeal to the State Department to make appropriate representations through the Israeli Embassy in Washington and the American Embassy in Tel Aviv. Recalling that, 'at Israel's request', the Geneva talks had been organized in a way that had 'left [the] greatest freedom of action and initiative to Israel', the US representative on the Commission now believed that unless [the] Israelis [were] ready [to] make [a] genuine and magnanimous effort through [the] PCC [there was] little prospect [of] peace negotiations with any Arab state in [the] near future or any justification for continuation [of the] PCC's efforts. [The] Arabs have for [the] first time agreed [to] sit down with Israel provided [the] principles [of] UN resolution [194 are] agreed to.

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The other member-governments of the PCC would also be asked to help persuade the Israelis to meet this Arab 'challenge' by announcing their acceptance of the Commission's proposals of 29 March. 52 Although generally supportive of the Israeli position, James Barco also commented bitterly on the fact that '[m]uch ofPCC inactivity ha[ d] been in deference to Israel['s] wish to pursue [its] own course', but that Israel had not taken advantage of the opportunity to 'counteract [the] Arab feeling of futility'. Instead, Barco reported, Israeli representatives had issued 'official ... utterances and actions' which 'consistently confirmed Arabs in their belief[that] Israel [was] not prepared to negotiate in [the] true sense'.53 Two weeks later, the Israeli Foreign Minister officially replied to the PCC, repeating Israel's readiness to enter into negotiations leading 'to the establishment of permanent peace'. Talks about a peace settlement would take place on the understanding that the principals in these negotiations would be the Israel and Arab delegations, while the Conciliation Commission would act as a harmonizing agent between the parties with a view to inducing a friendly atmosphere and extending its good offices to the parties with their consent. Moshe Sharett was prepared to name and mandate a delegation for these negotiations once it was informed 'which Arab State or States [were] ready to negotiate with Israel a settlement of all outstanding issues on the lines envisaged'.54 With the official Israeli and Arab replies finally in hand, the PCC felt that a 'crossroads' had been reached and issued invitations to the parties to commence negotiations in accordance with its memorandum of 29 March. Hoping to bypass the preconditions of both parties by simply ignoring them, the Commission acknowledged the 'spirit of cooperation' which it had detected in their replies and pointed to the urgency of holding negotiations upon the various outstanding questions which were 'linked to each other'. The PCC ended by asking each government to notify it of the names of the delegates who would be 'fully empowered' to take part in negotiations which it wished to begin by 23 May. Ely Palmer turned to Washington, requesting that 'Anything which [the State] Department [could] do to encourage [a] favourable Arab response [would] be more than justified.'55

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But, unlike Lausanne, there was no serious or effective intervention by the Western powers in support of the Commission at this time. After consultations with diplomatic posts abroad, the State Department concluded that an official US approach to the Arab governments on behalf of the PCC negotiation proposal 'appear[ed] inadvisable'; missions might, however, 'in discretion offer informal encouragement'. In Amman, Sir Alec Kirkbride agreed with his American counterpart's suggestion to offer 'encouragement (not pressure)' for Jordanian acceptance of the PCC's invitation. 56 In the absence of any sustained pressure coming from outside powers, Arab opinion remained strongly behind the Arab League position that any negotiations via the PCC would be conditional upon Israel's agreement to implement UN resolutions. The Arab states' official reply of 19 May was described as 'a textual repetition of what they have said to M. de Boisanger on 14 April in Cairo'. 57 Israel remained reluctant to provide a positive reply to the invitation prior to the PCC's receipt of an explicit indication of the Arab states' readiness to enter into peace negotiations without preconditions. As Reuven Shiloah explained to Ely Palmer, 'Israel did not wish [to] repeat [the] experience of Lausanne and saw no utility in going through [the] motions of[a] peace settlement.'58 The suggested date for the start of negotiations (23 May) came and went while the PCC continued its private consultations in the hope ofgetting talks underway. In the light ofArab and Israeli responses to its invitation, the Commission issued 'clarifications', citing the 'inappropriateness of laying down prerequisite conditions' and emphasizing that all the principles contained in UN resolution 194 'must be respected and that one of them cannot be singled out for special recognition without impairing the equilibrium of the resolution ... as a whole'. 59 Privately, Palmer hoped that his letter would allow the Arabs to 'save their face' and reconsider their negative attitude to the Commission's proposal. 60 On 12 June, however, the Arab delegations, led by Egypt, informed the PCC that they maintained their announced attitude regarding the conditions under which they would co-operate in the proposed mixed committees. 61 Adjournment

On 3 July 1950, the PCC announced that an impasse had been reached, that meetings would be wound up on 15 July, and that it planned to relocate in Jerusalem for future discussions. 62

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In accordance with the position that they had adopted during the Lausanne talks, the Arab states again repeated their insistence that Israel resolve the refugee issue in accordance with paragraph 11 of resolution 194 before they would agree to begin negotiations for a final peace settlement. From the Arab point of view, the failure of the PCC effort was due to Israel's defiance, with impunity, of that General Assembly resolution and its failure to abide by its signature of the Lausanne Protocol. 63 During the coming year, Arab politicians belittled the conciliation effort, believing that only drastic proposals enfor