Disputed Matters, Political Impasses and Moribund Peace

The Arab states called for the return of the Negev, Galilee and the Latrun salient, as well as the internationalisation of Jerusalem and Jaffa: the total effect would have been to reduce Israel to a third of the area allocated to her under the original UN partition plan. Israel wanted to retain the frontiers established in the armistice agreements, and was firmly opposed to any idea of internationalising Jerusalem. She demanded that the whole question should be discussed again in the forthcoming session of the Assembly (at this time a body still relatively favourable towards Israel).

The differences revealed by these answers, both on frontiers and on the refugees, was so great that the Conciliation Commission decided to abandon the Lausanne meetings and issued a warning that, unless the parties showed themselves more conciliatory, it could not organise successful negotiations, as the Assembly had asked. The 1949 Assembly none the less asked the Commission to continue its work. It also discussed yet another plan for the internationalisation of Jerusalem which the Commission had produced. The city would be demilitarised and neutralised. There would be a Jewish zone and an Arab zone with their own local authorities, but with a general council drawn from representatives of the two zones. The plan was, however, rejected by both Israel and Jordan, which declared that they would refuse to implement it (though both agreed to secure the protection of the holy places).

The idea of internationalising Jerusalem continued to be discussed for the next two or three assemblies. The 1949 Assembly reaffirmed the aim of internationalising Jerusalem and the surrounding area, and designated the Trusteeship Council as the administering authority. It requested the Trusteeship Council, as it had a year and a half previously, to undertake the preparation of a 'statute' for Jerusalem. The Trusteeship Council proceeded once more to prepare such a statute; but this remained as much of a dead letter as all previous plans proposed for that troubled city. The only visible outcome was that the Commission appointed a UN representative in Jerusalem, who acted for many years as a source of information and advice for the UN on developments in the area.

The Conciliation Commission then tried once more to bring about negotiations for a final settlement. But it had no more success than before. Many of the differences continued to be about procedure. Israel still insisted on direct negotiations with each Arab state separately, while the Arab states were determined to negotiate as a bloc, with the Commission acting as mediator. The Arabs wanted negotiations about the refugee question to be completed before going on to discuss other points, while Israel wanted it considered as one aspect of the general peace settlement. Eventually, on 29 March 1950, the Commission proposed as a compromise the establishment of JOInt committees meeting under the chairmanship of a representative of the Commission. Each meeting would be attended by those countries concerned with the subject under discussion.

The Arab League accepted these proposals (which were somewhat nearer to the Arab point of view), but its secretary-general subsequently said that this was conditional on Israel accepting earlier UN decisions on partition and the internationalisation of Jerusalem. Israel, on the other hand, at first rejected the Commission's proposals, but subsequently changed her mind. On 15 May the Commission interpreted these conflicting answers as opening the way to a conference on the lines it had suggested. On 13 June, however, the Egyptian Government withdrew its delegate to the Commission; and soon afterwards Egypt, Syria and Lebanon all rejected the proposals for joint committees, declaring that they would no longer negotiate with Israel under the auspices of the Commission.

This was believed to be a response to an unexpected initiative at this time by the Western powers. It had now become apparent that the Commission's efforts to secure a final settlement were having little success. The frontiers were still disturbed, Israeli shipping was unable to pass through the Suez Canal, and public Arab hostility to Israel was becoming if anything more intense rather than less. Since it was clear that neither the UNTSO nor any other UN body was likely to be able to preserve the peace of the area in the case of a major outbreak of fighting, the three major Western powers, the United States, Britain and France, decided that some further action, outside the auspices of the UN, was needed to deter further violence and to demonstrate Western concern for the area.

On 25 May 1950, they issued a statement which became known as the Tripartite Declaration. In this they declared that they would take joint action to prevent any alteration of the armistice borders by force. They would themselves seek to avoid an arms race in the area, which would add to existing instability, though they would not cut off all arms suppliesfor example, where needed for local security needs, or for the 'defence of the area as a whole' (that is, against communism). The announcement was greeted with mixed feelings by both sides in the area. Ben Gurion declared that he did not regard it as binding on Israel, though he welcomed it to the extent that it was designed to increase security and peace. The Arabs denounced it in so far as it seemed to assure to Israel the retention of at least the territory she held at that time.

The main defect of the declaration was that the Western powers at no time made clear how they intended to fulfil it, nor did they have adequate forces themselves in the area to do so. Only after 1955, when British policy turned sharply against Egypt, did Britain seek to persuade the United States that the declaration required teeth, to which the United States replied that she preferred acting through the UN: a preference which she was to put into effect in the following year.

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