501.BB Palestine/10–648
Memorandum by Mr. Robert M. McClintock to the Acting Secretary of State (Lovett)
[Subject:] Secretary’s return to Washington: Palestine
Undoubtedly the Secretary in his weekend consultation with the President will be asked to deal with the stated US position on Palestine as embodied in his support of the Bernadotte Plan along the lines of his statement in Paris on September 21. The President may mention the considerations which formed the topic of your railroad conversation with Mr. Clark Clifford a week ago today.
The President will also have received Mr. McDonald’s Niact telegram 161, of October 4, from Tel Aviv, the effect of which is to urge that we agree to the demand of the Provisional Government of Israel that it retain most of the Negeb despite Count Bernadotte’s recommendation to the contrary.
I believe the Secretary could usefully urge on the President a compromise which would preserve the essence of the position he adopted in Paris on September 21. Official statements of Israeli leaders and press reports from Tel Aviv indicate that the Provisional Government of Israel has laid special stress on retaining some twenty-two “embattled” Jewish settlements in the Negeb. According to our information, most, if not all, of these settlements lie in an area north of Beersheba. It would therefore seem possible for us to agree that Israel retain a salient into the northern Negeb as far south as the Beersheba-Gaza Road, giving to Israel the bulk of the twenty-two Jewish settlements but retaining for the Arabs the bulk of the Negeb as recommended by the slain UN Mediator. Such a settlement would be in precise accord with the territorial settlements embodied in the Department’s telegram to Tel Aviv #72 of September 1, which the President approved in his own handwriting and of which you have the text. Before proposing a compromise of this nature to the UNGA, we have at least a moral obligation to endeavor to obtain British agreement.
It is of the utmost importance, if there is to be any chance of success in securing UN adoption of the Bernadotte Plan and thereby a material advance toward a solution of the Palestine problem, that this government undertake immediate and urgent representations with the Arab governments and the Provisional Government of Israel urging their acquiescence in the Bernadotte Plan. Draft telegrams providing arguments to our various chiefs of mission for this purpose have been [Page 1460] prepared now for some time and await top-side approval.1 I enclose three such telegrams2 in the accompanying folder. It would be most helpful if the Secretary could approve the despatch of these instructions. The British have taken a more forthright line at least with the Arab States and, quite naturally, look to us to do our share in securing acquiescence not only on the part of the Arabs but on the part of Israel.