Rostow Recommends Solution On Palestinian Refugees
(May 21, 1966)
Rostow explains to President Johnson Ambassador
Goldberg's plan for solving the Palestinian
refugee problem from Israel's War
of Independence. Goldberg's plan is for Israel to announce that
they will accept refugees into Israel with quotas and security screening
and that Israel would compensate the rest. Rostow felt that there was
much good in the proposal but it would not be accepted by the Israelis
unless they could be convinced that the Arabs would not accept it. The
Israelis felt that they could ignore the refugee problem as it would
solve itself through time (this was before the Six
Day War). The U.S. also did not want to press this issue too much
in order to encourage more liberal politicians to take over.
Memorandum From the President's Special Assistant (Rostow) to President
Johnson/1/
Washington, May 21, 1966.
Ambassador Goldberg has sent you a very imaginative proposal for tackling
the Palestine refugee problem./2/
His idea is to persuade Israel to announce unilaterally that it will
allow any refugees to return to Israel who want to, subject only to
annual quotas and security screening. This would be a bow to the Arab
claim that the refugees have a "right" to return. Israel would
offer compensation to those who wanted to settle elsewhere. While this
might not work, Israel would at least have made a move to break the
current impasse.
Our preliminary reaction is that, even though there are some good new
ideas here, the Israelis would not buy this. They feel they have to
put upper limits on the number of refugees coming back into Israel for
security reasons. If they were sure the Arabs would reject the idea,
they might consider it to make political points. However, they feel
that the present situation is tolerable and time is gradually eroding
the problem.
There are clearly fresh winds blowing in the Israeli Government and
greater willingness to think about a long-term Arab-Israeli accommodation.
We do want to guard against pushing these new thinkers too far too fast
because their hard line cohorts will be all too ready to jump them.
So we would want to work out any such initiative very thoroughly before
proposing it to them.
I think we ought to give State the outlines of Goldberg's plan to staff
out in detail. If you approve, I will send it over without attribution.
Walt
Send it to State/3/
See me
/1/Source: Johnson Library, National Security File,
Memos to the President, Walt W. Rostow, Vol. 3. Confidential.
/2/Goldberg's May 19 letter to the President is ibid.
/3/This option is checked. Johnson's
handwritten notes on the memorandum indicate that the President wanted
his staff to "Hurry it up" and to thank Goldberg. Another
note in an unknown handwriting states that Rostow called Goldberg in
New York later that day.
Sources: Foreign
Relations of the United States, 1964-1968, V. 18, Arab-Israeli
Dispute 1964-1967. DC: GPO,
2000. |