The Lausanne Conference, 1949 was convened by the United Nations Conciliation Commission for Palestine (UNCCP) from 27 April to 12 September 1949 in Lausanne, Switzerland. Representatives of Israel, the Arab states Egypt, Transjordan, Lebanon and Syria, and the Arab Higher Committee and a number of refugee delegations were in attendance to resolve disputes arising from the 1948 Arab-Israeli War, mainly in accordance with Resolution 181 and Resolution 194.
Amongst the issues discussed were territorial questions and the establishment of recognized borders, the question of Jerusalem, the repatriation of refugees (and whether the issue could be discussed separately from the overall Arab-Israeli conflict), Israeli counter-claims for war damages, the fate of orange groves belonging to refugees and of their bank accounts blocked in Israel. Israel's position on borders was that the borders should be based on the ceasefire lines, with minor modifications, and "she flatly refused to return to the line of the 1947 partition plan."[1] The Arabs, however, insisted that any deal had to be resolved on the basis of United Nations Resolution 194 which they had rejected previously. The issue of Jerusalem was relegated to a subcommittee.
In July 1949, Israel made an offer to accept the return of 100,000 refugees (sometimes referred to as "The 100,000 Offer") to Israel, contingent upon Arab agreement to a comprehensive peace, and to resettlement of the remaining refugees in Arab countries.[2] Israel also put forward a proposal called the "Gaza Plan," whereby Israel would repatriate some 200,000 refugees and 70,000 Arabs in Gaza as citiziens if Egypt would relinquish control of Gaza Strip to Israel, and the international community would provide aid for refugee resettlement.[3]
Perspectives of Israeli "New Historians"
On 12 May 1949, the conference achieved its only success when the parties signed a joint protocol on the framework for a comprehensive peace, which included territories, refugees, and Jerusalem. Israel agreed "in principle" to allow the return of all of the Palestinian refugees.[citation needed] This Israeli agreement was made under pressure from the United States, and because the Israelis wanted United Nations membership, which required Israeli agreement to allow the return of all refugees. Once Israel was admitted to the UN, it retreated from the protocol it had signed, because it was completely satisfied with the status quo, and saw no need to make any concessions with regard to the refugees or on boundary questions. Israeli Foreign Minister Moshe Sharett had hoped for a comprehensive peace settlement at Lausanne, but he was no match for Prime Minister David Ben Gurion, who saw the armistice agreements that stopped the fighting with the Arab states as sufficient, and put a low priority on a permanent peace treaty.[4]
Among the Arabs, only King Abdullah of Transjordan (today's Jordan) worked for a permanent peace treaty with Israel, in part because he had annexed the West Bank and wanted the Israelis to recognize this. When Abdullah's secret negotiations and agreements with Israel were exposed, he was assassinated on 20 July 1951 in Jerusalem by a Palestinian.[5] In the end, no agreement was reached. The failure to settle the refugee question led to the establishment of the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East to care for the needs of refugees.
Zionist perspectives on the talks
As the Arab delegations refused to talk directly with Israel, UNCCP shuttled back and forth between the parties.[1][2] with the purpose of resolving the issues arising from the 1948 Arab-Israeli War, in particular the issue of responsibility for the refugees, property rights and borders.[1]
Initially, Israel was asked to "break the ice" by making a good will gesture. Israel then announced that it would pay compensation to the refugees for their abandoned properties. The United States, however, applied considerable pressure to Israel to accept a number of refugees.[2] Israel's position on refugees was that the Arab states were responsible for the Palestinian refugee problem since it was their aggression that caused the initial tragedy, and that therefore it was an Arab problem. Arabs, however, said the responsibility for the situation was Israel's and "insisted ... that all the refugees should be allowed to choose between returning to their previous homes in what used to be Palestine and receiving compensation."[1]
According to Michael Fischbach in his book Records of Dispossession: Palestinian Refugee Property and the Arab-Israeli Conflict, besides the delegations representing Israel and the Arabs states, there were three delegations that were arrived to represent the refugees, including a group called the General Refugee Congress that had been formed in Ramallah in March 1949. This group was one of a number of groups that had sprung up hoping to represent various Palestinian interests. The leaders of the Congress were Aziz Shehadeh and Muhammad Mir al-Hawwari. Fishcbach writes
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Relations between the refugee groups and the delegations from the Arab states were reportedly hostile, according to chief Israeli negotiator Walter Eytan, who later wrote that Egyptian delegates forcibly ejected a group of refugees who had tried to secure a meeting with them..... |
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While the main issue at Lausanne was the fate of the refugees, they also discussed "in detail" some of the issues relating to refugee property. The Israelis "explained the activities of the Custodian of Absentee Property". The discussion covered whether property issues could be addressed separately from the overall Arab-Israeli conflict, Israeli counter claims for war damages, the fate of the refugee orange groves, and the fate of refugee bank accounts blocked in Israel.[6]
Israel insisted on discussing the refugee and the property issue only as a part of the resolution of the entire conflict, while the Arabs insisted on dealing with the refugee issues separately, on their repatriation.
Fishbach writes:[6]
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For its part Israel emerged from Lausanne frustrated with the role played by the UNCCP. Israel formally notified the UNCCP in the fall of 1949 that it felts its role should not be one of initiating proposals but rather mediating between the Arabs and Israel who would respond directly to one anothers' initiatives. For the Arabs, movement on the refugee issue remained the sine qua non of any wider discussion with the Israelis and so they too came away disappointed from Lausanne. |
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According to Benny Morris, the "Arab delegations arrived united in the demand that Israel declare acceptance of the principle of repatriation before they would agree to negotiate peace. .....The Israeli delgation, he Sharett said, had 'come prepared to tackle [the refugee problem] with sincerity and above all in the spirit of realism.' 'Realism' meant no repatriation."[7]
Benny Morris, in Birth writes:[7]
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The insufficiency of the '100,000 Offer,' the Arab states' continuing rejectionism, their unwillingness to accept and concede defeat and their inability to publicly agree to absorb and resettle most of the refugees if Israel agreed to repatriate the rest, the Egyptian rejection of the 'Gaza Plan,' and America's unwillingness to apply persuasive pressure on Israel and the Arab states to compromise--all meant that the Arab-Israeli impasse would remain and that Palestine's displaced Arabs would remain refugees, to be utilized during the following years by the Arab states as a powerful political and propaganda tool against Israel. |
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Criticism of participants
According to Yagil Levy,
- The Lausanne Conference was convened in 1949 in the aftermath of the 1948 War, with Israel and the Arab states participating. The sides agreed on a protocol based on the Arabs' acceptance of the principle of partition in Palestine, implying recognition of Israel, and Israeli acceptance of the principle of the repatriation of the Palestinian refugees. Nevertheless, Israel, inspired by its newly defined security interests, signed the document but successfully impeded its translation into a political agreement (Levy, 1997, p. 60).
The Israelis insisted on discussing solutions to refugee problems only in the context of an overall settlement of the Arab-Israeli conflict. This agreed with the commission's stance that
- The interrelation of all the aspects of the problem was too obvious to be overlooked." The Israeli government briefly offered to repatriate 100,000 refugees, but only as part of a final settlement in which all other refugees were absorbed by Arab states. Compensation would be paid, but not to individual refugees or Arab states, only to a "common fund" and only for land that had been under cultivation prior to being abandoned; not for any movable property or uncultivated land. The common fund would be reduced by an amount of compensation to Israel for war reparations.
The Commission found this proposal to be unsatisfactory and declared that
- the Government of Israel is not prepared to implement the part of paragraph 11 of the General Assembly resolution of 11 December 1948 which resolves that the refugees wishing to return to their homes and live at peace with their neighbours should be permitted to do so at the earliest practicable date.
The Arab delegations insisted on dealing with the refugee problem separately from an overall settlement, and refused to deal directly with the Israeli delegation. The commission found that
- The Arab Governments, on the other hand, are not prepared fully to implement paragraph 5 of the said resolution, which calls for the final settlement of all questions outstanding between them and Israel. The Arab Governments in their contacts with the Commission have evinced no readiness to arrive at such a peace settlement with the Government of Israel.
and that
- no constructive progress towards a solution of existing problems would be possible unless all the parties to the dispute, at the outset of the discussions, expressed their determination to respect each other's right to security and freedom from attack, to refrain from warlike or hostile acts against one another, and to promote the return of permanent peace in Palestine.
Overall,
- For reasons that were beyond the Commission's task of facilitation, this movement did not come to pass. The respective attitudes of the parties on this matter--attitudes which produced a complete deadlock as regards the refugee question--are well known. The Arab States insisted upon a prior solution of the refugee question, at least in principle, before agreeing to discuss other outstanding issues. In their opinion, a solution of the refugee problem could be reached only as a result of unconditional acceptance by Israel of the right of refugees to be repatriated. Israel, on the other hand, has maintained that no solution of the refugee question involving repatriation could be envisaged outside the framework of an over-all settlement.
References
- Fischbach, Michael R. (2003). Records of Dispossession: Palestinian Refugee Property and the Arab-Israeli Conflict. Columbia University Press. ISBN 0-231-12978-5
- Levy, Yagil (1997). Trial and Error: Israel's Route from War to De-Escalation. SUNY Press. ISBN 0-7914-3429-X
- Pappe, Ilan (1992). The Making of the Arab-Israeli Conflict 1947-1951. I.B. Tauris, London. ISBN 1-85043-819-6
- Schulz, Helena Lindholm (2003). The Palestinian Diaspora. London: Routledge. ISBN 0-415-26820-6
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