Dec 27, 1962: a tall, young, dashing President JFK met with our little Golda Meir (photo below), who was Israel’s Foreign Minister at the time, in PalmBeach, Florida. Incidentally, this was just one month after the Cuban Missile Crisis.
Palestinian refugees were among many topics discussed.
Golda reminded JFK that, even though there was no peace (only an armistice) in 1949 that “ended” the war, Israel publicly pronounced its willingness to accept 100,000 Palestinian Refugees back into the country. Yet only 40,000 of them came back! Still, Israel accepted those 40,000 refugees, and they became citizens.
She also advised that, at that time, there were about 240,000 Arabs living in Israel, which made up 11% of the population. While they were all afforded equal protection under the law, the truth was that not all of them were peaceful citizens.
Therefore, Israel was left in an uncomfortable situation. Even if Israel offered to permit more Arab refugees to return, how many would accept the offer? And of those who would accept the offer, how many would be coming into Israel with good intentions? Would they come to live as peaceful citizens or with the intention of attacking Jewish Israeli citizens and/or becoming a FifthColumn in the country? And how could Israel possibly know for sure?
Afterall, Golda told JFK, at the United Nations, the Arab delegates continued to “frankly and openly for hours and hours … [claim] that Israel has no right to exist and must disappear.” And Israeli intelligence was aware of Arab plans to pressure Israel to accept more Arabs to “return” with the goal of taking the country down from the inside and “making an Algeria out of Israel.”
JFK assured Golda that he understood and that “obviously Israel cannot accept a flood of refugees.”
But he also said they could not “give up on refugees” noting they were “costing the United States money and … great damage to the prospects of peace.”