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    "localId": "269702344",
    "label": "Memorandum from President Harry S. Truman to Secretary of State Dean Acheson, with Attached Letter from Chaim Weizmann",
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    "contentType": "document",
    "title": "Memorandum from President Harry S. Truman to Secretary of State Dean Acheson, with Attached Letter from Chaim Weizmann",
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{
    "seq": 7,
    "pageIndex": 0,
    "type": "photo",
    "url": "https://s3.amazonaws.com/NARAprodstorage/lz/presidential-libraries/truman/hst-psf/602191/750310/750310-27-007.jpg",
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    "ocrText": "TRENAN\n\"NATIONAL\nARCHIVES AND\nRECORDS\n:\nSERVICE*\n3.\nduring the second military campaign which was the result of the Arabs\ndefiant refusal to accept the Mediator's urgent plea for a contimuation\nof the first truce. Bitter experience has shown that without that\nterritory we are defenceless. Were we to give up the corridor to Jerusalem,\nthat great city, whose people suffered so much and so heroically last year,\nwould again be exposed to the danger of having its water supply cut off\nand of being starved into submission. In exactly the same way, Western\nGalilee holds the key to the defence of Haifa and the Valley of Jezreel,\nwhile the Ramleh area assures the safety of Tel Aviv from such menacing\nattacks as were launched upon it last year. None of these areas was ever\nallotted to any of the Arab States with which we are now negotiating. All\nof them are occupied by Israel legally under armistice agreements.\nThe Palestine Arab State contemplated in the U.N. Resolution of 29th\nNovember 1947 has not come into being - not through any fault of ours -\nand there is no reason whatever why the neighbouring Arab States who invaded\nPalestine in flagrant defiance of their obligations under the Charter,\nshould be appeased by territorial \"compensation\" at our expense. Incidentally,\nall these demands for compensation in the end boil down to the same old question\non which you took so firm a stand last year - the Negev. It is the Negev,\nparticularly the southern Negev, which appears again to be demanded from us.\nThe reasons against it are just as potent as they were last year when you so\nstrongly opposed our being deprived of that area which contains the country's\nsole mineral resources and which, in addition, is our only gateway to the East.\nWhat importance attaches to our having direct access to the Red Sea has been\nbrought home to us strikingly by Egypt's closing of the Suez Canal to all ships\n-\neven British ships carrying, or suspected of carrying, goods to Israel. Be-\ncause of such closure we are compelled to bring vital supplies (wheat,\netc.)\nfrom Australia and the Far East all the way via the Cape and Gibralter. With\nthe coast of Eylat in our possession and the Negev opened up by transport roads,\nwe shall have free access to the sea routes which are vital to our existence.\nNow a.s to the refugee problem. It is a grave issue, but it was\nnot created by us. It was not the birth of Israel which created the Arab\nrefugee problem, as our enemies now proclaim, but the Arab attempt to\nprevent that birth by armed force. These people are not refugees in the\nsense in which that term has been sanctified by the martydom of millions\nin Europe - they are part of an aggressor group which failed and which\nmakes no secret of its intention to resume aggression. They left the\ncountry last year at the bidding of their leaders and military commanders\nand a.s part of the Arab strategic plan. But in spite of all this we are,\nfor humanitarian reasons, ready to contribute as far as we can towards a\nsolution of this problem. We have, in fact, done a good deal more under\nthis head than could, for obvious reasons, be published. Your Ambassador\nhas been given details under this head. We have been steadily re-admitting\nArab refugees during the last few months. The mumber of those who have\nreturned exceeds 25,000. We are ready to re-unite Arab families\nseparated by the war, and we are now approaching the various Arab States\nthrough the Mixed Armistice Commissions for setting up special machinery\nto facilitate their return in organised form. We are prepared to re-admit"
}