International Refugee Organization

A special meeting of the Executive Committee of the International Refugee Organization, scheduled to meet at Ottawa, was held instead at Geneva from January 25 to 29, 1949. The committee resolved, against determined British opposition, to lift the restriction of financial aid to immigrants to Palestine in effect since May 18, 1947, and authorized Director General William Hallam Tuck to re-imburse Jewish agencies, up to a maximum of $4,000,000 – the expenditure anticipated for Palestine migration in the 1948–1949 budget – for movements of refugees to Israel carried out between May 18, 1947 and January 1, 1949. The Director General was also authorized to support future Jewish refugee movements after consultation with the Palestine Conciliation Commission, to insure that IRO did nothing which would interfere with the commission's mandate to bring about the peaceful solution of the Palestine conflict. IRO support of future migration to Palestine depended on the availability of funds within the $4,000,000 limit after reimbursement of the agencies and on the result of negotiations with the Conciliation Commission. The resolution represented a compromise between those who felt that no limits should be placed on sponsorship of migration of eligible refugees to Palestine and those who argued that conditions in Palestine were too unstable and further complicated by an Arab refugee problem to justify IRO sponsorship. On January 26, 1949 the Secretary-General of the United Nations (Lie) and Stanton Griffis, director of United Nations relief for Palestine refugees, made a joint appeal to the governments for funds and supplies for the aid of more than 500,000 Palestine refugees, mostly Arabs, who had lost their homes during the fighting in Palestine.