Extract from a 'Note for Minister's Information' on 'The Holy Places' in Jerusalem¹

[matter omitted]

5. Our first contact with the whole question was in December, 1948, when the Spanish Government disturbed by the implied suggestion in the Holy Father's Christmas Allocution that the international control and guarantee of the Holy Places should be entrusted to the United Nations, suggested that the Spanish, Portuguese and Irish representatives to the Holy See should make separate and concerted démarches to the Vatican suggesting that, if any form of international regime were to be established in the Jerusalem area, the mandate should be entrusted to Catholic countries like Spain, Portugal and Ireland, rather than to a body like the United Nations from which the principal Catholic countries in Europe are at present excluded. Having consulted the Ambassador to the Holy See and the Portuguese Government, we came to the conclusion that the Spanish suggestion was ill-conceived and unrealistic, and the matter was, accordingly, quietly let drop.
6. The matter next came up when the question of our recognition of Israel arose in February. Before according de facto recognition, we instructed the High Commissioner in London and the Ambassador in Washington to approach the Israeli representatives in those capitals and to enquire whether the Israeli Government were prepared to accept the principle of international control of the Holy Places in Jerusalem and district. In both cases, an affirmative reply was given, and de facto recognition was consequently accorded.²
7. The matter again arose in April, when the Italian Government approached us with a proposal that all the Catholic nations who are not members of UNO should approach the Catholic nations which are members of the organisation 'representing to them the necessity for assuring the Holy Places a régime of international guarantees as comprehensive and efficient as possible'. The Italian Government suggested that, if this were agreeable, the lines which the proposed approach might take should be discussed informally by the Ambassadors of Italy, Ireland, Spain and Portugal at the Holy See. (It is understood that Austria was also invited to take part, but declined.)
8. In view of the fact that, as indicated above, the United Nations is at present doing its best to cope with the problem through the Conciliation Commission set up by the General Assembly last December, it is doubtful whether the course of action proposed by the Italian Government is really of much practical value. However that may be, instructions were sent to the Ambassador to the Holy See on the 12th May³ to hold himself at the disposal of his Italian, Spanish and Portuguese colleagues for the purposes of the proposed discussions. Since then, the four Ambassadors have only met once, and, according to the latest information we have, there is some doubt as to when they will meet again. They feel, apparently, that they cannot usefully proceed further without some definite indication of the Vatican views on specific points, and the Vatican appears to be reluctant to go further at the moment than the very general statements made by the Holy Father in the three public utterances referred to above.⁴
9. Within the last six months, the Ambassador to the Holy See has been in more or less constant contact with the Vatican about the whole question, and from his reports it does appear that, anxious as the Holy See is that the Christian world should insist on effective international guarantees covering the Holy Places, there is quite a sharp realisation in the Vatican itself of the political difficulties which any international régime must present from the point of view of the Israeli Government, and some degree of reluctance to put forward concrete demands which might lead to the Vatican itself being saddled with responsibilities for promoting further disturbance in Palestine.
10. The key to the whole problem is really the United States. The American Government, having backed Israel up to date, now finds itself faced with a demand on the part of both Catholics and Protestants in the United States for action to safeguard the Holy Places. This was the occasion of the relatively sharp Note sent to the Israeli Government by Washington last week.
11. In the foregoing circumstances, it is hardly open to us to do more than we are doing. Not being a member of UNO, we can do nothing to hurry up the work of the Conciliation Commission. As a non-member of UNO, we have done all we can in agreeing to discuss the matter with other Catholic countries outside the Organisation with a view to concerted action. If that initiative has not gone further than it has, it is due to the reluctance of the Vatican to disclose its hand and the natural disinclination of the four Catholic countries concerned to proceed further without the assurance that whatever line they take will have Vatican concurrence. One factor which seems to influence everyone, including the Vatican, is the undesirability of creating an impossible position for the more moderate sections of political opinion in the new State of Israel. We have even less interest in doing so than other countries because the sympathy of Jewish opinion throughout the world may be important to us in connection with the Partition problem.