Weizmann Explains Israeli Position at Lausanne Negotiations
(June 24, 1949)
Chaim Weizmann wrote a lengthy letter to President Truman during negotiations between Israel and the Arab states that began in Lausanne on April 30, 1949. The United States was frustrated with what the State Department considered Israeli intransigence because of its unwillingness to allow a large number of Palestinian refugees to return before a peace agreement was reached and its insistence on retaining territory it captured in the 1948 War following the invasion of the neighboring Arab states.