This collection of letters from the later months of 1949 shows the deteriorating situation among the refugees, both physically and psychologically, and attempts to find a just, long-term solution for displaced Palestinians. They include the following:
A letter dated Nov 1, 1949 from Clarence Pickett to UN Secretary General, presses urgently for solution for refugees.
A memo from AFSC staffer Colin Bell, dated September 12, 1949, describes his conversations with Abba Eban (then Israel’s representative to the UN) about allowing Arabs back into Israel and Israel absorbing Gaza.
A letter from AFSC’s “Gaza Unit” to Clarence Pickett, dated October 12, 1949, expresses the staff’s need to speak for the refugees, who feel cut off from world. “A culture just on the threshold of progress—by western standards—has been set back a generation,” they write. This letter is source of much of what Pickett writes to the UN General Secretary in November.
