arrangements for the protection of the Holy Places Consideration of the status of Jaffa Establishment of a free port at Haifa, the area of the free port to include the refineries and terminals Establishment of a free airport at Lydda Historian Elad Ben-Dror asserts that the person who was really responsible for the first Bernadotte Plan was Bernadotte's deputy, Ralph Bunche. Bunche made a major effort to imbue it with his own thinking about the appropriate political solution. He was influenced by the ideas of Dr. Judah Magnes and incorporated them into the plan, chiefly in its basic scheme, which called for a confederation in Palestine rather than a Jewish state and an Arab state. Criticism The Israeli government criticized Bernadotte's participation in the negotiations. In July 1948, Bernadotte said that the Arab nations were reluctant to resume the fighting in Palestine and that the conflict now consisted of "incidents." A spokesman for the Israeli government replied: "Count Bernadotte has described the renewed Arab attacks as 'incidents.' When human lives are lost, when the truce is flagrantly violated and the [Security Council] defied, it shows a lack of sensitivity to describe all these as incidents, or to suggest as Count Bernadotte does, that the Arabs had some reason for saying no... Such an apology for aggression does not augur well for any successful resumption by the mediator of his mission." Second proposal After the unsuccessful first proposal, Bernadotte continued with a more complex proposal that abandoned the idea of a union and proposed two independent states. This proposal was completed on 16 September 1948, and had as its basis seven "basic premises" (verbatim): Peace must return to Palestine and every feasible measure should be taken to ensure that hostilities will not be resumed and that harmonious relations between Arab and Jew will ultimately be restored. A Jewish State called Israel exists in Palestine and there are no sound reasons for assuming that it will not continue to do so. The boundaries of this new State must finally be fixed either by formal agreement between the parties concerned or failing that, by the United Nations. Adherence to the principle of geographical homogeneity and integration, which should be the major objective of the boundary arrangements, should apply equally to Arab and Jewish territories, whose frontiers should not therefore, be rigidly controlled by the territorial arrangements envisaged in the resolution of 29 November.