The Palestinian issue reached a crucial stage when on August 31, 1945, President Truman of the United States addressed an appeal to the British prime minister, Clement Attlee, asking for an immediate admission of 100,000 Jews to Palestine. In response, the British government proposed the creation of an Anglo-American Committee of Inquiry to study the matter, thus shifting part of the burden of responsibility to the United States.

The American government responded positively and the two governments appointed a committee, composed of non-official citizens of the two countries. The joint committee held hearings in Washington and in London. It also visited camps for the displaced persons in Germany and Austria and undertook a tour of Palestine to inspect the situation firsthand.

It is important to mention that several members of the committee had a visibly pro-Zionist tilt. George Lenczowski mentioned three members: James G McDonald and Bartley C Crum of the American group and Richard Crossman, a British MP, were favourably disposed to the Zionist cause.

Having accomplished its task on April 20, 1946, the committee presented its report with three recommendations: (a) The Government of Palestine ought to continue as at present under mandate pending the execution of a trusteeship agreement under the United Nations. (b) 100,000 certificates must be authorised immediately for the admission into Palestine of the Jews who have been victims of the Nazi and Fascist persecution. (c) The land transfer limits must be rescinded.

The governments of the USA and Great Britain appointed a high-powered commission to devise ways to implement the committee’s recommendations. The Zionists were thoroughly disappointed by these developments. They were quite incensed at Labour Party’s pursuing the policy of its conservative predecessors of not antagonising the Arabs. In October 1946, President Truman renewed his appeal for immediate admission of 100,000 Jews into Palestine.

In December the same year, at a World Zionist Congress in Basle, the lukewarm attitude of the Great Britain towards Jewish immigration and the establishment of a national state for them was assailed in vociferous terms. With British so trenchantly criticised, American Zionist leadership carried the day, calling for a Jewish state in all of Palestine and promising more effective measures to achieve that objective.

Given the untenable position that Britain found itself in because of immense pressure from the American establishment and being constantly castigated by both the Zionists and the Arabs, Clement Attlee’s government decided to take the Palestine question to the United Nations.

Thus, the General Assembly met between April 28 and May 15 and set up a United Nations Special Committee on Palestine (UNSCOP), consisting of eleven states. The committee visited Palestine and presented a report to the regular fall session of the General Assembly. The report asked for the establishment of an independent and economically unified Palestine at the earliest.

If this was delayed, then “the area would have to pass through a transitional stage under United Nations supervision”. Here the unanimity ended, and the report was divided into a majority and a minority plan. The majority plan was supported by the European and South American nations. It provided for the partitioning of Palestine into an Arab state, a Jewish state, and the internationalised city of Jerusalem. The minority plan favoured by India, Iran and Yugoslavia advocated a federated state of Palestine composed of two states, Jewish and Arab, each enjoying local autonomy. Jewish migration into the Jewish state would be permitted for three years keeping in view its absorptive capacity. Migration would be monitored by three Arab, three Jew and three United Nations representatives.

The Arab states favoured the minority plan because it satisfied their basic desiderata, namely, a single independent state with an Arab majority and a limit on Jewish immigration. It showed that Arabs were ready to show flexibility. The Zionists reluctantly accepted the majority plan because it promised a completely independent Jewish state. However, extremists among them were not satisfied with the arrangement. They wanted the entire Palestine and possibly some area beyond it to be part of the Jewish state.

Both these plans were debated by a special Ad Hoc Committee of the General Assembly at its fall session in 1947. As the session drew to its close, it became obvious that the Zionists were bent upon obtaining a decision favouring the majority plan. All said and done, November 29, 1947, became a memorable date in Jewish history because the General Assembly voted to recommend the partition of Palestine, with an economic union as proposed by the majority report.

The Arab state was to include the central and eastern part of Palestine, from the valley of Esdraelon down to Beersheba, Western Galilee, and a strip of land along the Mediterranean coast from Gaza southward and along the Egyptian border to the Red Sea. Jaffa would constitute an enclave in the Jewish state, which was to extend over eastern Galilee and the valley of Esdraelon, a coastal area from Haifa to south of Jaffa, and a major part of the Negev. Jerusalem and Bethlehem with the adjoining territory were to stay outside of both states and be subject to an administration responsible to the Trusteeship Council.

Thirty-three states voted for this motion, thirteen voted against and ten abstained. The United States, Soviet Union and France favoured partition, Great Britain and China abstained from voting. So did Argentina, Chile, Columbia, El Salvador, Ethiopia, Honduras, Mexico, and Yugoslavia. The Arab state of Egypt, Iraq, Lebanon, Saudi Arabia, Syria, Yemen as well as Pakistan, Turkey, Afghanistan, India, Iran, Cuba and Greece voted against the motion.

It is important to mention that the Arabs felt particularly resentful toward United States, and they were justified in doing so because the United States helped rally votes for the partition. Americans, in fact, reneged on their promise made both by Roosevelt and Truman who had assured them that no basic decision on Palestine would be taken without the agreement of both parties directly concerned. Arabs protested but their protests were not heeded. They fought and were beaten leaving Palestinian Muslims like Franz Fanon’s The Wretched of the Earth. For them, the world has been a hell ever since where everybody carries a chip on the shoulder.

(Concluded)

The writer is a professional historian and an author. He can reached at tk393@cam.ac.uk