The Complete Idiot's Guide to Middle East Conflict
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Finally, the British succumbed to the pressures from Palestine and at home and decided to bring the problem to the United Nations in February 1947. According to the colonial secretary, the British were not planning to abandon the mandate; they were only seeking advice as to how the mandate could be administered.
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Sage Sayings
The Irgun now concentrated on this fortress with the aim of delivering a deathblow to British prestige, of forestalling the new Bevin intrigues, and of warning the UN not to draw out the Palestine deliberations.
—Former Irgunist Itzhak Gurion, explaining the motivation for attacking Acre
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The British stipulated that they would not carry out any United Nations recommendation alone. They wanted either the United Nations or some individual member to share the responsibility for implementing a solution. The British placed an additional restriction on their willingness to accept the UN’s advice: the UN solution must be acceptable to both Jews and Arabs. This final condition made it highly unlikely that the UN would come up with a solution. It was both parties’ unwillingness to come to an agreement that had forced the British to go to the United Nations in the first place! The Arabs were unwilling to accept a Jewish state in Palestine, and the Zionists refused to settle for anything less. The British were fully aware of the futility of finding an acceptable solution. They did not expect nor did they want the United Nations to find one. They were anticipating that the United Nations would hand the problem back over to the British. And when that happened, the British would feel free to pursue their imperial interests and crush any remaining resistance.
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Mysteries of the Desert
British foreign secretary Ernest Bevin’s advisor on Palestine, Harold Beeley, asked the Jewish Agency’s David Horowitz why the Jews were willing to allow the British to submit the Palestine problem to the United Nations. “Look at the UN Charter,” the advisor said, “and at the list of countries belonging to it. In order to obtain a favorable decision, you will need two thirds of the votes of those countries, and you will be able to obtain it only if the Eastern Bloc and the U.S. unite and support both the decision itself and some formulation.” The advisor added candidly, “Nothing like that ever happened; it cannot possibly happen, and will never happen.”
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UNSCOP
Instead of throwing the problem back at the British, however, the General Assembly decided to set up the United Nations Special Committee on Palestine (UNSCOP) to investigate the cause of conflict in Palestine and, if possible, devise a solution. UNSCOP planned to visit Palestine to interview the parties and recommend a solution to the United Nations.
UN Representatives Get an Earful
When UNSCOP arrived in June 1947, it found the Jewish community very responsive to its inquiries. The Arabs, however, greeted UNSCOP with hostility and refused to cooperate. The Arab Higher Committee boycotted UNSCOP and demanded that the United Nations immediately grant Palestine its independence.
On June 24, the chairman of UNSCOP (Emil Sandstrom of Sweden), assistant to UNSCOP (Dr. Ralph Bunche of the United States), and Sandstrom’s secretary (Dr. Victor Hoo of China) met secretly with Irgun chief Menachem Begin to obtain his opinion on a settlement for Palestine. Begin outlined the Irgun’s position and aims:
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Ask the Sphinx
UNSCOP was composed of representatives from 11 countries: Australia, Canada, Czechoslovakia, Guatemala, India, Iran, the Netherlands, Peru, Sweden, Uruguay, and Yugoslavia.
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The Irgun considers the historic territory of the Land of Israel to be the homeland of the Jewish people.
Eretz Israel consists of both sides of the Jordan, including Transjordan.
Immediate repatriation of all Jews wishing to be repatriated to Palestine.
Rejection of any statement made by the Labor Party as to the transfer of any Arabs from the country—there is enough room in Palestine for both Jews and Arabs.
Because Great Britain has decided to keep the country under her own control by force of arms, there is no other way to accomplish our aims than to meet force with force.
When the UNSCOP officials resurrected the old issue of over-population and suggested the number of Jews in Palestine was a cause of Arab resentment, Begin pointed out that five to seven million people had lived in Palestine in ancient times, and said he saw no reason why the land couldn’t support a similar population now. He attributed Arab resentment to British instigation. Although he acknowledged that some Arabs were threatening war over partition, Begin didn’t feel it should affect the UN decision.
Begin also voiced his opposition to partition. He opposed it on principle because of his belief that all of Palestine was part of the biblical Jewish homeland. He was also against the idea on practical grounds. The reason for partition was said to be the irreconcilable differences between Jewish and Arab goals and aspirations. But, Begin argued, if it is true that Jews and Arabs cannot live together, partition is impossible because “no line of demarcation can actually be drawn to provide that the peoples of this country live apart from each other.”
The Arabs’ Position
Despite the boycott, UNSCOP was able to speak to Arab representatives, who laid out their position on July 24:
Palestine belongs to the Arabs.
The Arabs never accepted the Balfour Declaration.
The Jews are imperialistic invaders whose immigration must be stopped.
The ban on Jews buying land must be retained.
Palestine should get unpartitioned independence under an Arab majority.
The plight of European refugees does not concern Palestine.
The Arabs will justly resist any unfavorable decision with force.
Although most of the commission’s members acknowledged the need to find a compromise solution, it was difficult for them to envision one, given both sides’ unwillingness to negotiate. At a meeting with a group of Arabs in Beirut, the Czechoslovakian member of the commission, Mr. Lisitzky, told his audience: “I have listened to your demands, and it seems to me that in your view the compromise is: we want our demands met completely; the rest can be divided among those left.”
The Final Straw
In July 1947, while the tragedy of the Exodus was being played out, a new drama was unfolding in Palestine. On July 12, the Irgun finally succeeded in kidnapping two British officers, sergeants Cliff Martin and Mervyn Paice, in retaliation for the death sentences imposed on the Irgunists for the assault on Acre.
The British, aided by the Haganah (see Chapter 6), launched a massive search for the missing men but were unable to locate them. For more than two weeks, nothing was heard from the sergeants. During that period, Jews killed 13 Englishmen and wounded 77 in underground attacks, while the British killed only 1 terrorist. Then, on July 29, the British hanged three Irgunists involved in the Acre attack. As promised, the Irgun hanged the two British officers. The Jewish Agency issued its usual denunciations, but this time the British would not be appeased. Soldiers went on a rampage, attacking cars, buses, cafés, and shops in Tel Aviv, leaving 5 Jews dead, 15 seriously injured, and many more bruised.
The British public was outraged by the hanging of their officers, but they were also fed up with the weekly casualty reports coming from the Palestinian occupation. The Manchester Guardian summed up public opinion in its headline, “Time To Go.” Rather than seeking vengeance, which undoubtedly would have set off a new round of violence, more and more people in Great Britain were concluding that it would be better to wash their hands of the whole mess and leave the Jews and Arabs to fight it out among themselves.
The UN Solution
While British disaffection with the morass in Palestine was growing, UNSCOP was deliberating.
UNSCOP eventually devised two alternative proposals that were meant to replace the mandate. Neither proposal represented a novel approach to the problem.
The One-
State Solution
In one proposal, Iran, India, and Yugoslavia proposed the formation of a single federal state in which the Jews would remain a minority. The Jews were to be given certain ambiguous minority rights in the state, but they would be under Arab rule.
It is interesting to note that no Arab leader demanded the creation of a Palestinian state at any time during the UN debate. The Palestinians considered themselves Arabs, and they wanted a state that would once again be a contiguous part of the Arab world.
It was obvious that the plan proposed by Iran, India, and Yugoslavia would be unacceptable to the Zionists. Granting the Jews citizenship in an Arab state, if it ever came to pass, was hardly a guarantee of political or economic freedom because the Jews had never received such treatment from the Arabs in the past, and there was certainly no reason to expect such benevolence from them in the future. The stipulation regarding Jewish immigration was unsatisfactory because the Arabs had made it clear from the earliest days of the mandate that the existing Jewish population was too large and any immigration was intolerable. After the Holocaust, the one non-negotiable demand of the Zionists was control over Jewish immigration.
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Sage Sayings
There seems to be no valid reason why Palestine should not be constituted into an independent Arab state in which as many Jews as the country can hold with prejudice to its political and economic freedom would live in peace, security, and dignity and enjoy full rights of citizenship.
—George Antonius, Arab nationalist and author of The Arab Awakening
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The proposal was defeated by the General Assembly’s Ad Hoc Committee on Palestine, with 29 members voting against it and only 12 supporting it. In addition to the 10 Arab and Muslim states that voted support for the proposal, Cuba and Liberia also voted in support.
The Partition Plan
A majority of UNSCOP proposed what amounted to a revision of the Peel partition plan (see Chapter 7).
The members recognized that it was futile to try to answer the question of ownership or rights to Palestine. Instead, they chose the logical alternative of partition, in which each nation would be given sovereignty over its own state.
Although it improved upon the Peel Plan, the UN partition scheme still took on somewhat of a checkerboard appearance largely because Jewish settlements were spread throughout Palestine. In addition, the high living standards in Jewish cities and towns had attracted large Arab populations. This demographic fact ensured that any partition would result in a Jewish state that included a substantial Arab population. Recognizing the need to allow for additional Jewish settlement, the majority proposal allotted land in the northern part of the country—Galilee—and the large, arid Negev desert in the south. The remainder of the country was to form the Arab state.
The partition plan of UN General Assembly Resolution 181.
(Credit: AICE)
These borders were based solely on population figures, with no consideration for security. The proposed state’s borders were virtually indefensible. Further complicating the situation was UNSCOP’s insistence that Jerusalem remain apart from both states and be administered as an international zone. This arrangement left more than 100,000 Jews in Jerusalem isolated from their state and circumscribed by the Arab state.
Jews Say Okay, Arabs Say No
With the exception of the most militant Zionists, the Jewish leaders accepted the partition plan. The Arabs, on the other hand, categorically rejected it.
Although it seemed to be an equitable compromise, the issue was an emotional rather than political one, for which no compromise was possible. The Arab nationalists stuck to their formulation that the only way to create room in Palestine for a second state would be to dislodge or exterminate the Arabs.
The Arabs maintained they were entitled to all of Palestine because of birth and “long and continued possession.” The Jews believed they could make at least an equally valid claim on that basis.
Some opponents of the partition suggested the United Nations gave the Jews fertile land whereas the Arabs were allotted hilly, arid land. In fact, approximately 60 percent of the Jewish state was to be the arid desert in the Negev.
The Arabs also believed that the powers were trying to rid themselves of the guilt they felt because of the Holocaust. Britain and France certainly didn’t fall into this category, since the former opposed partition and the latter only reluctantly supported the plan. Russia’s support was related to its rivalry with Britain and had nothing to do with the Holocaust. The only great power pushing for partition was the United States, and Truman did believe in helping the victims of the Nazis, but he also felt the promise of the Balfour Declaration should be kept.
Jewish Agency representatives David Horowitz and Abba Eban made a last-ditch effort to reach a compromise with the Arabs in a meeting with Arab League secretary Abd al-Rahman Azzam Pasha on September 16, 1947, but the die was cast.
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Sage Sayings
The Arab world is not at all in a compromising mood. The proposed plan may be logical, but the fate of nations is not decided by rational reasoning You will achieve nothing with talk of compromise or peace. You may perhaps achieve something by force of your arms. We will try to rout you We succeeded in expelling the Crusaders, but lost Spain and Persia, and may lose Palestine. But it is too late for a peaceable solution.
—Arab League secretary Abd al-Rahman Azzam Pasha to Jewish representatives seeking a compromise over partition, September 16, 1947
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America Weighs In
President Harry Truman supported the Zionist movement because he believed the international community was obligated to fulfill the promise of the Balfour Declaration and because he believed it was the humanitarian thing to do—to ameliorate the plight of the Jewish survivors of the Holocaust. He did not believe the rights of the Arabs should or would be compromised in the process. A sense of his attitude can be gleaned from a remark he made regarding negotiations for the boundaries of a Jewish state:
The whole region waits to be developed, and if it were handled the way we developed the Tennessee River Basin, it could support from 20 to 30 million people more. To open the door to this kind of future would indeed be the constructive and humanitarian thing to do, and it would also redeem the pledges that were given at the time of World War I.
The American public supported the president’s policy. Support for Zionism was reflected in the U.S. Congress in 1922 when a resolution approving the Balfour Declaration was adopted. In 1944, both national parties called for the restoration of the Jewish Commonwealth, and a similar resolution was adopted by Congress in 1945. According to public opinion polls, 65 percent of Americans supported the creation of a Jewish state. During the third quarter of 1947 alone, 62,850 postcards, 1,100 letters, and 1,400 telegrams flooded the White House—most urging the president to use American influence at the United Nations to push for adoption of the partition plan.
Critics then and now insist that American Jews used their influence to determine U.S. Middle East policy. Rather than giving in to pressure, however, Truman tended to react negatively to the “Jewish lobby.” He complained repeatedly about being pressured and talked about putting propaganda from the Jews in a pile and striking a match to it.
When the United Nations took up the question of Palestine, Truman explicitly said that the United States should not “use threats or improper pressure of any kind on other delegations.” Some pressure was nevertheless exerted, and the United States played a key role in securing support for the partition resolution. U.S. influence was limited, however, as became clear when American dependents like Cuba and Greece voted against partition, and El Salvador and Honduras abstained.
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Tut Tut!
In 1947–48, Jews comprised less than 3 percent of the American population. Such a tiny minority could not exert any political influence if its positions did not have broad support from non-Jews.
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Many members of the Truman Administration opposed partition, including Defense Secretary James Forrestal, who believed Zionist aims posed a threat to American oil supplies and its strategic position in the region. The Joint Chiefs of Staff worried that the Arabs might align themselves with the Soviets if they were alienated by the West. These internal opponents did a great deal to undermine U.S. support for the establishment of a Jewish state.
A Vote of Conscience—and Interests
When the partition proposal finally came before the full UN Assembly, its fate was still in doubt, despite the remarkable fact that the Soviet Union and the United States found themselves on the same side of an issue for the first time in the United Nations’s short history. Russian support came as a surprise, although it was readily apparent that its support was based on a desire to get the British out of Palestine.
Each UN member had its own parochial interests in mind during the debate on the majority proposal. Yugoslavia had a large Muslim community as well as many other distinct peoples who might demand a similar plan if Yugoslavia were to support partition. Turkey expressed its sympathy to the Jewish cause, but its fragile relations with its Arab neighbors precluded an affirmative vote. The Asian countries were solidly against partition. The Dutch recognized the speciousness of the argument about Palestine’s absorptive capacity, having settled more than 10 million people in an area of roughly 13,000 square miles. Nevertheless, the Dutch had to consider the attitude of their Muslim subjects in Indonesia.