The UN General Assembly & Israel's Declaration of Independence

The UN General Assembly was convened to consider what to do about Palestine on 29th April 1947.

While the Truman administration waited for the UN's recommendations the President took what amounted to a vow of silence.

On the 3rd September two recommendations were offered to the General Assembly. The first, the majority plan, proposed the termination of the Mandate and the partition of Palestine and the creation of a Jewish and Arab State with an economic union between them. Jerusalem would become an international city administered by the UN.

The second, the minority plan, put forward by India, Yugoslavia and Iran, also envisaged the termination of the Mandate but it was against partition. It proposed a unitary Palestine and the creation of an Arab and Jewish state in a federal structure with Jerusalem its capital. This was in effect the fall back position by those Arab leaders who knew they had to face reality.

Britain admitted that the partition plan had not been impartially drawn up, this was a diplomatic way of saying that by fair means or foul the Jewish influence on the majority of the special committee's members had been suffiicient that their recommendation would favour the Jews at the expense of the Arabs.

The partition plan proposal was that 56.4 percent of Palestine should be given for a Jewish state to a people many of whom were recently arrived alien immigrants who constituted 33 per cent of the population and owned 5.67 of the land. The Arabs were not only the overwhelming majority in the territory allotted to them but also a near majority in the territory allotted to the Jews.

The territory allocated to the Jewish state in size was ten times the area owned by the Jews and included the greater part of the valuable coastal area and other fertile areas whereas the Palestinians were left mainly with mountainous and sterile regions.

It was a proposal of injustice on a massive scale.

It was obvious that the partition, if approved and implemented, would make a complete nonsense of the principle of self determination the noble ideal to which the governments of the so-called democratic nations of the west professed they were committed.

The Arabs rejected partition on the grounds that it violated their rights.

Just as Britain with the Balfour Declaration had no right to give away what it did not own so it was with the UN. In fact the United Nations was putting itself above and beyond international law.

The Jews were not satisfied with partition but nevertheless they accepted it for the simple reason that if the Arabs, with 100 per cent of the legal right on their side, did not accept partition, they would be portrayed in Jewish propaganda as rejectors of compromise.

The second reason was that approval by the UN of the Partitions Resolution would give the Jewish state a birth certificate of sorts and thus the appearance of legitimacy, Ben Gurion knew without doubt that a UN decision in their favour would not give the Jewish state legitimacy but possession was nine-tenths of the law.

Before the Minority Report representing a unitary Palestine was confined to the dustbin to leave only the Partition Resolution for a vote in the General Assembly Saudi Arabia's Foreign Minister, Prince Faisal, expressed his willingness to meet Secretary of State Marshall. The implication was that Saudi Arabia the most important and influential of all the Arab States was ready in principle to work for Arab acceptance for the UN Resolution that would establish a Jewish administered entity in Palestine provided it was part of a unitary Palestine.

Despite what King Ibn Saud had said to President Roosevelt and Churchill, the Saudis were realists. They knew that the creation of a Jewish entity in Palestine was inevitable because of the Jewish immigration Britain had allowed to give substance to the Balfour Declaration and because of the Jewish propaganda about Nazi Holocaust. They also knew that the front line Arab States, despite their rhetoric, were in no position to fight and win a war to put an end to the Jewish enterprise.

As his kingdom's foreign minister Faisal foresaw the catastrophe that would happen if the Arabs could not find a way to contain the Jews. He knew that the Jews had no intention of being satisfied with what had been allowed to them in the Partition Plan and that the name of the game was preventing Jewish expansion.

The only way of doing so was by accepting a self-governing Jewish entity within a unitary Palestine. If the Arabs compromised to that extent they would enjoy the goodwill of the western world, the US especially, and that would make it more difficult and hopefully impossible for the Jewish entity once established to seek to take more Arab land by force.

It would not be easy to persuade the Palestinians to give some of their land in the name of political expediency but Saudi Arabia's escalating oil wells would enable it to sweeten the most bitter of pills.

The meeting with Marshall did not take place. Secretary of State Marshall was a seriously good man but he knew the Jews would not consider any compromise Faisal was likely to propose. There was no point in meeting the Saudi Prince to convey that message.

Marshall's own view echoed that of Defence Secretary Forrestal. It was that partition in face of Arab antagonism would create serious trouble in the region.

Faisal's initial assessment of the strength of opposition to the Partition Resolution was correct. In response to Jewish pressure on the Truman administration the critical vote on the resolution was postponed twice because the required two-thirds majority was not there.

After the second postponement Jewish leaders decided to do whatever had to be done to secure the necessary majority. Without the appearance of legitimacy a UN resolution on partition, if approved, would give the Jews, it would be impossible for the Jewish state to obtain the heavy weapons needed to get victory in the coming war with the Arabs.

If it could bend the UN to its will a Jewish state could be created and after its birth the size of it could be decided on the battlefield.

After two postponements the critical vote on the partition was scheduled for the 29th November. As it happened on the day there were 33 votes for the Partition Resolution including those cast by the US and the Soviet Union, 13 against and 10 abstentions. The necessary two thirds majority was achieved - just about.

Britain was one of the 10 member states which abstained.

The Pro-Jewish senators targetted the members of the non-Moslem member states who were in need of American assistance. France for example was asked to contemplate its future without the economic assistance it was due to receive under the Marshall Aid plan. Baruch conveyed that message to the French.

Through Ambassador William Pullitt, Baruch also put pressure on China.

Of all the manoeuvres of the senatorial hit squad the most effective was the telegram signed by all 26 senators which was sent to the representatives of 12 UN delegations a few days before the vote.

It helped to change four "no" votes to "yes" and crucially 7 "no" votes to abstentions. Of the 12 only Greece stuck to its "no" vote.

The countries re-targetted for the final push were Liberia, the Philippines and Haiti. To change Liberia's "no" vote into a "yes" required the services of the Firestone Tyre & Rubber Co.

The Philippines "no" could not have been more explicit on the 26th November three days before the vote the head of the delegation from the Philippines, war hero Carlos Romulo said "I will defend the rights of a people to decide its political future and to reserve the territorial integrity of the land of its birth." Fearing that he might be capable of influencing other delegates, the Zionists made him a special target and he found himself on the receiving end of threats.

It was President Truman himself who gave the best summary explanation of how the President of Haiti had been persuaded to change his mind . On the 11th December he said :"pressure groups will succeed in putting the United Nations out of business if this sort of thing is continued."

It can be said without fear of contradiction that the Partition Resolution would not have been approved by the General Assembly if all the member states of the United Nations had been allowed to vote freely.

Defence Secretary Forrestal said in private and wrote in his diary : "I said that it was a most disastrous and regrettable fact that the foreign policy of this country was determined by the contributions of a particular block might make to the party funds."

The UN General Assembly was convened to consider what to do about Palestine on 29th April 1947.

For more information on James Forrestal's attempt to thwart the Zionist pressure try: www.paragoy.com