Summary
The committee the United Nations General Assembly constituted itself as, at its second session in September 1947, to deal with the Palestine question, which heard the parties on the UNSCOP majority and minority plans, amended the majority plan through its Sub-Committee 1, rejected the unified-Palestine report of its Sub-Committee 2, and approved Partition on 25 November 1947 by 25 votes to 13 with 17 abstentions, recommending it to the General Assembly (Origins and Evolution of the Palestine Problem: Part II (1947-1977), lines 360-548).
Details
- Britain told the Committee it was ready to give effect to any plan agreed by Arabs and Jews, would not implement a policy not acceptable to both, and would soon withdraw its forces; the Arab Higher Committee argued the United Nations was not legally competent to impose Palestine’s constitutional organization once its entitlement to independence was found, and the Jewish Agency rejected the minority federal plan as an Arab State with two Jewish enclaves freezing Jews as a permanent minority (lines 425-455).
- A Syrian proposal for a jurists’ sub-committee on the Assembly’s competence, with possible reference to the International Court of Justice, was discouraged by the Chairman as prolonging the work (lines 505-509).
- Sub-Committee 1 (Canada, Czechoslovakia, Guatemala, Poland, South Africa, USSR, United States, Hungary, Venezuela) reduced the proposed two-year transition: Britain would withdraw by 1 August 1948, governing until then without responsibility for implementation; a two-month transition under a five-member United Nations Commission responsible to the Security Council would follow, with independence on 1 October 1948; Jaffa would form an Arab enclave linked to the Arab State (lines 511-519).
- Sub-Committee 2 (Afghanistan, Colombia, Iraq, Lebanon, Pakistan, Saudi Arabia, Syria, Yemen) reported that no United Nations organ was competent to recommend or enforce any solution for a mandated territory other than recognition of independence, and that partition involves the alienation of territory and the destruction of the integrity of the State of Palestine; its three resolutions were rejected, though its recommendation of international co-operation on the Jewish refugee problem was included in the Committee’s report to the Assembly (lines 523-540).
- Sitting as the Ad Hoc Committee, the Assembly did not require a two-thirds majority, so the 25 to 13 vote with 17 abstentions approved partition; in plenary the same plan needed two-thirds and was adopted on 29 November 1947 by 33 to 13 with 10 abstentions (lines 538-540, 641-651).
Related pages
UNSCOP, UN General Assembly Resolution 181, Partition, Origins and Evolution of the Palestine Problem: Part II (1947-1977)