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The Partition of Palestine by S. Rami On November 29, 1947, the General Assembly of the United Nations convened for the third time after the United States’ government failed, in two previous sessions, to muster enough votes in the General Assembly to bisect the land of the Palestinian Arab people, Palestine, to two states: Jewish state and Arab state. Despite the immense clout of the emerging American Super Power over newly independent poor nations, nevertheless the American Delegation to the United Nations failed to gather the two- third votes necessary for creating an alien Jewish state in Palestine, the heart of the Arab World. As a matter of fact, only the Jewish state came to see light, and the Arab state of Palestine has yet after 54 years to materialize. To make things even worse to the Palestinian people, Israel occupied in 1967 all historic Palestine forcing millions of Palestinians to flee their homes for the second times and to live mostly in UNRWA’s refugee camps in neighboring Arab states. But what role did the United States play in obtaining a majority vote for partition in the General Assembly? Congressman Lawrence H. Smith declared in the U.S. Congress: “Let’s take a look at the record, Mr. Speaker, and see what happened in the UN Assembly meeting prior to the vote on partition. A two-thirds vote was required to pass the resolution. On two occasions the Assembly was to vote and twice it was postponed. It was obvious that the delay was necessary because the proponents (the USA and the USSR) did not have the necessary votes. In the meantime, it is reliably reported that intense pressure was applied to the delegates of three small nations by the United States member and by officials ‘at the highest levels in Washington.’ Now that is a serious charge. When the matter was finally considered on the 29th, what happened? The decisive votes for partition were cast by Haiti, Liberia and the Philippines. These votes were sufficient to make the two-thirds majority. Previously, these countries opposed the move…the pressure by our delegates, by our officials, and by the private citizens of the USA constitutes reprehensible conduct against them and against us.” (US Government Record, December 18, 1947,p. 1176.) Journalist Drew Pearson explained in his ‘Merry-Go-Round’ column (in Chicago Daily Tribune, Feb. 9,1948) that in the end “a lot of people used their influence to whip voters into line. Harvey Firestone, who owns rubber plantations in Liberia, got busy with the Liberian Government; Adolphe Berle, Advisor to the President of Haiti, swan that vote…” “Few know it,” he wrote after the vote, “ but President Truman cracked down harder on his State Department than ever before to swung the UN vote for the partition of Palestine. Truman called Acting Secretary Lovett over to the White House on Wednesday and again on Friday warning him he would demand a full explanation of nations which usually line up with the United States failed to do so on Palestine…” James Forrestal, then Secretary of Defense, stated: “The method that had been used…to bring coercion and duress on other nations in the General Assembly bordered closely on scandal.”(The Forrestal Diaries, W. Millis, Ed.)
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