UNSCOP
The UNSCOP ( United Nations Special Committee on Palestine ) was a special committee set up by an extraordinary general assembly of the United Nations on May 15, 1947. 11 states formed this special committee: Australia , Guatemala , India , Iran , Yugoslavia , Canada , the Netherlands , Peru , Sweden , Czechoslovakia and Uruguay .
In response to an official British motion on April 2, 1947, the General Assembly dealt for the first time with the situation in Palestine in a special session from April 28 to May 15, 1947 . Representatives of the Jewish Agency and the Arab High Committee were also heard. At that time Great Britain was still a mandate power in Palestine . The background to the British application was the numerous displaced persons camps for Jewish survivors in Europe, the increasing pressure from illegal refugee ships (odyssey of the Exodus ) and the militant striving for independence of both the Arab and the Jewish inhabitants of Palestine.
UNSCOP should investigate all sides of the problem and report to the United Nations by September 1st. The Special Committee visited Palestine in June and July and surveyed the opinions of various political groups. On June 13, 1947, the Arab High Committee refused to cooperate with UNSCOP. In its report to the United Nations, UNSCOP unanimously proposed that the British mandate be lifted as soon as possible and, after a transitional period under the supervision of the UN, proclaim the independence of Palestine, which was to form an economic unit. UNSCOP had not reached an agreement on the next steps; the report contained a “majority” and a “minority plan”. The majority plan was to divide Palestine into an Arab and a Jewish state and to internationalize Jerusalem as a corpus separatum . The minority plan, represented by India, Iran and Yugoslavia, advocated a Palestinian binational federal state , whereby immigration to the Jewish region should be limited. The majority plan was essentially incorporated into the UN partition plan for Palestine of November 29, 1947 (UN Resolution 181 (II)).
Individual evidence
- ^ Mark Tessler: A history of the Israeli-palestinian Conflict . 2nd Edition. Bloomington, 2009, p. 258.