The United Nations Special Committee on Palestine (UNSCOP) was created on 15 May 1947 in response to a United Kingdom government request that the General Assembly "make recommendations under article 10 of the Charter, concerning the future government of Palestine". The British government had also recommended the establishment of a special committee to prepare a report for the General Assembly. The General Assembly adopted the recommendation to set up the UNSCOP to investigate the cause of the conflict in Palestine, and, if possible, devise a solution. UNSCOP was made up of representatives of 11 nations. UNSCOP visited Palestine and gathered testimony from Zionist organisations in Palestine and in the US. The Arab Higher Committee boycotted the Commission, explaining that the Palestinian Arabs' natural rights were self-evident and could not continue to be subject to investigation, but rather deserved to be recognized on the basis of the principles of the United Nations Charter.
The Committee actively followed the unravelling of the SS Exodus, carrying 4554 Jewish Holocaust refugees seeking to illegally immigrate to Palestine. Some Committee members were present at the port of Haifa when the Jewish immigrants were forcefully removed from the ship and deported back to Europe. The eyewitness testimony of the Reverend John Stanley Grauel, who was on the Exodus, convinced UNSCOP to reverse an earlier decision. The Committee decided to hear the testimony of the Jewish refugees in British detention camps in Palestine and in European Displaced Persons camps trying to gain admittance to Palestine. Golda Meir, a later Prime Minister of Israel, observed that Reverend Grauel's testimony and advocacy for the creation of the Jewish state fundamentally and positively changed the United Nations to support the creation of Israel.
The plan proposed by the majority in Chapter VI of the report of 3 September 1947,with only slight modifications to the proposed recommendations, became the Plan of Partition with Economic Union attached to General Assembly Resolution 181(II) adopted on 29 November 1947.
Read more about United Nations Special Committee On Palestine: Members of UNSCOP, Creation of The Special Committee, Report of The Special Committee, Ad Hoc Committee Deliberations, Further Reading
Famous quotes containing the words united, nations, special, committee and/or palestine:
“... while one-half of the people of the United States are robbed of their inherent right of personal representation in this freest country on the face of the globe, it is idle for us to expect that the men who thus rob women will not rob each other as individuals, corporations and Government.”
—Susan B. Anthony (1820–1906)
“Sometimes we think of the nations lying asleep,
Curled blindly in impenetrable sorrow,
And then the thought confounds us with its strangeness.”
—Edwin Muir (1887–1959)
“The great rule: If the little bit you have is nothing special in itself, at least find a way of saying it that is a little bit special.”
—G.C. (Georg Christoph)
“What a wise and good parent will desire for his own children a nation must desire for all children.”
—Consultative Committee On The Prima. Report of the Consultative Committee on the Primary School (HADOW)
“His Majesty’s Government view with favour the establishment in Palestine of a national home for the Jewish people, and will use their best endeavours to facilitate the achievement of this object, it being clearly understood that nothing shall be done which may prejudice the civil and religious rights of existing non-Jewish communities in Palestine, or the rights and political status enjoyed by Jews in any other country.”
—A.J. (Arthur James)