UNSCOP

The UNSCOP (United Nations Special Commission on Palestine) was a conference of 11 nations impartial to the fate of both Palestine and the interests of Great Britain (Australia, Canada, Czechoslovakia, Guatamala, India, Iran, the Netherlands, Peru, Uraguay, Yugoslavia, and headed by Sweden) that was charged with deciding the fate of the Palestine Mandate after it was reliquished by an exhausted British government.

The two plans formulated by Ralph Bunche (an American diplomate who won the Nobel Peace Prize for brokering an armistice to the 1948 War) suggested were 1) a federal solution in which there were two states within the area of Palestine (one for Arabs and one for Jews) that are both responsible for a greater organization or 2) the partition of Palestine into two autonomous states. Eight nations voted for partition, effectively setting that plan in motion. The three that voted for a federalist state were India, Iran, and Yugoslavia.

In carrying out this plan, the land was to be split up relatively equally among Arabs and Jews. The Jews were refused Jerusalem and Hebron. However, while the Jews were perfectly willing to negotiate the terms of the majority report, the Arab's maximalist attitude prevented any discussions on the topic.

Bibliography: Bickerton, Ian J, and Carla L Klausner. //A Concise History of the Arab-Israeli Conflict//. 4th ed. Upper Saddle River: Prentice Hall, 2005. Cleveland, William L. __A History of the Modern Middle East__. Boulder, CO: Westview Press, 2000. __Questia__. 30 Oct. 2009 <[]>.