UNSCOP+actions+and+findings

Chapter 3 UNSCOP’s actions and findings.

UNSCOP or the United Nations Special Committee on Palestine was made up of 11 “neutral” nations including Australia, Canada, Czechoslovakia, Guatemala, India, Iran, the Netherlands, Peru, Sweden, Uruguay and Yugoslavia. The task of the committee was to investigate all aspects of the Palestine question including the potential plight of displaced persons. The committee spent 5 weeks in the Middle East trying to gather information to accomplish their task. They were able to get information from the Jews and found that the Jews were willing to accept the idea of a partition in Palestine if it was similar in principles with the Peel Commission Report’s proposed partitions. However the Committee was not able to meet with the Palestine Arab Higher Committee because the Palestinian Arabs wanted to boycott the proceedings of the UN Committee. They believed the countries on the Committee favored the Zionists and therefore did not want to participate. Some of the members of the Arab League were willing to speak on behalf of the Arabs to UNSCOP. The UNSCOP reported their findings on August 31, 1947 to the General Assembly. They unanimously suggested the termination of the Palestine mandate, the granting of independence of Palestine, and a transitional period before the full independence of Palestine. It was also suggested by seven out of the eleven countries ( Canada, Czechoslovakia, Guatemala, the Netherlands, Peru, Sweden, Uruguay) that there be a partition of Palestine into a Jewish State and an Arab State. They also suggested that Jerusalem should become an international state and that the Jewish and Arab states created from Palestine should have an economic connection. They believed that Britain would be the best country to oversee the two year transitional period of Palestine and they supported allowing 150,000 refugees into the proposed Jewish State. India, Iran and Yugoslavia proposed an independent federal state in opposition while Australia abstained from both plans.