Deanna Marcum: Good afternoon.
I'm Deanna Marcum, the Associate Librarian for Library Services,
and I'm filling in this afternoon for Dr. Carolyn Brown,
who is the head of the Kluge Center.
I welcome all of you to this lecture.
I'm just back from Japan, and I heard a wonderful announcement
on the bus from the airport into Tokyo, and the --
the synthesized voice said, "Please turn off your mobile phones,
as they might annoy your neighbors."
So if you would please turn off your mobile phones,
we would be most grateful.
Mostly because, they may not annoy your neighbors,
but they interrupt our sound system, so we would appreciate
This lecture is sponsored by the John W. Kluge Center
and the National History Center.
It is part -- it's in conjunction with our third symposium
that is being held at the Library of Congress right now on --
an international research seminar on decolonization.
Our speaker this afternoon, Professor Roger Louis,
is the founder of the decolonization seminar.
We are very pleased to be involved with it
and have the participants here taking advantage of our rich
and deep collections in this area.
The decolonization seminar is funded by the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation,
and we certainly appreciate their support.
This is part of an ongoing series of lectures.
We have visiting fellows, distinguished scholars,
here at the Kluge Center,
and we hope that you will follow the work that's being done by scholars
by visiting the Library of Congress Web site and taking a look
at other lectures and events
that are associated with the Kluge Center.
It is a great pleasure to introduce the speaker today.
My friend and colleague, we have been working together
for several years now, as we have been planning
for the decolonization seminar.
But I've also been privileged to be part of the Board
of the National History Center,
and to see the work that's being developed there.
Professor Roger Louis is the Kerr chair in English history
and culture, and distinguished teaching professor
at The University of Texas, in Austin.
He holds a Ph.D. and a Doctor of Letters from Oxford University.
His publications are numerous, but among them,
End to British Imperialism:
The Scramble for Empire, Suez and Decolonization.
Another book entitled Imperialism at Bay.
Another entitled The British Empire in the Middle East.
He's the editor in chief of the Oxford History
of the British Empire, and he is the former president
of the American Historical Association,
and the founding director of the National History Center.
He is the chair of the Historical Advisory Committee
to the U.S. Department of State, and I'm very proud to say
that he's a member of the Scholar's Council for the Kluge Center
To talk about these professional capacities is really not doing
Professor Louis justice, because what he is doing, I think,
through his work in the decolonization seminar,
is creating a new historical field.
And he has been the mentor and champion
of countless young scholars.
And we are very pleased to have him here today to present a lecture
on "The Moral Conscience of the World:
The United Nations and Palestine in 1947."
Please join me in welcoming Professor Louis.
[applause] Roger Louis: Thank you, Deanna,
for that very gracious word of welcome.
My lecture this afternoon deals with decolonization
at the United Nations in 1947.
It requires almost a willing suspension of disbelief to imagine
that the United Nations might be, as I hope, a riveting subject.
But imagine a time when people still believed in the United Nations,
when it still seemed -- in the words of Senator Warren Austin of Vermont,
one of the first U.S. ambassadors to the United States --
that the U.N. still represented the hope
and the conscience of the world.
Now, another phrase, describing U.N. debates as a preposterous
and repetitive bore, may be one
of the reasons why the United Nations has not received much
attention in the history of decolonization.
Yet in the view of contemporaries, the U.N., in its early years,
underwent a transformation in which decolonization
and a multiracial international society became overarching goals.
Indeed, in the British view, an obsession.
Now, I have found, myself, that this is an engaging topic to revisit,
and I found some of the quotations hilarious, but I know that it's rude
to laugh at one's own jokes, and so I will try to restrain myself.
The Palestine crisis of 1947, and the creation of the Jewish state
in the next year, marked the beginning of a critical episode
in the changing colonial world order.
The question of partition tested the principle of self-determination.
Since the majority of the inhabitants of Palestine were Arab,
no one could be for certain that partition would be the outcome
of U.N. deliberations, not least
because Zionism also represented the same principle that a people
or nation should determine its own fate.
The debate on these issues in 1947 had enduring significance.
The United Nations played a vital part in the creation of the state
of Israel, though in understanding the reasons, it is useful to bear
in mind the Palestine crisis in the context
of the dissolution of the British Empire.
My argument is that Palestine was the first of several episodes
in partition, or the failure of federation, including India,
the West Indies, the Central African Federation and Aden.
Partition was sometimes disguised as success, as in the case of India
in 1947, but in fact, partition represented ultimate failure
and a bankruptcy of policy, an outcome the British wished
to avoid at almost any cost.
In 1947, the word "partition" was a sort of shorthand expression
that meant new international frontiers, and the carving
out of a Jewish state from the territorial mandate of Palestine.
The precedent of partition in failed federations foreshadowed the world
of microstates as we know the world today.
As if resembling a kaleidoscope of changing colonial world order,
the membership of the United Nations increased from 55 in 1947,
to nearly four times that number today.
To continue the theme of last week's lecture by Dane Kennedy, by 1960,
according to Frantz Fanon in "The Wretched of the Earth," the new tone
of the United Nations had become aggressive
and violent in the extreme.
From the vantage point of the British Labor Government
in the post-second world war era, the United Nations embodied one
of the principle war aims of 1941-45, from the inspiration
of the Atlantic Charter in 1941, to the unveiling of the U.N. Charter
at the San Francisco Opera House in 1945.
During the short-lived era of hope after the end of the war,
it seemed to be an article of faith
that the United Nations could peacefully resolve international
conflict, thereby avoiding the greatest calamity
of all: another world war.
The League of Nations, stripped of moral authority and viewed by many
as a noble, yet failed experiment in international order,
would be replaced with a world organization
that could effectively keep the peace
with the executive arm of the Security Council.
To the American public, at least, the general assembly would be a sort
of town hall of the world -- indeed, again, the conscience of the world.
By 1947, however, the Cold War had begun to shatter the effectiveness
of the Security Council, while the makeup
of the general assembly had already revealed
that the non-western world would play a major part in all debates
about the future of the European colonies.
Until well into the next decade,
the United States could still command support, usually,
of the two-thirds majority necessary to carry a resolution,
but to those in the United States mission at the United Nations,
to those called the "American arm twisters," the majority was fickle,
volatile, and unpredictable.
No one in 1947 could predict with certainty the outcome
of the Palestine partition vote, and certainly not the British
who had calculated the opposite result.
Yet, the British themselves had adopted what they called the
"United Nations strategy" of placing the Palestine issue before the
general assembly.
The Zionists, in 1947, proved to be agile and effective,
addressing not only the delegates to the United Nations,
but also the Jewish and non-Jewish American public.
The Arabs, on the other hand, spoke rhetorically and dramatically,
sometimes melodramatically, yet occasionally effectively,
to a distant audience in the Middle East.
The Zionists succeeded, in part, because of the assistance provided
by non-Jewish American Zionists, and especially by certain personalities
in the delegations of Australia and Canada.
Behind the debates, secret maneuvers took place, and it is only recently
that some of the important details have become clear.
But though there was secrecy, there was also moral clarity.
Some of the key non-Jewish figures involved
in the 1947 vote believed not only in the United Nations as the hope
of mankind, but also in the ethical imperative to create a Jewish state.
The word Holocaust was not yet in common use,
but the Nazis' mass murder
of the Jews cast an ever present and defining shadow.
The events of 1947, we pay new attention,
because perspectives do change over time,
and the evidence continues to unfold.
In 1947, the Jews managed to harness the general assembly
to Zionist purpose, but the United Nations
in the next decade admitted a significant number of Asian
and African states hostile to Zionism, though the full thrust
of anti-Israeli sentiment did not develop
until much later, after 1967.
The Zionists in 1947 were well aware of the antagonistic potential.
Even then, the chances appeared so slight for an outcome favorable
to the birth of a Jewish state, that after the vote on November 29,
it appeared to many that the year 1947 had been the year
for a Jewish miracle.
Though in the words of a non-Zionist writer, "Only in New York,
and only in the unique circumstances of the time," I quote,
"could such a miracle of guile and force have been carried through."
The partition vote was disastrous for the British administration
in Palestine; for the British generally in the Middle East,
in such client states as Iraq; and especially
for Anglo American relations.
But the United Nations strategy, as the British called it,
seemed compelling at the time.
Its origins can be traced to the end of the second world war
and the indeterminate status of the mandate.
In the interwar period, Britain had administered Palestine
as a mandated territory of the League of Nations.
The mandate was legally adopted by the League
under British administration.
But it would have taken a sharp eye to distinguish anything different
from the administrative structure of other British colonial dependencies.
Yet, the Balfour Declaration, promising British assistance
to create a national home for the Jews in Palestine,
while not damaging the religious or civil rights of the Arabs,
had been formally incorporated into the League's charge
of responsibility to the British government, and thus,
in the words of J.C. Smuts of South Africa,
the Balfour Declaration had become part, I quote,
"Of the public law of the world."
This was, however, a contentious issue that touched
on the very purpose of the United Nations, and above all,
sharply divided the Arab delegations
from the rest of the general assembly.
The British had intended to avoid Arab disaffection
at virtually any cost.   They needed Arab support.
Otherwise, the British Empire in the Middle East would be doomed.
Now, my purpose is not to describe the schizophrenia of the British
in Palestine as they tried to balance the Arab part
of the equation with the promise to the Jews, but simply to make clear
that in the post war period, British policy became undeniably pro-Arab.
After the victory of the Labor Party, in July, 1945,
Ernest Bevin became the dominant figure in Middle East affairs.
As foreign secretary, Bevin hoped to avoid partition
by creating a bi-national state in Palestine.
Bi-national in the sense of drawing inspiration from Canada,
where two peoples at that time, at least,
seemed to live together harmoniously.
Ernest Bevin once said that the Balfour Declaration was Britain's
greatest mistake in the 20th century.
He hoped to win the support of the Arabs, not only in Palestine,
but also throughout the region.
He believed that the Jews should be reintegrated
into European societies, and not allowed to undermine, in his view,
the demographic balance in Palestine.
He hoped from the beginning that the United Nations would endorse British
policy, if only because it seemed to him inconceivable,
or at least improbable, that partition would be imposed
against the wishes of the majority of the inhabitants.
On the positive side, according to Bevin's advisor
on the United Nations affair, and I quote, "The moral effect
of a clear cut and positive set of conclusions passed
by the necessary two-thirds majority at the U.N. might be very valuable
in spreading British responsibility, and forming a new basis
for the future administration in Palestine."
But there was also a negative strand in Bevin's thought.
If a solution could not be found, Britain would return the mandate
to the United Nations as the successor to the League of Nations,
but only in the last resort.
As in the case of India -- which at the time seemed to be just
as insoluble a problem, on a much larger scale --
the British, with robust optimism, would keep all options open,
and methodically attempt to find a solution satisfactory
to all parties.
Ernest Bevin thus entered the Palestine arena with such confidence
that in a moment of exuberance,
he said that he staked his entire career on a favorable outcome.
Winston Churchill, now the leader of the opposition,
responded that no more rash a bet has ever been recorded in the annals
of the British turf, in part because it was an American,
as well as a Middle Eastern, issue.
President Harry Truman demanded the immediate admission
of 100,000 Jewish refugees into Palestine.
The number of 100,000 became a symbolic figure
of tangible assistance to the victims of the Nazis.
In 1946, an Anglo American commission
of inquiry recommended a state, I quote, "Neither Jewish, nor Arab,"
and endorsed the admission of the 100,000.
President Truman accepted the recommendation of the 100,000,
but ignored the committee's proposal for a bi-national state.
In July, 1946, the Irgun,
the militant Jewish underground organization,
blew up British military headquarters
at the King David Hotel in Jerusalem.
Bevin responded, as did Churchill and the British public,
with a sense of exasperation and outrage.
Zionist propaganda portrayed Ernest Bevin
as possessing a demonic anti-Jewish prejudice as irrational as Hitler's.
The moderate leader of the Zionist movement, Chaim Weissman,
described Bevin as brutal, vulgar, and anti-Semitic.
In fact, Bevin was not, in my judgment, anti-Semitic,
although his anger at the Zionists carried him
in that direction, as it did Truman's.
Bevin's anti-Zionist impulse originated in his calculation
of how best to achieve British security in the Middle East.
In any event, he refused to countenance the creation
of a Jewish state because of its disruptive impact in the Arab world,
and in turn, on the British Empire.
The explosion at the King David propelled Bevin
in the direction of the United Nations.
A few months later, in October, 1946, President Truman called
for a bridging of the gap between British and Zionist positions,
but his words were widely interpreted
as endorsing the creation of a Jewish state.
With this unilateral American pronouncement,
British options began to narrow.
Ernest Bevin now began to pay still further attention to the possibility
of the United Nations helping to find a solution.
The British decision of February, 1947, to refer the Palestine issue
to the United Nations is a major landmark in the story.
Now, so far, as a case study in British decolonization,
Palestine demonstrates the convergence of ethical sympathy
for the Arabs, and political calculation of how
to maintain British control over the economy
and security of the Middle East.
But to maintain the status of the predominant power
in the Middle East, the British also needed the support
of the United States.
The overall British goal was, thus, to remain on good terms
with both the Arabs and the Americans.
Now, the decision to place the Palestine question before the United
Nations took place in the context
of the deteriorating economic circumstances in Britain,
but also in the reaction of the American public
to what was widely regarded as a British police state in Palestine.
Tension mounted between the British and the Jews to unprecedented levels
after the defeat of Weissman by David Ben Gurion for the control
of the Zionist movement in December, 1946.
The last time I was in New York City,
I noticed that there is now a street renamed in David Ben Gurion's honor.
I quote from him, "In deciding our destiny," he said to an Englishman,
"Don't make the mistake of thinking of us as Jews
like the Jews you have in London.
Imagine that we're Englishmen fighting for our national existence,
and calculate that we shall behave as you would behave,
if you were in our situation.   We shall fight our Dunkirk."
A rather unfortunate remark in view of what we now know about Dunkirk.
In the bitter cold days of January, 1947, in one of the worst winters
in memory, with rationing and shortages of coal, Ernest Bevin met
with David Ben Gurion and other Jewish leaders.
An electricity cut cast one of the meetings into darkness.
According to a Zionist account, Ernest Bevin, I quote,
"With his brute trade unionist humor, remarked,
'there ain't no need for candles,
because we have the Israel-lights present.'" [laughter] The episode
contributed to Bevin's reputation for arrogance,
for a lack of sympathy with the Jews, but his extreme anger
that the Zionist did not alter his general outlook.
Both before and after the decision to turn to the United Nations,
Bevin's policy pursued in British self-interest remained rational
and consistent.
The decision to turn to the United Nations was not an act
of desperation.
Bevin and his advisers believed it to be a gamble that they could win.
As if the great game of Asia were now being played
out in the Eastern Mediterranean,
Palestine was part of a larger calculation.
With British troops overstretched, and with the economy in crisis,
the Prime Minister, C.R. Attlee and Ernest Bevin decided
to withdraw troops from Greece.
Attlee did not believe that the countries bordering
on the Soviet Union -- Greece, Turkey, Iraq and Iran --
could be propped up by the British to form an effective barrier
against the Soviet Union.
I quote from Attlee, "We simply do not command the resources."
Attlee viewed the problem, above all, as one of economic
and military retrenchment.
Bevin, by contrast, regarded the crisis in the Eastern Mediterranean
as an opportunity to win American commitment to a northern tier
that would provide a shield, enabling the British to carry
on with the development of the British Middle East.
Palestine was an integral part of the decision,
but the British fared far better with Greece.
The decision to withdraw troops from Greece,
in the words of Eugene Rostow, a close student
of the Palestine problem, caused, in his words,
"An electric response in Washington."
But Palestine produced, in his words, "American hand ringing,
dithering, ineffectiveness, and, indeed, irresponsibility."
Now, Bevin's United Nations strategy brought
into play the British colonial office and a challenge
to the Palestine government.
Both the colonial office and the colonial government
in Jerusalem were less anti-Zionist than the British foreign office.
Colonial office officials wanted to guard against the danger
of creating a Jewish settler community such as the one
in Algeria, but nevertheless, the colonial office believed
that partition might be the best solution.
Arthur Creech Jones, the colonial secretary, was sympathetic
to the aims of the moderate Zionists.
Creech, as his friends called him, is remembered as the epitome
of British goodwill towards colonial nationalists,
and at first he was not unoptimistic about Palestine.
But eventually, he came to believe that it was impossible to come
to terms with the Zionists, and it must be said
that Ernest Bevin overshadowed him.
The colonial secretary eventually supported the foreign secretary's
aims; the two of them drew up what became known as "the Bevin Plan."
The British would place the administration
under a five-year British trusteeship regime.
Palestine would achieve independence as a bi-national state based
on cantons similar to those in Switzerland.
Creech Jones now believed the bi-national state
to be the best solution.
With the positive plan of a five-year British trusteeship
in mind, he proclaimed in the House of Commons, "We are not going
to the United Nations to surrender the mandate."
Now, in retrospect, it can be seen
that the British made two basic miscalculations.
The first concerned the American Jewish community,
the other the Soviet Union.
Bevin assumed that the British and American votes
in the United Nations ultimately would endorse a bi-national
solution, if only because it would be the only way to avoid civil war.
In the United States, it turned out to be a close contest
on the American side, between the State Department opposing partition
and the President ultimately supporting the Zionist cause.
But Bevin, himself, did not anticipate the extent
to which the Zionists would be able to draw on anti-British sentiment.
A dramatic point in the Zionist campaign occurred in May, 1947,
when the playwright, Ben Hecht, in New York, wrote an open letter
to the terrorists of Palestine: My Brave Friends:
The Jews of America are with you.   You are their champions.
You are the grin they wear.   You are the feather in their hats.
In the past 1,500 years,
every nation of Europe has taken a crack at the Jews.
This time, the British are at bat.
Every time you blow up a British arsenal, or wreck a British jail,
or send a British railroad train sky high, or rob a British bank,
or let go with your guns and bombs at the British betrayers
and the invaders of your homeland,
the Jews of America make a little holiday in their hearts.
Now, such comments increased Ernest Bevin's suspicions
of Zionists' motives, and his belief, as he bluntly put it
on one occasion that "The American government favored the admission
of 100,000 Jews into Palestine
because there were already too many Jews in New York."
[laughter] This was not what we would today call a politically
correct discussion.
Bevin also believed that Jewish immigration
into Palestine might be the spearhead
to create a Soviet satellite.
There was an element of conspiracy theory in Bevin's thought.
To some extent, Bevin's paranoia
about the Soviet Union was more justified
than earlier writers had presumed.   The Israeli historian,
Gabriel Gorodetsky has recently brought the subject forward
by using the records of the Soviet Union.
He concludes that Stalin always assessed the future
of the Jews whenever it seemed expedient.
Historians of the Cold War tend to view the history of the post-war era
as a bipolar struggle between the Soviet Union and the United States.
Yet Stalin, himself, never lost sight of the British Empire
as the paramount historic enemy of the Soviet Union in the Middle East.
Stalin distrusted the British
and suspected British collusion with the Americans.
Stalin aimed, in short, to cause as much trouble as possible
for the British in Palestine and elsewhere in the Middle East.
In May, 1947, the Soviet representative
to the United Nations proclaimed a noble humanitarian purpose.
It was, perhaps, the single most important speech
at the United Nations in a single year.
According to a Zionist writer at the time, it changed the entire course
of Middle Eastern history.
Andrei Gromyko spoke of the unparalleled disaster
and suffering inflicted on the Jewish people during the war.
He stated that the Soviet Union would support partition
and the creation of a Jewish state.
The Jewish community in Palestine welcomed the Soviet announcement,
I quote, "As the most revolutionary change in the political status
of Zionism, and of the Jewish people in the world,
since the Belfour declaration."
At one stroke, Stalin had undermined the British position
on Palestine at the United Nations.
He did not entirely destroy British chances,
but he had realigned the pattern of voting.
The British might now be placed in a minority,
in opposition to the voting blocs
of both the Soviet Union and the United States.
The most illuminating account of these changing calculations occurred
in a conversation between David Horowitz, the Jewish economist
who played a prominent part in the events of 1947, and Harold Beeley,
Bevin's principle adviser on Palestine.
I call attention to both of them because of the critical part
that they played in the partition vote,
but also because David Horowitz subsequently became the first
governor of the Bank of Israel,
while Harold Beeley became the legendary British ambassador
in Egypt.
Beeley asked Horowitz -- this was before the Soviets announced
supported partition -- "Why did you Zionist leaders agree so readily
to the idea of handing over the Palestine problem
to the United Nations?
Look at the charter of the United Nations.
Look at the list of its member nations.
To get an affirmative decision you'll need a two-thirds majority
of the votes of these members.
You can only win a majority if the Eastern Bloc
and the United States join together,
and support the same resolution in the same terms.
That has never happened, it cannot happen, and it will never happen."
But Stalin himself had, indeed, made it happen.
Of the 55 members of the United Nations of 1947,
two-thirds of them might now vote in favor of partition.
Bevin, Creech Jones, not least Harold Beeley,
now began to give very close attention to such countries
as Iran, India, and Yugoslavia.
Even if the Soviet and American voting blocs combine,
it was still by no means certain
that the two-thirds majority could be reached.
Much would depend on the way the issue played itself
out in the politics of the general assembly --
and here, from the British vantage point,
things went from bad to worse.
In May, 1947, the United Nations appointed a special committee:
the United Nations Special Committee on Palestine,
known at the time universally as UNSCOP,
to report on the Palestine problem.
Carefully balanced between east and west, and other parts of the world,
including Asia and Africa, Latin America,
the members of the committee visited Palestine in June and July, 1947.
This traveling circus, as it was referred
to by the British colonial office, had already made it clear,
very quickly, that it had --
that the majority had very little sympathy
for the British administration.
One member, the Guatemalan Garcia-Granados,
had already acquired the reputation of one of several dedicated
and volatile enemies of British imperialism at the United Nations.
Garcia-Granados believed that it fell to him
to represent the Latin American revolutionary tradition,
and to link arms with his Jewish comrades.
In Palestine, the visit took place at the same time
that the 4,500 Jewish refugees aboard the ship Exodus were denied
entry, and turned back to their port of embarkation,
eventually to be sent back to Germany.
The forcible return of Jewish refugees to the country responsible
for Nazi mass murder was a public relations disaster for the British.
The membership of the committee, UNSCOP, ended their mission
in Europe, some of them visiting displaced person camps.
The majority voted in favor of partition.
The three voting against partition were the representatives
from India, Iran, and Yugoslavia.
One of the members of the committee, the Canadian judge Ivan Rand,
devoted attention to the demographic and economic detail,
and helped to produce the map -- if we can have the map at this point --
so demographically and politically complex
that it became famously known as the two fighting serpents.
Now, Ivan Rand proved to be pro-Zionist --
the principle author of the map.
He said to David Horowitz, in discussing the possibilities
of partition, "I will not allow you, the Jews,
to be placed in a territorial ghetto."
Now, Rand was not only a member of the committee, he was also a Justice
on the supreme court of Canada.
Widely respected for his knowledge and balanced judgment,
he struck others as having the analytical ability to go
to the heart of any problem, which in this case,
he identified as the megalomania of the British foreign secretary.
With baby blue eyes, and a will of iron, Ivan Rand believed Bevin
to be blind to reason, and that the British record
in Palestine was nothing other than abominable.
In Rand's view, the British had abandoned their promises
and betrayed the Jews.
From the British vantage point, in the words of a British official,
actually a Scot, whose views reflected those
of the colonial government, Rand was impulsive and dogmatic,
but it was Rand who proved to be the key member of the committee
and the recommendation for partition.
And it was not a sudden conversion.
Rand had to be convinced that the Zionist leaders could
control terrorism.
In conversation with them, he became convinced
that militant Zionism could be reined in, and that the Jews,
I quote, "Would not defy the United Nations and world opinion."
Ivan Rand swung his weight behind the proposal for partition not only
with cartographical detail, but also with a proposal for economic ties
to make the region viable after partition and, as you will see
from the map for Jerusalem, as an international city.
Justice Rand intellectually dominated the committee,
and possessed personal powers of persuasion,
and Canada is thus associated with the partition of Palestine
at the critical stage of the committee, UNSCOP, in 1947.
The majority UNSCOP report, in August of that year,
was a vital step towards the vote in favor of partition in November.
Canada, again, played an ever-increasing important part
in the story of the creation of the state of Israel.
Lester, or "Mike," Pearson believed that it was morally right
and politically feasible to work towards a Zionist solution.
Now, Pearson eventually became famous in the history
of the United Nations, as well as Canada, but he is significant here
because of the way in which he brought the American
and Russian delegations into agreement.
Pearson's initiative brought the American
and Russian sides together towards the two-thirds majority.
He was welcome in both camps.
On the other hand, he was critical of the British, believing them
to be irresponsible in bringing the Palestine issue before the United
Nations, while not following through with a specific plan.
There was a sense on the British side that Pearson was disloyal
to the British cause, and it is, therefore,
ironic that Pearson acquired the reputation at the United Nations,
and among Zionists, as the Balfour of Canada.
Through sheer force, personality, and tenacity, Pearson
and his colleagues won the comment from David Horowitz that "Canada,
more than any other country, played a decisive part at all stages
of the United Nations discussions on Palestine."
While studying the events leading up to the great United Nations vote
in November, it is useful to bear
in mind the momentum developing since the summer.
In late July, UNSCOP produced the majority
of the report in favor of partition.
On the day before, the Irgun, in retaliation for the execution
of a Jewish insurgent, hanged two British soldiers
and booby-trapped the ground under their bodies.
The outrage, in Britain, surpassed that of any previous event,
even the shock of the King David Hotel explosion.
The UNSCOP report and the murder
of the two soldiers precipitated the British decision to quit Palestine.
The British resolve to wash their hands
of an unwelcome and frustrating burden.
On September 26, the colonial secretary announced
to the United Nations that the British would simply withdraw.
They would lend support to neither Arab nor Jew,
nor to the United Nations.
But they still hoped to defeat the partition vote in November.
Now, the principle British official calculating the mood
and the probable numbers, was Bevin's assistant, Harold Beeley,
aged 38 in 1947, and with a permanent tic in his neck.
You always knew when you were talking to Harold Beeley.
He was described by the Zionists as a man of icy intellect
and determined anti-Zionist conviction.
Beeley, no less than Bevin himself,
believed that Jewish refugees should be reintegrated
into European societies, and that the creation
of a Jewish state would not only jeopardize the British empire
in the Middle East, but would also cause untold trouble
for decades to come.
The Zionists regarded Beeley as not anti-Jewish,
but as a mortal enemy of the Zionist cause.
He once stated that all of the experts
in the foreign office believed 100 percent
that the partition vote would fail to achieve the two-thirds majority.
Why, then, did so astute a mind as Harold Beeley's fail
to anticipate the outcome?
Well, despite the Zionist momentum [break
in audio] the arithmetic [break in audio] to block partition --
assuming, as did the British, that 10 or so might abstain in the hope
of minimizing the anger from one side or the other --
that the critical numbers would be appear to be: 33 to 13,
useful figures to bear in mind, because they were the outcome
of the vote: 33 in favor of partition, 13 against,
and a hair's difference of going one way or the other,
because of 10 abstentions.
The votes in doubt from the Zionist point of view were China --
that is to say nationalist China -- Cuba, Ethiopia, Greece, Haiti,
Liberia, the Philippines, and Yugoslavia.
What I want to emphasize here, is that it was not until the eve
of the vote that President Truman weighed
in to rally votes on the Zionist side.
Truman had written earlier in his diary: The Jews have no sense
of proportion, nor do they have any judgment on world affairs.
The Jews, I find, are very selfish.
They care not how many Estonians, Lothians, Fins, Pols, Yugoslavs
or Greeks get murdered, or mistreated as displaced persons,
as long as the Jews get special treatment.
Yet, when they have power, physical, financial or political,
neither Hitler nor Stalin has anything on them for cruelty
or mistreatment of the underdog.
Put an underdog on top, and it makes no difference whether his name is
Russian, Jewish, Negro, management, labor, Mormon, Baptist.
He goes haywire.
I found very few who remember their past condition
when prosperity comes.
Now, the diary entry is July, 1947, some five months before he decided
to support partition in November, but it is very revealing
about Truman's frame of mind.
Truman's feelings about the Jews were very similar to Ernest Bevin's.
Powerful pressure was brought to bear,
as when a high ranking official in the Truman administration,
Bernard Baruch, told the Chinese delegates
that all U.S. economic aid would be cut off unless China voted
in favor of partition.   The warning was repeated to several
of the delegates representing swing votes.
The Filipinos, according to a report reaching the State Department,
were subjected, I quote, "To terrible
and horrible pressure to vote for partition."
The going price for a vote stood at $75,000.
A lot of money in 1947, which was accepted
by one Latin American representative,
but declined by the Costa Rican, who was, however,
ordered by his government to vote in favor of partition.
The Firestone Rubber Company reported that the welfare
of Liberia would be placed in jeopardy failing a positive vote.
According to a telegram sent by several U.S. senators, I quote,
"American economic aid will be withheld
from all opponents of partition."
The State Department went to considerable length to deny all
such threats, but the denials came after the vote.
On the British side, Harold Beeley tried to counter the Zionists step
by step, but noted with dismay that all
of New York City seemed saturated with a pro-Zionist atmosphere.
It was, after all, the great Jewish metropolis of the world.
Reflect for a moment on other circumstances of New York in 1947,
when the U.N. secretariat was housed on Long Island,
at a place called Lake Success, in a former gyroscope factory.
The general assembly met in Queens, Flushing Meadow,
in a rather dismal auditorium that subsequently became a skating rink.
This was the year that the Brooklyn Dodgers were defeated
by the Yankees in the World Series.
A writer in the British weekly magazine The Spectator explained
to his readers that the Dodgers, like the Jews,
are the underdogs facing a powerful
and apparently unbeatable organization,
much the same as the Jews faced the powerful Arabs
at the United Nations.
Now, Harold Beeley in fact described the actual vote on November 29
as something comparable to a great sporting event,
such as the one witnessed by the members
of the decolonization seminar at the new stadium here
in Washington last week, though I suspect
that the general atmosphere was rather different in 1947.
I quote from Harold Beeley, "The galleries were packed
with an almost exclusively Zionist audience.
They applauded declarations of support for Zionism.
They hissed and booed Arab speakers.
They created the atmosphere of a baseball game at Ebbets Field,
with the Arabs as the visiting team."
The British Commonwealth, it must be said,
did not play with team like solidarity.
The "White Dominions," as they used to be called, pitched in favor
of the Jews, while India and Pakistan batted for the Arabs.
On the whole, the British felt themselves abandoned,
with Canada playing a critical and perhaps even decisive part
in the outcome because of Mike Pearson.
The proceedings reached their most absurd point,
according to Harold Beeley, when the Haitian delegate apologized
for voicing sentiments against partition
in the committee deliberations, but now, with tears rolling
down his face, explained that he had been ordered by his government
to vote in favor of partition.
The Arab representatives appealed for justice and hoped
that the United States could free itself from Zionist influence.
After the vote, the Arabs walked out,
providing the ultimate condemnation of the Arab world.
During the last session, Gromyko gave perhaps the most eloquent
and moving speech, certainly from the Zionist perspective.
He soared to even greater rhetorical heights
than in his historic speech in May.
He again expressed Soviet sympathy with the victims of Nazi, Germany,
but he voiced compassion also for those suffering
under British imperialism.
The Arab states, Gromyko said, could expect Soviet support
in freeing the Middle East from the vestiges of colonialism.
From the British point of view, there could be no doubt that the
"sources of Soviet conduct," in the familiar phrase of the Cold War,
could be found in the aim
to eliminate the British Empire from the Middle East.
Even though individuals counted in a study of the interaction
between personalities and the institution of the United Nations,
certainly helps to make the outcome more comprehensible, in the end,
the decision to create a Jewish state was a collective act of will.
It counted, because the United Nations still represented,
to repeat Warren Austin's phrase, the conscience of mankind.
For the Zionists, it gave them confidence that it would, I quote,
"Release a tremendous burst of confidence
and energy amongst our people everywhere."
For the Arabs, it could be seen, in retrospect,
as a prelude to the catastrophe of military defeat in the next year.
For the British, the United Nations remained the fundamental basis
of the new world order, despite the partition vote, despite even UNSCOP,
which proved to be only the first
of many U.N. visiting missions dedicated to end colonialism.
For the Jewish state, now in the process of being created,
the November vote gave it enduring international and moral legitimacy,
but the legacy for the Arab states is just as significant.
Before he walked out, the representative
from Syria stated passionately
that the partition vote defeated the idealistic purpose
of the United Nations itself.   He proclaimed that the charter
of the United Nations, I quote, "Is now dead."
Thank you.
[applause] Deanna Marcum: Professor Lewis has agreed
to answer questions, and I simply remind the audience that this --
this lecture will be webcast, so if you ask a question,
you are giving us implicit permission
to put you on the webcast, too.
So, I hope that will be acceptable to everyone.
Roger Louis: I actually had a couple of questions for myself,
because I tend to argue with myself -- [laughter] --
as I go through a lecture like this.
So I was asking, did the vote make any real difference
in the actual creation of the Jewish state?
Because we can see in retrospect,
that the Jewish state would have come into being anyway,
because of the administrative
and the military strength of the Zionist movement.
By 1947, 1948, there was, in fact, a shadow government,
with competent civilian administrators ready to step
in to take responsibility in the courts of justice, over the police,
the post office, the water works, electricity,
the power plants, and so on.
Not to mention what was already becoming known as the Defense Force,
what later became known as the Israel Defense Force.
With seasoned soldiers who had fought in the British
and American armies, and the French resistance, and who, of course,
formed the backbone of the Haganah, or the beginning
of the Israeli Defense Force.   Nevertheless, I would still argue
that the U.N. vote did make a real difference, because it paved the way
for Israeli's admission to the United Nations,
which was recognition of a sovereign and independent state.
In the 1940s to the 1950s, on into the 1960, this was the way
in which you acquired the status of an independent state.
The other question that I was asking myself along the way,
is how significant is, actually, the United Nations
in the history of decolonization?
And here, I would give the short answer that the United Nations was
of central importance in decolonization,
but this has been obscured, because it has become
such a neglected subject.
The administrative history, the history of institutions,
is now unfashionable, but the subject continues to be important --
The U.N. and decolonization --
because of the timetables for independence.
For example, Somalia, in 1960, which was set by the United Nations,
because Somalia was under U.N. jurisdiction
because of being a defeated Italian colony, and this, in turn,
directly influenced the dates of independence in east Africa.
No one, in 1960, believed that the Somalis were anywhere near
preparation, or ready to be independent,
but they became independent because of the United Nations, and,
this in turn, had this knock-on effect in part
because Tanganyika was a trust territory, independent in 1961;
Uganda, 1963; Kenya, 1964.   And so on.
There were also the visiting missions.
But I would also emphasize the United Nations,
later on in the 1960s, for the political
and intellectual currents of the time.
For example, when British colonial governors, who are quite proud
of their achievement as colonial administrators,
proud of British colonial administration,
would appear before the U.N. and they were denounced as torturers,
as murders, and of course they were quite shaken.
The lesson that I draw from this is that there seems to be a line
of direct connection between the debates and the United Nations
in this era and our present problems of today.
Steve? Male Speaker: I was wondering,
since you were talking about, did the U.N. vote matter
because there was a shadow Jewish government ready to take over.
There obviously wasn't an equivalent shadow Palestine Arab government,
and you're talking about all this in the context of British imperialism.
I was wondering if you could address British reaction to the Arab revolt
of '36 to '39, in terms of the significance of what happened later.
Roger Louis: Well, of course, it was the British conviction then,
and forever after, that the Arabs should have accepted the White Paper
of 1939, because it set the ratio of approximately one-third Jewish,
two-thirds Arab, with further immigration dependent
on Arab consent.
So, it would have been -- we would be looking at a much smaller map
of Israel had the -- perhaps,
had the Arabs accepted the White Paper of 1939.
But step-by-step, each point along the way, the Arabs had a --
without exception, a way of shooting themselves in the foot.
It's just undeniable.
They were always one step behind what would have realistically been
the best solution at the time.
Male Speaker: What impact do you think the existence of hundreds
of thousands of displaced persons, with no countries willing
to accept them, had on the decision to create a Jewish state?
Roger Louis: Well, there was, of course,
wide sympathy for the displaced persons, but it was also very,
very difficult to break down the immigration barriers,
and the United States is right up there with the countries
that refused to admit -- change the immigration ratio after the war,
and, of course, in the late 1930s, during the second war itself,
when the Jews were at their moment of greatest need.
The irony of the demand for the 100,000 Jewish refugees
to be admitted immediately after the second world war as proof
of sympathy for the Jews, the victims of the Nazi mass murder
and so on, was that the Jewish agency would have been hard pressed
to find 100,000 -- even half that number --
that were physically capable of making the journey to Palestine.
In other words, you can't take people
out of the concentration camps and get them on a ship,
fit and able to go to Palestine.   It took months and months
of recuperation before they could actually --
it was a stroke of luck for the Zionists.
They couldn't -- that they weren't called upon
Male Speaker: In the context of your view that the Arabs seemed
to be unable to make prudent decisions or actions
on their behalf -- Roger Louis: Well,
I said that was a British view.
Male Speaker: That was a British view.
Okay. I'm after your view on something.
The 1939 paper, I guess, was an example of where they --
was that you, or was that the British view,
that they should have accepted that conclusion?
Roger Louis: It's certainly the British view,
but it's my own view as well.
In other words, if the Arabs had managed to accept the terms
of the 1939 White Paper as a settlement,
they would be in a much better position today.
The same thing was true of the Anglo-American commission in 1946,
where the Arabs had a regular habit simply of saying that,
"We will not go along with any solution," that afterwards seemed
to be a better solution than what they would eventually get.
Male Speaker: My question is with the U.N. vote,
and immediately following that, the Arab violence and reaction
to that vote, what is your evaluation of that?
What do you think would have been the prudent course
for the Arab people after that vote?
Roger Louis: Probably to have accepted the 1939 White Paper.
From an Arab point of view, it would have resulted, at the time at least,
in a much smaller Jewish state.   But the intangible, of course,
is the impact of the war itself, the Holocaust.
I was interested to learn, the last time that I was in Israel,
that there are Israeli historians who believe
that the Jewish state would have been created regardless
of the Holocaust.
It's a hypothetical question, and it's of course impossible to answer,
but I don't believe it for one moment.
I think it's the Holocaust that helped
to create the moral conviction on the part of non-Zionists
that this was the right thing to do, in 1947.
Male Speaker: Thank you.
I'm just wondering also, the question --
a lot of time in your lecture,
you mentioned that the Zionist position was the pro-partition
position, and the Arab position was anti-partition, and also talking
about probably the mistake
of not accepting the '39 -- the '39 proposal.
I'm just wondering, this idea of acceptance or rejection of them as,
kind of, what we'd call now "final status agreements,"
rather than a basis of negotiation,
how much that would have implicated those ideas of self-determination.
Roger Louis: I'm not sure that I caught the end of the question,
but the answer, of course,
is the outcome was determined on the battlefield.
It was the Israeli victories in 1947,
1948 that eventually determined the outcome,
together with the catastrophic Arab defeats, with the lone exception
of the Arab Legion of Jordan.
The Jordan Legion was the only Arab force
to acquit itself in the 1947, 1948 wars.
Yes. Here we go.   Male Speaker: Yeah.
I wanted you to give some sort of an assessment
of the governmental competence of some of these different states, say,
comparing Israel with other Middle Eastern states,
and some of the states that emerged in Africa.
I mean, there was a, say, a loss of colonialism,
but some of these emerging states don't seem to have done very well.
And Israel, on the other hand, seems to have --
I'll tell you, they seem to be a paragon of statehood.
Roger Louis: Well, certainly from an Arab point of view,
the Israeli state represented a western state, a European state,
a settler state, and thereby is different in kind
from the other colonies that were achieving independence
in the 1950s and the 1960s.
In other words, the Israelis -- the Zionists and the Israelis --
in 1947 and '48 had the skills, the military and political skills,
to create the state in a way
that would have probably required a much longer period of tutelage,
or whatever you would like to call it, in much of the rest
of the Middle East or in Africa.
Part of it is the period of time that the British were
in the Middle East and Africa, from the late 19th century in Africa --
from, say, the 1890s until the 1960s.
In the Middle East, from the --
really, from the period of the first world war, with the exception
of Egypt, to some point after the second world war.
This was just the -- in Elizabeth Monroe's famous phrase --
Britain's "moment" in the Middle East.
It's very hard to believe that you can acquire western skills
and so on, unless the European powers themselves had been
around for a very long time, as in the case of India.
Yes? Male Speaker: I'm wondering how you think a --
if the Bevin plan were to go into action, or to have gone into action,
do you think that state would have functioned?
Would it be surviving to this day, a half-Palestinian, half-Jewish state?
Roger Louis: The idea of a bi-national state, if we can --
the way in which I caught the question, was the significance
of the longevity of the idea of the bi-national state,
which does have a long track record.
Again, on my recent visits to the Middle East, I'm very struck
by the way in which people have begun to think that the idea
of a bi-national state was not such a bad idea after all.
It may be the ultimate solution, some idea of close cooperation
with Israel and the neighboring territories,
rather than sharp, everlasting antagonism.
Male Speaker: Thank you.
You mentioned -- you cite Truman's diary from the summer of 1947,
which gives us good insight into his view on Jews,
and yet you also know how his administration brought
so much pressure to bear on the eve of the partition vote.
Would you agree therefore, then, with the scholarship
that would argue that Truman's decision, ultimately,
even on bringing pressure to bear for the partition vote,
comes from an electoral political concern primarily,
and even 12 months in advance of a presidential
and congressional election, he had this in mind?
Or is there some other factors you see in play?
Roger Louis: Truman was certainly aware
of the significance of the Jewish vote.
In fact, he probably overestimated it.
Truman also was a man of conscience.
And he, through his old acquaintance with Jewish friends and, in part,
because of his conversations with Chaim Weissman,
Truman eventually came around to the view that he didn't
like to be bullied into doing this, but he thought that, ultimately,
it was the right thing to do.   That's my read of Harry Truman.
In other words, not without political calculation,
but in the end, making an ethical --
in his own view, an ethical decision.
Female Speaker: Professor Louis, I want to go back
to the very beginning of your talk, when you talked
about what partition itself meant.   And I want to sort of get a --
I want to understand if there was any discourse on the idea
of partition itself, not just in the context of, you know,
the Palestine mandate, but on the part of the Empire
that were also undergoing similar kinds of --
you said that partition meant for these people creation
of new frontiers or boundaries or whatever.
I mean was it really simply just that?
In particular, after the consequences of this --
of these various partitions became evident, was there any discussion
of what, you know, partition really means?
You know, it's far beyond just creating boundaries.
It's creating the ideas of nations where they --
you know, where none might exist.
Was there any discussion, because when one talks about partition,
particularly in the context of the Indian sub-continent, there is a lot
of discussion of how the people who became Indian and the people
who came Pakistanis were thinking about partition,
but there is very little about the other side.
What were the British thinking what they were doing exactly?
What was this about?
I was wondering if you could shed some light
on the idea of partition, itself.
Roger Louis: Well, of course, in each of the movements
for independence, there was extensive discussion
about what the future held, including the possibility
of partition, including the possibility
that these federated states might hold together.
It was the great trend, as people here
in the decolonization seminar know better than I, of the 1940s
and the 1950s, to look for larger territorial configurations
that would make economic and political sense.
The great example is the West Indies.
If you could imagine today, a single unit, rather than the microstates
in the Caribbean, this was one of the aims of that period.
In other words, territories, larger economic configurations
that would make economic as well as political sense.
And in some cases, it did work.
For example, in the case of Nigeria it seemed to work until the period
of civil war, and even then, Nigeria cohered as a single state.
It also worked rather improbably in the case of Malaysia.
In other words, here is a state that is being held together
with diverse components, but nevertheless, making an economic
and political success of it.
The most spectacular success, or the most surprising success,
at the time, was the union of the Gulf States in 1970-71.
Everyone thought at the time that the gulf states were going
to splinter into the micro microstates islands of the gulf
of Qatar, of Bahrain, Abu Dhabi, and so on.
But in their own self-interest, they came together
under the United Arab Emirates.
Against these cases, you weigh the disasters,
which include the central African Federation of Northern Rhodesia,
Nyasaland, and Southern Rhodesia, and Aden,
as well as the West Indies, in which you have -- in the case of Aden,
just a decent into civil war.
So these are -- these are all British examples.
But they're all cases in which the British were looking
for a larger solution rather than a crackup into the microstates.
Male Speaker: I'm wondering what form the bi-national state would
have taken?
Would there have been boundaries within that state, for instance,
or how would the legislature function?
Or did they get that far?
Roger Louis: They got that far, and it took various forms.
But if you can imagine the Palestine as a united country today,
rather resembling the Cantons of Switzerland,
which are self-governing, but have their own ethnic
and religious makeup with the religious
and political rights guaranteed through all of the territories,
then the bi-national state probably would have been based on Cantons
with perhaps Jerusalem as an international city.
That was the -- took various forms in different times,
but that was the governing idea.   The last? Female Speaker: Yes, sir.
Looking at this map, the 1947 partition map, I'm just curious,
based on what, at the time, I think was --
the population was vastly Arab dominated.
How did they come up with this kind of carved up situation?
I mean, I understand today, because the population centers --
unfortunately it's evolved to that, where you've got a big slice
of Palestine completely separated.
But why, at this time, did they choose such a strange kind of puzzle
to carve the country into?
Roger Louis: Well, because of the population concentrations
in the northern part of the territory.
But the southern part, designated mainly by the desert territory
of the Negev, this was the great Zionist ingenuity
and political pressure exerted on the people actually drawing the map.
Why not, included all of this desert territory,
to the Jews who had the capability
to develop the territory economically.
This was the great argument that was put forward, and they almost lost it
at the end until President Truman came down on the side of saying
that the Jews should have the Negev.
They're the ones that can actually do something with the territory.
They're the ones that can dig the wells, produce the farms
in the desert, and so on.
So again, it's a combination of shrewd,
demographic observation calculation, combined with brute force
and political skill, that resulted in the map that you see here,
but ultimately determined by the victory by the Jews in 1948-49.
Deanna Marcum: Please join me in thanking Professor Louis
for his very interesting talk.
[applause] [music] [end of transcript] ??
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