501.BB Palestine/3–548: Telegram
The Secretary of State to the United States Representative at the United Nations (Austin)
us urgent
108. Following is approved text of proposed statement by Ambassador Austin on situation in Palestine after British withdrawal May 15, 1948:
“In his statement to the Security Council on February 24, 1948, the Representative of the United Kingdom said, ‘My Government are bringing to an end the discharge of their responsibilities towards Palestine under the Mandate and are leaving the future of that country to international authority.’
On March 2, 1948, the Representative of the United Kingdom referred, in his statement to the Council, to ‘whatever procedure the United Nations may decide to adopt with a view to assuming responsibility for the Government of Palestine on May 15th’, and concluded with the statement, ‘finally, I must repeat that the United Kingdom cannot enter into any new or extended commitment in regard to Palestine. Our contribution has already been made over the years and the date of termination of our responsibility is irrevocably fixed.’
The status of Palestine will be equivocal because the United Kingdom seeks to give up the Mandate. Article 5 of the Mandate in respect of Palestine provides:
‘The Mandatory shall be responsible for seeing that no Palestine territory shall be ceded or leased to, or in any way placed under the control of, the Government of any foreign Power.’
In the premises there is the urgent need for a prompt decision by the Security Council on the General Assembly recommendation as well as an early clarification of United Nations responsibility toward Palestine.
The General Assembly and the Security Council have broad responsibilities in fidelity to the principles of justice and the aims of the Charter to assist in bringing about a pacific settlement of situations and disputes placed before them. The Security Council has specific obligations and powers where it finds a threat to the peace, breach of the peace, or act of aggression. I have already dealt, in my statement to the Security Council on February 24 and March 2, with these responsibilities.
The assumption of administrative or governmental responsibility by the United Nations is another matter. If the United Nations is to act as a government, a large administrative task is involved. The Organization itself becomes directly responsible for all phases of the life of the people over whom such powers are exercised. It is a formidable responsibility and a heavy financial commitment is incurred by all 57 Members of the Organization.
The United Nations does not automatically fall heir to the responsibilities either of the League of Nations or of the Mandatory Power in respect of the Palestine Mandate. The record seems to us entirely clear [Page 683] that the United Nations did not take over the League of Nations mandate system.
The League of Nations Assembly on April 18, 1946, at its final session, passed a resolution which included the following two paragraphs:
‘The Assembly
‘3. Recognizes that, on the termination of the League’s existence, its functions with respect to the mandated territories will come to an end, but notes that Chapters XI, XII, and XIII of the Charter of the United Nations embody principles corresponding to those declared in Article 22 of the Covenant of the League;
‘4. Takes note of the expressed intentions of the Members of the League now administering territories under mandate to continue to administer them for the well-being and development of the peoples concerned in accordance with the obligations contained in the respective Mandates, until other arrangements have been agreed between the United Nations and the respective Mandatory Powers.’
At the first part of the first session of the United Nations General Assembly, on February 12, 1946, the Assembly passed a Resolution regarding the transfer of certain functions, activities, and assets of the League of Nations to the United Nations. No transfer of functions concerning Mandates was mentioned. The Resolution included the statement that:
‘The General Assembly will itself examine, or will submit to the appropriate organ of the United Nations, any request from the parties that the United Nations should assume the exercise of functions or powers entrusted to the League of Nations by treaties, international conventions, agreements, and other instruments having a political character.’
Provision was made in the United Nations Charter for the voluntary placing of mandates under a trusteeship system by means of trusteeship agreements between the General Assembly or the Security Council and the states directly concerned, including the Mandatory Power. By such an agreement, the United Nations itself under article 81 of the Charter could become the administering authority for a trust territory. No such proposal has been made by the Mandatory Power with respect to Palestine and no action has been taken by the United Nations itself which would have that result.
We think it clear that the United Nations does not succeed to administrative responsibility for Palestine merely because the latter is a Mandate. Signing the Charter did not commit the signatories to a contingent liability for mandates, to become operative by unilateral decisions of Mandatory Powers to abandon their mandates.
Does the General Assembly recommendation of November 29, 1947 constitute an acceptance by the United Nations of governmental responsibility for Palestine?
On April 2, 1947 the United Kingdom directed the following request to the Secretary General of the United Nations:
‘His Majesty’s Government in the United Kingdom request the Secretary-General of the United Nations to place the question of [Page 684] Palestine on the agenda of the General Assembly at its next regular Annual Session. They will submit to the Assembly an account of their administration of the League of Nations Mandate and will ash the Assembly to make recommendations, under Article 10 of the Charter, concerning the future government of Palestine.
‘In making this request, His Majesty’s Government drew the attention of the Secretary-General to the desirability of an early settlement in Palestine and to the risk that the General Assembly might not be able to decide upon its recommendations at its next regular annual session unless some preliminary study of the question had previously been made under the auspices of the United Nations. They therefore request the Secretary-General to summon, as soon as possible, a special session of the General Assembly for the purpose of constituting and instructing a special committee to prepare for the consideration, at the regular session of the Assembly, of the question referred to in the preceding paragraph.’
From this it is clear that the question of Palestine came before the General Assembly as a request for a recommendation. No proposal was made by the United Kingdom to the General Assembly that the United Nations itself undertake responsibility for the government of Palestine.
Following consideration of the question of Palestine in a special session, in a special committee (UNSCOP), and by an Ad Hoc Committee of the General Assembly at its Second Regular Session, the General Assembly passed a Resolution which recommended ‘to the United Kingdom, as the Mandatory Power for Palestine, and to all other Members of the United Nations, the adoption and implementation, with regard to the future government of Palestine, of the plan of partition with economic union set forth in the Resolution. Under the plan, the United Nations agreed, as a part of the recommended general settlement, to undertake administrative responsibilities for the City of Jerusalem. Further, the General Assembly agreed that a commission elected by it would perform certain functions to effect the transfer of responsibility from the Mandatory Power to the successor governments in Palestine. The limited responsibilities of the United Nations set forth in the plan are inseparable from the plan as a whole and are dependent upon the adoption and implementation of the entire plan. This essential unity of the General Assembly recommendation was emphasized by the Chairman of the Palestine Commission in his statement to the Security Council on February 24:
‘I have put some stress upon the words “Plan of Partition as it has been envisaged by the General Assembly,” since it is with the implementation of such Plan that our Commission has been entrusted. It is quite natural—and legitimate—for interested parties to concentrate their efforts preponderantly—if not exclusively—on such parts of the Plan as are intended more especially for their sake. The Commission is not in such a position; its duty, according to its terms of reference, is to provide for the implementation [Page 685] of the whole Plan which has been conceived by the General Assembly as a whole …
‘Since the Plan has been envisaged as a whole, the realization and sound functioning of one part of the Plan has been made, in a substantial degree, dependent upon the establishment and functioning of its other parts.’
The limited functions which the General Assembly offered to undertake in connection with its Palestine recommendation stand or fall with that resolution.
If it proves impossible to give effect to that Resolution, the United Nations will have, on May 15, 1948, no administrative and governmental responsibilities for Palestine, unless further action is taken by the General Assembly.
We conclude that a unilateral decision by the United Kingdom to terminate the Palestine Mandate cannot automatically commit the United Nations to responsibility for governing that country.”
Conclusion of this statement will be as set forth in Dept’s immediately preceding niact telegram.1
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