Office of the Historian

501.BB Palestine/11–1347

Memorandum by Ambassador George Wadsworth to the Assistant Chief of the Division of Near Eastern Affairs (Mattison)

top secret
[Washington,] November 13, 1947.
1.
Following our telephone conversation of this morning, I had “strictly personal and confidential” converse with Dr. Jamali. I began by telling him frankly that you had given me to understand:
a)
That “at working level” the officers of NE wished as of now to outline a procedure which might properly be followed in the event that Partition (or any other proposed plan of settlement) failed to obtain a two-thirds majority;
b)
That you believed it would be of high practical advantage were such outline to be “cleared” with General Marshall prior to his departure for London,1 especially in view of the fact that he would in all probability have left Washington before the Palestine question came to a vote in GAUN; and
c)
That, to this end, you believed it would be especially helpful were NE to know, in general, Arab views on the subject and, in particular, to what degree the Arab plan of settlement (as evolved in the Second Sub-Committee) might open the way to the so-called “cantonization” compromise of which I had already informed you.
2.
I then explained that I was leaving within the hour for Washington and said that I believed the moment was one when we should talk with the same full frankness which had marked our relations in Baghdad. I said that I had personally gathered the impression in conversations at working level that, in the event of “no vote,” the American Government would be able to approach the resulting situation strictly on its merits and without prior commitment.
3.
Dr. Jamali replied that the Arab delegations, too, had been envisaging the possibility of such a development, especially in the light of information received from London that Bevin continued adamant in his stand on “implementation.” The resulting Arab views, he said, might be recapitulated as follows:
a)
With failure of GAUN to adopt any resolution dealing substantively with the items on its current agenda, it “would have no further authority in the matter;” and
b)
To the end that a formula be found for reopening the matter in the current session or at another special session, it would seem desirable that exploratory Anglo-American conversations be held immediately following a “no vote” in GAUN.
4.
Were such conversations to be so held, Dr. Jamali said, the Arabs would wish them to be premised on mutual recognition of the following two considerations logically emerging from the prior proceedings:
a)
There shall be no Jewish State any where in the Arab World, but every proper safeguard shall be given the already existing Jewish Home in Palestine; and
b)
There shall be no further Jewish immigration into Palestine except as incident to international settlement of the D.P. question based on all members of UN doing their share.

[Here follow paragraphs numbered 5 through 7 dealing with three draft resolutions to be proposed to the Ad Hoc Committee by Subcommittee 2. The resolutions dealt with the referral of certain legal questions to the International Court of Justice, the questions of Jewish refugees and displaced persons, and the constitution and future government of Palestine: for texts as proposed by Sub-committee 2, see GA (II), Ad Hoc Committee, pages 299–303.]

8. It is in Resolution No. III, he concluded, that you will find both the safeguards which the Arabs conceive to be properly extendable to the Jews in Palestine (as individuals, as dominant majority groups in certain parts of the country and as a cultural and religious minority in the country as a whole) and the provision which might conceivably open the way to “cantonization”. In this connection he asks you to study carefully numbered paragraphs 6–iv through 6–xii. No. 6–x reads as follows:

The constitution shall authorize the Legislature to invest local authorities with wide discretion in matters connected with education, health and other social services.

9. Finally, in answer to two questions which I put to him, Dr. Jamali confirmed that the Arabs are quite willing: a) that administrative (sub-district) frontiers be so redrawn as to establish a number of “areas in which they (the Jews) are in a majority”; and b) that the President of the proposed Supreme Court (see numbered paragraph 6–xi of Resolution No. III) be selected by the International Court of Justice.

George Wadsworth
  1. To participate in the Fifth Session of the Council of Foreign Ministers which was held from November 25 to December 15, 1947.↩