Office of the Historian

501.BB Palestine/4–2248

Memorandum by Mr. Robert M. McClintock to the Under Secretary of State (Lovett)

top secret
[Washington,] April 22, 1948.

The following comments present a preliminary view and are offered on my own responsibility as I have not had an opportunity to discuss them with Mr. Rusk:

1.
On the basis of the intial reception of our trusteeship suggestion it is apparent that the delegations in New York City are distinctly lukewarm. They await concrete evidence of our willingness to send troops to Palestine to maintain a temporary trusteeship. They will not vote for such a trusteeship unless there is implementation by the United States, to say nothing of other powers.
2.
Ambassador Douglas reports in his #1672 today1 (attached) that an agreed truce by the Arabs and Jews is most unlikely; that, in the absence of agreement between the parties, the proposal for trusteeship will require the use of substantial force; and that the British will not participate in the use of force against either the Arabs or Jews to impose an unacceptable regime.
3.
The Australian Delegation announced yesterday that it would today introduce a resolution (copy attached2) which, in effect, would reaffirm the recommendation of November 29, 1947, for the partition of Palestine. The Australian resolution does not indicate by what means this recommendation can be carried out. It is much to be doubted whether the Australian resolution could muster a two-thirds vote of the members of the United Nations. However, it is possible that the Australian resolution, in light of the fact that there will be many abstentions on the vote, may receive a majority in Committee 1 of those delegations which do vote.
4.
As indicated in my earlier memorandum to you, the French Representative, Ambassador Parodi, has strongly urged that something be done to save Jerusalem. It seems probable that this will strike a responsive chord in the United Nations and elsewhere. Measures to protect Jerusalem will be popular measures; they will be highly attractive to the Jews, who are concerned for their 100,000 fellows now cut off in the capital city, and they will give the impression to the world that the United Nations is “doing something” about Palestine. The chances are strong, therefore, that the basic Palestine problem will [Page 846] presently be placed to one side in favor of immediate measures for the security of the Holy Places in Jerusalem or, in other words, Jerusalem itself. A copy of the French resolution on Jerusalem is attached herewith.3
5.
I have a strong hunch that if the Jerusalem enclave, as traced on the map4 which I sent you this morning, is established by the General Assembly and if the other Powers subscribe forces for its protection, the Palestine problem may be well on the road to a more or less automatic solution. If the enclave were defended against the admission of refugees from without (which is a valid point raised by Mr. Henderson in his memorandum to you of April 19), the partition of Palestine along the lines of ethnographical boundaries would come about almost automatically except for the two cities of Jaffa and Haifa, each of which have large segments of both Jewish and Arab inhabitants.
6.
It seems to me that, not receding from our present position in favor of trusteeship (which gives us leverage in both directions with either the Arabs or the Jews), we might find it convenient to go along with the French suggestion for special measures in behalf of Jerusalem; secure, on the basis of a crusading contribution, the dispatch of a fairly numerous group of armed contingents from United Nations members for the protection of Jerusalem, and then sit down to let nature take its course.5 A further step at this Assembly would be, in light of our proposal for a temporary trusteeship, to move the suspension pending further developments of the Assembly’s resolution of November 29, 1947. An additional and necessary step would be an agreement by Great Britain, the United States, and France, under United Nations auspices, to maintain a naval patrol of the Palestinian coasts to prevent illegal immigration, while at the same time undertakings should be given by the Arab States to prevent immigration from the land frontiers of Palestine.
7.
Although prophesy is perilous, it is possible that the establishment of a hard core of security from Jerusalem to the sea would bring about a de facto partition of Palestine with the Jewish State centered on Tel Aviv and extending north along the coast to almost, if not including, Haifa.6 I should not care if Transjordan, Lebanon, Syria, and Egypt took over the rest of the country.

  1. Infra.↩
  2. Copy not found attached; see UN document A/C.1/279, April 21.↩
  3. Copy not found attached; see UN document A/C.1/280, April 22.↩
  4. Copy not found in Department of State files.↩
  5. Marginal notation by Mr. Lovett: “I have talked to Rusk and told him we must push Jerusalem safety as directed.”↩
  6. Marginal notation by Mr. Lovett: “I think you are wrong.”↩