Report of the United Nations Mediator in Palestine (Bernadotte) to the Security Council, July 12, 19481
. . . . . . . . . . . . . .
35. A first essential in Palestine today is an immediate cessation of hostilities. But that is only a first step. For the question must be answered, at some stage, whether the international community is willing to tolerate resort to armed force as the means for settlement of the Palestine issue. Willingness to do this could well involve many risks for the peace of the entire Near East, if not for the larger world. In this regard a distinction may properly be drawn between forbidding the use of force in Palestine and making it unprofitable to use force, on the one hand, and enforcing a political settlement, on the other. Ending the use of force in Palestine will, in fact, make possible an eventual peaceful settlement.
36. For many and compelling reasons, the international community has a vested interest in a peaceful settlement of the Palestine problem. Viewed realistically, the situation is as follows. If armed force is forbidden in the settlement of the problem and it is made prohibitively [Page 1214] unprofitable for the Arab States to employ it, there will be in Palestine a Jewish community with a separate cultural and political existence, a Jewish State, whose strength and prosperity and capacity for economic and social development, by the admission of its own leaders, must largely depend on its ability to cultivate friendly relations with its Arab neighbours. If the employment of armed force is not forbidden, the issue of the Jewish State in Palestine will be settled on the field of battle. The decision which may be taken with regard to the resort to armed force in Palestine will determine the immediate prospects for further effective mediation over the settlement. In this vital regard, the decisions of the Security Council on the matter will be controlling.
- Reprinted from SC, 3rd yr., Supplement for July 1948, p. 47.↩