The
impact and negative consequences of the partitioning of Palestine and the
establishment of an expansionist Israeli state initiated through United Nations
Resolution 181 has been the root of conflict in the Middle East region since
the conclusion of World War II. While
the United Nations have also succeeded in positive security implementations in
regions outside of the Middle East, the organization failed to recognize
international law and to uphold its organizational responsibilities in the Middle
East, which is a direct result of Cold War politics, a weighted organizational structure,
disregard of the United Nations charter, and capital influences of
international Zionism, along with organizational legal failures in decision
making processes dealing with the region of Palestine. United Nations Resolution 181 and the
partitioning of Palestine was not only implemented on illegal precedents, the
United Nations enforced temporary security on those established illegal precedents,
and sorely failed in upholding organizational responsibilities in the
post-partitioned region. The following
five literature reviews support the claims that the United Nations acted in
Palestine without consideration to international law prior to the establishment
of the United Nations, implemented and attempted to enforce security measures
in the illegally fractured region, became paralyzed to act unbiasedly
pertaining to the injustices faced by the Palestinian people, and simply served
as a collective instrument for promoting the emerging international
transformation period from colonialism to private sector globalization.
In the article by Nabil Elarby, the legal issues that
were discarded by the United Nations are closely examined. The Mandate for Palestine by the League of
Nations after World War I not only established Britain as the mandated power
that would control the protectorate of Palestine, Britain entered into
international contract through that mandate to “assist the peoples of the
territory to achieve full self-government and independence at the earliest
possible date” (Elarby, 98) while, at the same time, making political promises
that would eventually impact Palestine such as the Belfour Declaration and
negotiating with powerful Zionist organizations over the Peel Commission Report
and a future national homeland for the Jewish people despite the territory of
Palestine falling under Article 22 of the Covenant of the League of Nations:
“To
those colonies and territories which as a consequence of the late war have
ceased to be under the sovereignty of the States which formerly governed them
and which are inhabited by peoples not yet able to stand by themselves under
the strenuous conditions of the modern world, there should be applied the
principle that the well-being and development of such peoples form a sacred
trust of civilisation and that securities for the performance of this trust
should be embodied in this Covenant.” (League of Nations Covenant, Article 22)
“Certain
communities formerly belonging to the Turkish Empire have reached a stage of
development where their existence as independent nations can be provisionally
recognized subject to the rendering of administrative advice and assistance by
a Mandatory until such time as they are able to stand alone. The wishes of
these communities must be a principal consideration in the selection of the
Mandatory” (League of Nations Covenant, Article 22)
Therefore,
Britain, assuming a permanent position on the United Nations Security Council after
the end of World War II, was already in violation of their international
commitment to the people of Palestine before the United Nations voted in favor
of establishing a Special Committee on Palestine (UNSCOP) instead of placing
the issue of Palestinian independence before the General Assembly (Elarby,
100). It is ethically questionable that
the Jewish problem occurring in Europe and the British request to relinquish
the mandate in Palestine were considered under the United Nations Special Commission
on Palestine, as they were two separate political issues, and was a direct
result of Zionist influence on Britain and UNSCOP members leading up to May of
1947.
Halderman’s 1968 article reinforces the ability of the United
Nations to bend international law through the failures of the organizational
constitutional charter structure, specifically within the Security Council
where permanent members such as the United States and Britain wield veto power
that can promote or protect states and promote or stop collective security
measures (Halderman, 78). Before UNSCOP
recommended that the future government of Palestine should be turned over to
the United Nations, it was evident that international Zionist groups,
capitalist interests, and Cold War factors had established great influence
within the permanent member ranks of the United Nations Security Council. With the most capital-enriched “Western
states, which had the greatest interest in the success of the Organization”
(Halderman, 84) at the controls of the United Nations Security Council during
the implementation of the partition of Palestine, despite Arab rejection of
partition based on colonial injustices and a breach of international contract
by Britain, the United Nations implemented the first UN Security Mission to the
Middle East, the United Nations Emergency Force (UNEF), in order to enforce a
semblance of stability and to protect the independence of the implanted state
of Israel under the international auspices of the newly created United
Nations. Quincy Wright’s article from
1968 also provides criticism toward the legalities of how the United Nations
handled the Palestinian issue, with an emphasis on how pre-World War II Zionist
influence within Britain was a major factor leading into eventual United
Nations decision-making and policy dealing with the Jewish problem in Europe
and British withdrawal from Palestine.
Not only was the British government promising Zionist organizations a
national homeland for the Jewish people through the Belfour Declaration, but
were also allowing Zionists to help shape political reports such as the Peel
Commission Report and the White Papers, especially the White Paper from 1939.
While
Arab states rejected the partition plan from the beginning, Israel’s
independence was quickly recognized by the odd bedfellows of the United States,
Britain and the Soviet Union, and incredibly enough the infant state of Israel received
full membership to the United Nations (Wright, 7). Studying the two years of conflict between
the Arabs and the newly established state of Israel after the partition and
so-called independence of Israel, which saw the state of Israel usurp “fifty
percent more territory than had been accorded to Israel by the United Nations
resolution of 1947” (Wright, 7), it becomes distinctly clear that the organizational
structure of the United Nations and the Security Council is politically
weighted. After Israel had annexed
portions of Jerusalem in 1948, the organizational structure of the United
Nations was not even effective enough to enforce a resolution insisting that
Israel withdraw from the territories it had taken by force due to American and
British political influence insisting “that a cease-fire should be established
first without consideration of responsibility for initiation of the crisis and
that withdrawal from the occupied territories should be contingent on
settlement” (Wright, 10).
The Soderblom paper also enforces the dual sided and
illegal measures utilized by Britain during their mandate as the controlling
power of the protectorate of Palestine and the transition of Palestinian
territorial control to the United Nations when he points out that the “1917
Balfour Conference occurred without the consent or the knowledge of the Arabs,
and was a stark contradiction to the outcome of the McMahon Pledge of 1915 which
stated that a Jewish settlement in Palestine would be allowed” (Soderblum, 1). In addition to Capitalist interests and
Zionist influence in the West, it is also important to look back at the
previously mentioned strange bedfellows of the United States, Britain and the
Soviet Union which recognized Israeli independence and provided support for
Israel through the United Nations Security Council. The Soviet Union, along with their satellite
states, viewed the newly created state of Israel as a possible “bulwark against
British imperialism” (Soderblom, 5).
Interestingly enough, Greece and Cuba were the only non-Arab or
non-regional states that voted against United Nations Resolution 181, and they
voted ‘Against’ with the states of Afghanistan, Egypt, India, Iran, Iraq,
Lebanon, Pakistan, Saudi Arabia, Syria, Turkey and Yemen (Soderblom, 5). Another reference that questions the legality
of the partition resulting from United Nations Resolution 181 is the
problematic fact that the partition plan was adopted by the General Assembly,
not the Security Council, and the enforcement of such a resolution was in
violation of Article 1 of the United Nations Charter pertaining to the
self-determination of peoples (Soderblom, 5-6).
The final literature review piece is an article written
by Radha Kumar which, while analyzing the international problems of
post-colonial partitions, provides further support to verify the problems
previously identified in United Nations Resolution 181, which resulted in a new
independent state being achieved while the original inhabitants of the
territory were partitioned into an occupied zone that has yet to be allowed self-determination
or independent statehood (Kumar, 4). The
Palestine partition plan was reliant on a proposed economic union between partitioned sections, required
by both the original stateless population and the newly created state of
Israel, but this collateral cooperation was never achieved since Zionist
capital was flowing into Israel and Palestine was left more and more isolated under
growing poverty (Kumar, 4).
The evidence compiled through the five literature reviews
clearly illustrates that the partition plan on Palestine, developed by Britain and
implemented by the United Nations, can be viewed as a violation of international
law, a violation of the United Nations Charter, and a blatant injustice to the
people of Palestine. In retrospect, it
was only the beginning of a long road of injustices that would follow for the Palestinians.
Selected
Bibliography
Benbassa, Esther. 1990. “Zionism in the Ottoman Empire at the
End of the 19th and the Beginning of the 20th Century,” Studies in Zionism 11,
no. 2 (1990): 128
Elaraby, Nabil. 1968.
“Some Legal Implications of the 1947 Partition Resolution and the 1949
Armistice Aggreements.” Law and Contenporary Problems (1968): 97-109. Accessed April 1, 2015. http://scholarship.law.duke.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=3186&context=lcp
Halderman, John. 1968.
“Some International Constitutional Aspects of the Palestine Case."
Law and Contemporary Problems (1968): 78-96.
Accessed April 1, 2015.
http://scholarship.law.duke.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=3185&context=lcp
Kumar, Radha. "The Troubled History
of Partition." Foreign Affairs (1997): 22-34. Accessed on April 1, 2015.
http://www.partitionconflicts.com/partitions/downloads/Kumar%20Partition.pdf
League of Nations. 1924. The
Covenant of the League of Nations. Yale
Law School. Accessed on April 4,
2015. http://avalon.law.yale.edu/20th_century/leagcov.asp#art22
Peel Commission Report on Palestine,
Public Domain, 1937, Jewish Virtual Library, 1937,
http://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/jsource/History/peel1.html
Söderblom, Jason. 2003.
"A State of Inequity: The UN Partition Plan of 1947." The
Terrorism Intelligence Centre, Canberra. (2003): 1-12. Accessed April 1, 2015. http://world-ice.com/Articles/Inequity.pdf
Wright, Quincy. 1968
"Legal aspects of the Middle East situation." Law and
Contemporary Problems (1968): 5-31.
Accessed on April 1, 2015.
http://scholarship.law.duke.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=3181&context=lcp
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