John Worth
That is the second put up in a two-part sequence based mostly on a just lately printed article within the Worldwide Journal, “Resisting Palestine’s Partition: Elizabeth MacCallum, the Arab World and UN Decision 181(II).”Half One is out there right here.
The stability of proof does counsel that Canada contributed greater than every other nation, together with the USA, to the institution of Israel. As such, Canada has appreciable accountability for the a number of million Palestinian Arabs who have been forcibly displaced to make method for the brand new state of Israel, or integrated into it as second class residents.”
World Affairs Canada official Peyton Lyon (Behind the Headlines, 1998)
Lester Pearson led the drive for the United Nations to partition Palestine, a feat seemingly completed with the passage of UN Decision 181(II) on November 29, 1947, recommending the creation of a Jewish state, a Palestinian state, and worldwide management over Jerusalem. Pearson would without end defend his actions because the “better of all options.” and “the one resolution that may carry peace and order to Palestine.”
As shall turn out to be evident, Pearson’s predictions proved broadly off the mark, however a liberal narrative about Pearson (winner of the 1957 Nobel Peace Prize, international affairs minister, after which prime minister of Canada) as an sincere dealer persists. This, and Zionism’s persevering with affect has tethered Canadian international coverage to help for Israel.
Inside Canada’s international affairs division, nevertheless, dissent has existed because the quote from Peyton Lyon cited above illustrates. And up to date research corresponding to Ardi Imseis’s The United Nations and the Query of Palestine have helped unearth a distinct appreciation of what occurred on the UN in 1947. Constructing on these insights, an in depth studying of the archive reveals an anti-racist story of resistance that generated actual options to partition – options that demand cautious consideration in mild of the present atrocities happening in Palestine.
This story of resistance on the UN contains Palestinian representatives, Arab states, and far of what’s now known as the World South. It additionally contains folks corresponding to Elizabeth Pauline MacCallum, a newly minted officer in Pearson’s staff on the UN who fought Pearson’s partition plan tooth and nail. She was, in line with Peyton Lyon, “the federal government’s solitary Center East skilled, admired by each Arabs and Jews.”[1] Different members of the Canadian delegation, together with James Ilsley, the minister of justice, and parliamentarian Walter Harris, additionally challenged Pearson.
In mild of this opposition, how did the proposal for partition ever move?
A radical assessment of the 1947 occasions reveals a chaotic course of by which Pearson’s regular, skilful, and strategic advocacy in help of Zionism would overcome most objections and end in a constructive vote for partition – however one which had no authorized authority and whose ethical authority was undermined by a vote-rigging marketing campaign on the a part of US president Harry Truman.
A primary step for Pearson was to get the Canadian delegation onside – no straightforward feat. He and principal advisor to the delegation, Gerry Riddell, ready a press release supporting partition that justice minister James Ilsley, the spokesperson for the Canadian delegation, was to current on the UN the next day.
Parliamentarian Walter Harris, who attended the preparatory assembly that night recorded that James Ilsley was “extraordinarily vehement that he didn’t wish to make a speech on the topic with out understanding the precise and unsuitable.” He demanded that Elizabeth MacCallum be consulted. MacCallum had not been invited to the night assembly.
Pearson reported to Canada’s minister of international affairs that Ilsley was upset as a result of the draft place didn’t make “any effort to fulfill the very sturdy ethical and political claims which the Arabs have made, despite the truth that we’re making a call primarily towards their pursuits.” Having been expressly invited to specific her views on the draft assertion, MacCallum rapidly chimed in, warning that questions is likely to be raised in parliament “whether or not Canada has any proper to insist on the partition of Palestine towards the needs of virtually the entire Arab inhabitants and of at the very least a considerable minority of the Jews.”[2]
She known as for a coverage that supplied Jewish equality world wide; the clearing of refugee centres in Europe; an inexpensive Jewish immigration quota for Palestine; and equality in procedures for Jewish emigration. This is able to permit, she wrote, for “an undivided Palestine having fun with a democratic type of Authorities below a United Nations Trusteeship”.
Pearson and international minister Louis St. Laurent ignored MacCallum and Ilsley, arranging for cupboard to move a decision endorsing partition. Pearson had received spherical one.
However new challenges rapidly appeared. The federal government’s authorized advisors instructed Pearson that the UN Constitution didn’t authorize the UN to create new states, arguing that the one choice was the creation of a UN trusteeship over Palestine. Pearson rejected this selection as a result of the rules for UN trusteeships specified that Palestine’s neighbouring states, on this case Lebanon, Syria, Iraq, and Egypt, would have a significant say in any trusteeship over Palestine.
Rejecting the trusteeship choice, Pearson as a substitute got here up with the thought of making a Palestine Fee composed of 5 UN states that may, with supposed Safety Council backing, oversee partition. Inside the Canadian delegation, MacCallum argued that the plan wouldn’t work. Once more, Pearson ignored her recommendation however as a result of his plan had the help of each the US and Soviet delegations, it appeared as a viable choice. Ultimately it will show to be a useless letter, as MacCallum had predicted.
MacCallum, with others, had early on identified that the UN Constitution didn’t permit the UN to create states. This view was additionally taken up by Arab and different delegations from the worldwide south who proposed that the Worldwide Court docket of Justice (ICJ) be requested for an advisory opinion: “Whether or not the United Nations, or any of its Member States, is competent to implement, or suggest the enforcement of, any proposal in regards to the structure and future authorities of Palestine, specifically, any plan of partition which is opposite to the needs, or adopted with out the consent, of the inhabitants of Palestine.”
The vote on referral to the ICJ was exceedingly shut, rejected by the slimmest of all margins 21 to twenty, with 13 abstentions. Canada voted towards the referral. If it had voted for the referral, the movement would have handed 21-20. Pearson’s reasoning – there was no time for a referral.
Within the closing days of deliberation, the two-thirds majority essential for the partition decision to move remained doubtful. The Philippines consultant instructed the Normal Meeting, “The Philippines regrets its incapability to approve of or to take part in an answer of the Palestine drawback that may contain the encouragement of political disunion and the enforcement of measures that may quantity to the territorial mutilation of the Holy Land.”
Cuba, additionally intently allied to the US, declared that “partition of Palestine is neither authorized nor simply.” This ongoing opposition led the New York Occasions to report, “The truth that Greece, Haiti, and the Philippines introduced on Wednesday that they might oppose partition, along with apparently dependable indications that Liberia additionally would accomplish that, induced common bewilderment.”
A final-minute bid to pause the proceedings and interact in conciliation among the many events handed 25 votes to fifteen – a closing demonstration of the thirst for compromise. Arab states rapidly caucused and got here up with a conciliatory six-point plan for an impartial Palestine based mostly on a federal construction with “Arab and Jewish” cantons. The Iranian delegate made clear that the plan was severe and had the backing of all Arab states. Conscious of this necessary improvement by way of her contacts with Iraq’s international minister, Elizabeth MacCallum made a closing effort to persuade Riddell to help conciliation: “He shrugged his shoulders,” saying the “Arabs have been bluffing.”
Ultimately, the UN chair dominated that the vote on partition had priority over the Arab proposal. The ultimate vote was 33 for, 13 towards, with 10 abstentions.
How had the partition vote handed?
We now know that US president Harry Truman demanded that states reliant on US help, together with the Philippines, Haiti, Liberia, and France, swap their vote, or else. Most did, with the decision lastly being handed on the final day of the UN session, November 29.
Fairly than bringing “peace and order” to Palestine, nevertheless, Decision 181(II) instantly provoked battle and battle. The Palestinian management instantly known as for a common strike, and Zionist forces mobilized to realize management of the land utilizing Decision 181(II) as justification regardless that Canadian, US, and UK authorized opinions underscored that the “[UN] Constitution doesn’t authorize the Meeting to create new states in Palestine or elsewhere.”
The UN tried to intervene to halt the battle however with solely restricted outcomes. Decision 181 (II) unleashed a battle that has continued now for over seventy-five years and the UN considers the Israel-Palestine conflict “probably the most severe menace to peace with which the United Nations should contend.”
Standard accounts would have us consider that Elizabeth MacCallum and the Arab states ‘misplaced’ the combat on the United Nations in 1947. But, the resistance on the a part of MacCallum and the Arab world generated actual options to partition, together with establishing a brand new UN trusteeship, referring the matter to the Worldwide Court docket of Justice, or partaking in conciliation based mostly on the Arab states’ concessions of late November.
That Lester Pearson with the representatives of the US and different settler colonial states made each effort to stop UN consideration of those options displays a deep-seated anti-Palestinian and anti-Arab racism that, sadly, continues to permeate Canadian coverage. The world and the UN have been the actual losers in 1947, with Palestinians paying the value. A lot has modified since 1947 and at the moment Israel at the moment finds itself earlier than the Worldwide Court docket of Justice on costs of genocide. If Canada had voted to carry the problem earlier than the ICJ in 1947, this international tragedy might need been prevented.
Immediately, the admonition of Peyton Lyon concerning Canada’s accountability in the direction of Palestinians rings louder than ever earlier than.
John Worth is a historian and anti-racist educator on the College of Victoria. He’s the writer of Orienting Canada: Race, Empire and the Transpacific (UBC Press, 2011); The BC Authorities and the Dispossession of Japanese Canadians, 1941-1949(2020); and co-author of each Difficult Racist “British Columbia”: 150 years and Counting (2021), and 1923: Difficult Racisms Previous and Current (2023).
Notes
[1] Peyton Lyon, Behind the Headlines, 56.1 (October-December 1998).
[2] Elizabeth MacCallum, “Touch upon Draft Assertion on Palestine, October 13, 1947 (LAC, RG25, V. 5745, 47-B-(S), Pt 2.). Elizabeth MacCallum grew to become Canada’s first feminine head of mission when she was appointed chargé d’affaires of the brand new legation in Lebanon in 1954. She retired in 1960 and was awarded the Order of Canada in 1967. She assisted the listening to impaired in Ottawa till her demise in 1985.
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