Crisis 1948: Palestine

Transcription

1 HOUSTON AREA MODEL UNITED NATIONS Crisis 1948: Palestine Historical Background The Great War Centuries before the modern system of states, the region of Palestine had known peoples of different ethnicities, religions, and cultures. Jews had lived in Jerusalem for millennia under the rule of Christians and Muslims. Arabs, as well, had occupied Palestine for centuries, and in far greater number than the minority Jewish population. Between the sixteenth and twentieth centuries, both resided in relative peace under religiously tolerant Ottoman rule. During the First World War, Britain saw the Arab population of the Ottoman Empire as a weapon for use in their anti-turkish and anti-german arsenal. The British Ambassador to Egypt, Sir Henry McMahon, persuaded the Arab Palestinians that if they would revolt against their Turkish leaders, Palestine would become their own state. Unfortunately for the Arabs, McMahon s promises were diluted within a year of their creation. In an effort to rally domestic support for WWI from the Jewish community, British Foreign Secretary Arthur Balfour appealed to Zionists, those people who favored a Jewish state, with a pledge to create a Jewish state in Palestine. The French and Italian governments almost immediately endorsed the Balfour Resolution, as the statement came to be known, while the United States approved it in both the 1922 United States Congress and the American-British Palestine Mandate Convention of Thus the League of Nations tasked Britain with creating a safe haven for Jews in Palestine. In the aftermath of WWI, Britain received the mandate over Palestine with two incompatible statements of intent: form an Arab state and a Jewish one. The Interwar Period, and WWII Jewish immigration into Palestine remained low in the first decade after World War I. Well- established communities did not see a reason to immediately pack up for a foreign land, and persecuted Jews in the Soviet Union could not escape their borders. This allowed the Jewish minority and Arab majority to coexist without significant disruption under British rule. In the mid-1930s, Europe came under assault from Nazism. The numbers of immigrants entering Palestine annually increased by thousands each year. By 1940 Germany had gained strict control over almost all European nations, stopping the flow of people who would otherwise flee Europe. Adolph Hitler then initiated the Final Solution, rounding up millions of Jews into labor and death camps. The psychopathic extent of Nazi Germany s anti-semitism depended on completely annihilating the race, and by the close of World War II they very nearly succeeded. More than six million Jews lay dead. Those that remained returned to bleak conditions in their home countries: destroyed houses, deceased relatives, property stolen by neighbors. Those who had not seen a reason to flee to Palestine before now wished to arrive there immediately. The Jewish population in Palestine now looked large enough to demand political independence. Zionists believed they had the opportunity to finally create Israel. Arab citizens, by this point, regarded the changing population with suspicion and fear. They knew that the Zionists wished to make a Jewish state from the land in current Palestine. 1

2 UNSCOP Great Britain, concerned about their ability to keep peace in the region, asked for help from the newly formed United Nations. In 1947 the Special Committee on Palestine (UNSCOP) formed within the UN to discuss potential paths forward. Britain itself refused to implement any plan without both Jewish and Arab consent, an increasingly unlikely option. A few months later the Britain government declared that they would withdraw on May 15, 1948, regardless of whether other governments were set up to take the responsibility or not. UNSCOP decided unanimously that the termination of the mandate was just, and the committee came up with two plans for administrating Palestine after the British left. The majority of UNSCOP favored a partition plan, under which both an Arab state and a Jewish state would be created. A minority of members suggested a federated state with regional governments. On November 29, 1947, UNSCOP dissolved after the UN General Assembly voted for partition in Resolution 181 (the proposed partition line pictured above). Both Arab and Jewish sides declared the partition unworkable. Arabs opposed the idea of partition, but reiterated that in particular this plan unfairly gave a majority of the land to the Jewish state, despite Jews remaining a minority in the Palestinian mandate territory. Both sides complained about the distribution of agricultural land the Jews pointing out that the majority of their land would be in the Negev Desert, and the Arabs protesting Jewish access to the Mediterranean sea. 2

3 The Present 1948 and the End of the Palestinian Mandate Internal strife constantly intensified. Neither Jewish nor Arab groups appeared to lack deadly weapons. Sniping occurred regularly in Jerusalem. Where conventional arms were lacked, homemade weapons were improvised. Bombs and roadblocks troubled the British peacekeepers, and rumors of food shortages in the Jewish quarters of the Old City began before January In response to the chaos, Britain officially ceased Jewish immigration into the territory. Jews who attempted passage into Palestine faced arrest, deportation, or indefinite interment on Cyprus. By February there were frequent incidents of violence against civilians and soldiers on both sides. Early this year the United States suggested two forms of an international trusteeship over the state of Palestine. The first, the Great Powers Police Force, borrowed military and administrative personnel from the five powers with vetoes in the Security Council [China, France, U.S.S.R., United Kingdom, United States]. Alternatively, a Medium Powers Police Force be comprised of personnel from a larger group of nations. Arab Forces The Arab League formed in 1944 in Cairo, with representatives from Egypt, Iraq, Lebanon, North Yemen, Saudi Arabia, Transjordan, and Palestinian Arabs. The Palestinian Arabs themselves were left leaderless after the Grand Mufti of Jerusalem was sent into exile in Europe and then Egypt eight years before. After the war, the Arab league established the Arab Higher Committee as the supreme executive body of Palestinian Arabs in the British mandatory territory. But the committee fell to infighting within a year, once again leaving the Palestinian Arabs without one true voice in the Arab League. The Arab League has opposed all attempts to recognize or establish a Jewish state. Infighting between the states party to the League causes problems in unifying against the threat. While all of the present countries feel threatened by the influx of Palestinian refugees fleeing to the neighboring Arab states and responded with great rhetoric against the Jewish leaders, the nations have been slow to act in granting troops or making concrete commitments. Questions of motivations have followed the actions of such leaders, particularly those of King Abdullah I of Transjordan, who has traditionally held close ties to the British government. It is critical for the Arab League to quickly decide how to proceed. Is the Palestine question a truly unifying cause which can bring together the armies of the nations of Islam? What will each country contribute? How much force is necessary to defeat the Jewish militias? Jewish Forces Slightly before WWII was officially declared, the Jewish Agency created a committee focused on bringing European Jews into Palestine. After the war ended and the British banned Jewish immigration into Palestine, the agency continued to bring in ships full of refugees, often intercepted by the British authorities. The Haganah, the militant wing of the Jewish Agency, has been concerning itself with security of Jewish people inside mandatory Palestine. More than that, however, there are reports that they have been arming the Jews of Palestine quite heavily. The King David Hotel bombing and the subsequent arrest of many Jewish Agency leaders caused the Haganah to detach itself from the armed activity against the British. The Haganah and the more extreme Jewish armed groups the Irgun and the Lehi were allied for a time against the British forces as a result of Great Britain banning Jewish immigration into the territory. Together they formed the Jewish Resistance Movement. After the November 29 th vote in the General Assembly, which favored ending the mandate and installing a two state solution, the Irgun and Lehi refocused their attacks on British targets. 3

4 Meanwhile questions within the Jewish community remain to be answered. Should a state of Israel be declared, or is it better for all involved to simply safeguard the rights of Jewish residents inside a wider state? How can the aims of different factions within the community be reconciled? Is violence against British and Arab forces the approach necessary to form a state? Crisis in the UNSC Under the United Nations Charter, the Security Council has primary responsibility for the maintenance of international peace and security. The 11 members of the Security Council (5 permanent and 6 rotating) each have one vote, though only the five permanent members have the ability to veto proposals. As a new international body, the Palestinian crisis brings new questions of international diplomacy to the table. How should the Security Council proceed? Are any of the proposals currently set forth a viable option? What power does the UN have to interfere in the territory of Palestine, before and after the British mandate expires on May 15? Resources Collins, Larry and Lapierre, Dominique (1973) O Jerusalem!", Pan Books. ISBN Benny Morris (2008). 1948: a history of the first Arab-Israeli war. Yale University Press. Characters UNSC 1. Argentina 2. Belgium 3. Canada 4. China 5. Colombia 6. France 7. Syrian Arab Republic 8. Ukrainian Soviet Socialist Republic 9. Union of Soviet Socialist Republics 10. United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland 11. United States of America Jewish Coalition 1. David Ben-Gurion A Zionist politician. 2. Golda Meir A head of the Jewish Agency, and responsible for raising over $50,000,000 two months previously in order to purchase arms in Europe for the Zionist cause. 3. Mickey Marcus An American Army colonel who came to the Palestinian territories to offer assistance to the Zionist cause. 4. Menachem Begin Leader of the Irgun, a militant Zionist organization. 5. Moshe Dayan A member of the Haganah, the militant wing of the Jewish Agency. 6. Moshe Sharett A Zionist friend to Ben Gurion, and head of the Foreign Policy wing of the Jewish Agency. 7. Yaakov Dori Former head of the Haganah, and previously sent to the US to purchase arms. 8. Yigal Allon A politician and commander of the Palmach. 9. Yisrael Galili - Chief of Staff for the Haganah, 4

5 10. Yitzhak Rabin The Chief Operations Officer of the Palmach. 11. Yitzhak Shamir - Leader of Lehi, a Zionist paramilitary group. Coalition of Arab States 1. Abdulaziz (Ibn Saud) The Monarch of Saudi Arabia. 2. Abd al-qadir al-husayni A Palestinian Arab, and a founder of the Organization for Holy Struggle (The Army of the Holy War) 3. Azzam Pasha (Abdul Hassan Azzam) - The Secretary General of the Arab League 4. Fawzi al-qawuqji The Commander of the Arab Liberation Army (ALA). 5. Hasan Salama A Palestinian Arab, and a founder of the Organization for Holy Struggle (The Army of the Holy War). 6. Husni al-za'im The Chief of Staff of Syria. 7. Jamal al-husayni - Founder of the Palestinian Arab Party. 8. King Farouk I The King of Egypt and the Sudan. 9. King Abdullah I The King of Transjordan. 10. Mohammed Amin al-husseini A Muslim leader in Palestine. 11. Muzahim Ameen al-pachachi The Prime Minister of Iraq. 12. Sir John Bagot Glubb (Glubb Pasha) A British military general who commands Transjordan's Arab Legion. 13. Riad Al Solh - A leader in the Arab League. 14. Yahya Muhammad Hamid ed-din The Imam of Yemen. Research Suggestions The information provided in this guide is cursory, and delegates ought to perform additional research in order to expand their knowledge, and be prepared to speak persuasively. Information on all of these characters is available, and if a character s stance on one subject in particular cannot be found then make estimates based on what else you know of them. Wikipedia can be a good starting point, but it is advised to check the sources instead of relying on the Wikipedia pages themselves, particularly with a subject as contentious as the 1948 Palestine War (otherwise known as the 1948 Arab-Israeli War). Always consider the reliability of a source. The simulation is set to begin on the first of March, Address any questions to crisis@houstanareamun.org. 5