United Nations Committee Approves Partition Plan In Regard To Palestine

Wanganui Chronicle, 27 November 1947, Page 5

United Nations Committee Approves Partition Plan In Regard To Palestine

MATTER NOW NEEDS TWO-THIRDS MAJORITY OF THE ASSEMBLY b (N.Z P.A.—Reuter—Copyright.) Beeeived 5.5 p.m. NEW YORK, Nov. 25 The Palestine Committee today approved, by 25 votes to 13, with 17 the Soviet and American supported partition plan for the Holy Land. The proposal goes to the Assembly tomorrow for a final vote, with a two-thirds majority needed for adoption. Mahmoud Bey Fawzi (Egypt) immediately challenged the legality of the committee’s action. “I here reserve a Tight to consider this decision null and void,’’ he declared.

The partition plan calls for Britain to withdraw from Palestine by August 1, 1948, and the establishment of Arab and Jewish States by October 1. A fivenation United Nations Commission would be entrusted with administration during the transition period, and the Security Council would be responsible for implementing the plan.

. During the day the committee rejected a Pakistan amendment to have the whole question of the boundaries reconsidered by experts so that neither of the two States would have more than 10 per cent, of its area, exclusive of State and

waste lands, owned by residents of the other State. This would have reduced the area of the Jewish State by thousands of square miles. The committee approved without a yote a United States amendment giving the Arabs the Beersheba district and a section of the Negeb Desert near the Egyptian border. It was claimed this would make the division of the country more equitable. Sir Zafrullah Khan said the cession of a “useless piece of desert in the Negeb Desert” was a sham and an irony. “The United States apparently is trying to convince this committee, the General Assembly, and the world that it has done a noble thing in giving this strip,” he said. Among the nations voting for the partition were: The United States, Russia, Australia, Canada and South Africa.

Opponents were: Afghanistan, Cuba, Egypt, India, Iran, Iraq, Lebanon, Pakistan, Saudi Arabia, Siam, Syria, Turkey and Yemen. Abstainers were: New Zealand, Argentina. Belgium, China, Columbia, El Salvador, Ethiopia, France, Greece, Haiti, the Honduras, Liberia, Luxemburg, Mexico, the Netherlands, the United Kingdom and Yugoslavia. After the committee adjourned the chairman (Dr. Evatt, Australia), said Britain had acted with complete propriety as a member of the United Nations in bringing the Palestine issue before the Assembly. Britain had been unjustly criticised for the conduct of her mandate. “How difficult and, In fact impossible a task the mandate proved to be has been well shown by the United Nations’ special committee's investigations and the course of the fl eb , a 2S s ln the Palestine Committee itself,” said Dr. Evatt. “It remains a fact that under the mandate great development has been brought about in Palestine for both Jews and Arabs and the mandatory power is entitled to every credit for what it accomplished. The fact that this is recognised is shown by the objections now raised to the British withdrawal by some who have previously been vocal in criticism of the British handling of the mandate.”