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the widest possible order, and the constitution of the Committee is geographically well balanced on similar lines to those contemplated by the Charter for membership of the Security Council. It may fairly be said that, while the decisions of this Special Session of the Assembly are, of course, nothing more than an approach to this extremely difficult problem, it is nevertheless a good approach. I have, &c., C. A. BERENDSEN. ANNEX A 1. STATEMENT BY THE REPRESENTATIVE OF THE JEWISH AGENCY FOR PALESTINE MADE AT THE MEETING OF THE FIRST COMMITTEE ON 8 MAY, 1947 Dr Abba Hillel Silver : Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman and representatives of the United Nations. I should like to say at the outset that were Mr David Ben-Gurion, Chairman of the Jewish Agency for Palestine, here this morning, he would be making this statement. Unfortunately, the arrival of Mr Ben-Gurion has been delayed. He will be here to-morrow, and I hope that in the course of the deliberations he will have an opportunity to participate here. Permit me to thank the Assembly of the United Nations for granting the Jewish Agency for Palestine a hearing on the question which is before this Committee. We are grateful for the opportunity to take counsel with you in the matter of constituting and instructing a Special Committee of this body, which is to study the problem of Palestine and to bring in recommendations for the future government of that country. We trust that our participation in these deliberations will be helpful and will prove to be a contribution to the just solution of this grave international problem which this international community is now earnestly seeking. Such a successful solution will prove a blessing not only to Palestine and to all its inhabitants, to the Jewish people, to the cause of world peace, but it will also enhance the moral authority and prestige of this great organization for world justice and peace upon which so many high hopes of mankind now rest. We are pleased that the Palestine problem will now be reviewed by an international body and that the thought and conscience of mankind will now be brought to bear on a situation which heretofore, and for some years now, has been made extremely difficult by unilateral action and by decisions made, presumably within the terms of a mandatory trust, but actually without the sanction or supervision of the international body which established that trust and which defined both its limits and its purposes. The administration of Palestine has, since the outbreak of the war, been conducted by the mandatory Power as if it were vested with the sovereignty of Palestine ; whereas it is assumed to administer that country, of which it was not the sovereign, as a trustee for carrying out the purposes of the mandate which clearly defined its rights and its obligations.