Page image

7

Charter the Assembly had authority to accept responsibility far beyond its powers of recommendation. The truce and the trusteeship proposal together envisaged a military and political standstill to safeguard human life and make possible further negotiations on a final political settlement. Both truce and trusteeship would be without prejudice to the rights, claims, or position of the parties concerned or to the character of the eventual settlement. Mr. Austin said that the question of joint responsibility for the security of the proposed trusteeship had been discussed with certain other Governments, but without tangible results at that stage. The United States, however, was willing to undertake its share of responsibility for the provision of police forces in co-operation with other members which might be selected by the General Assembly and which were willing to carry out such a task in accordance with the provisions of the Charter. The United States was not prepared to act alone. The main provisions of the draft trusteeship agreement presented by the United States delegation as a working paper were—(l) That it should be " without prejudice to the rights, claims, or position of the two parties concerned or to the character of the eventual settlement " : (2) That the United Nations itself should be the administering authority (acting through the Trusteeship Council and enlisting the aid of other organs, such as the Economic and Social Council, wherever desirable) : (3) That there should be a form of responsible Government with a single cabinet (composed of Jews and Arabs), but that the Governor-General, appointed by and responsible to the Trusteeship Council, should have virtually unlimited powers as the chief executive and administrative authority in Palestine : (4) That the Governor-General should be responsible for the maintenance of law and order and should be empowered to call upon certain Governments (not named in the draft) to assist in the defence of Palestine or in the maintenance of law and order; (5) " (i) In order to enable the inhabitants of Palestine to attain full self-government as soon as possible it shall be the responsibility of the Governor-General to take all possible steps to bring about agreement between the Palestinian Jewish and Arab communities, acting through their representatives in the Legislature, upon a plan of Government for Palestine ; " (ii) This agreement will terminate : (a) As soon as the General Assembly has approved a plan of Government agreed upon in accordance with paragraph (i) above and such plan of Government is established ; or

Log in or create a Papers Past website account

Use your Papers Past website account to correct newspaper text.

By creating and using this account you agree to our terms of use.

Log in with RealMe®

If you’ve used a RealMe login somewhere else, you can use it here too. If you don’t already have a username and password, just click Log in and you can choose to create one.


Log in again to continue your work

Your session has expired.

Log in again with RealMe®


Alert