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determined period, pending final settlement of the question, and provided it was clearly understood that they were meant to lead to the independence of Palestine as a single democratic State. Failing agreement, the majority of the people of Palestine would carry out the provisions of Article 22 of the Covenant of the League of Nations and Article 28 of the Palestine mandate and proclaim an independent Government on 15th May. For the Jewish Agency, Moshe Shertok, characterized the trusteeship proposals as " totally unreal." The decision on partition had recognized that Palestine was ready for independence and that two nations already existed. Trusteeship violated both those basic realities. Partition was being carried out while the Assembly deliberated. The Jewish State already existed in fact, and the Jews would accept nothing less than a State, and nothing less than the area decided upon by the Assembly. Mr. Shertok called for firm action by the United Nations against threatened invasion from neighbouring Arab countries. At the conclusion of this general debate the Committee had before it the United States resolution to refer the trusteeship draft to the Fourth Committee and an Australian resolution (A/C/l/279) upholding the decision of November, 1947, and instructing the Palestine Commission to proceed with its tasks accordingly. The United States resolution received considerable opposition. The representative of the Soviet Union denied the right of the Committee even to discuss new proposals until the Assembly had formally revoked its previous decision on partition. Others pointed out that the American proposal was only a working paper and no formal proposal for trusteeship was before the Political Committee which could be referred to another Committee. Others, including New Zealand, considered that the principle of trusteeship should be approved in the First Committee before details were studied. It was apparent after considerable discussion that it was the sense of the majority of the Committee that the important aspects of the trusteeship proposal were primarily political and it was desirable to avoid a decision of principle either for or against partition or trusteeship before the terms of the trusteeship proposal were known in detail. It was therefore agreed that the First Committee should discuss the United States working paper. The ensuing discussion threw into sharper relief at least one of the points already made in the general debate. The representative of China argued that there was no single article in the Charter to justify the use of force to carry out partition, a stand taken by the United States in the Security Council, and this view was supported by Belgium, Pakistan, and the Arab States. Generally, these same States maintained that the only method whereby the General Assembly could even undertake to maintain law and order in Palestine was under the trusteeship