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{
    "localId": "290016844",
    "label": "Memorandum from Acting Secretary of State Robert Lovett to President Harry S. Truman, with Attachments",
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    "id": "290016844",
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    "contentType": "document",
    "title": "Memorandum from Acting Secretary of State Robert Lovett to President Harry S. Truman, with Attachments",
    "citationUrl": "https://catalog.archives.gov/id/290016844",
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        {
            "logicalDate": "1948-01-01",
            "year": 1948
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{
    "seq": 4,
    "pageIndex": 0,
    "type": "photo",
    "url": "https://s3.amazonaws.com/NARAprodstorage/lz/presidential-libraries/truman/hst-psf/602191/750343/750343-05-004.tif",
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    "ocrText": "NEW YORK TIMES\nMarch 30, 1948\nA STATESMAN\nSPEAKS\nText of a statement made on March 22, 1948\nby the Australian Minister for External Affairs,\nDeputy Prime Minister, and Chairman of the\nAd Hoc Committee on the Palestinian Question\nof the United Nations General Assembly,\nthe Right Honorable DR. HERBERT V. EVATT\nD\nECISIONS of a competent international conference should\nbe accepted after there has been full enquiry and fair\ndebate and a just settlement has been reached. Accordingly any\nsetting aside of the United Nations Assembly decision on Pales-\ntine must be closely scrutinized. It is impossible to examine the\nnew plan in detail because nothing definite is known about it.\nIt is said that \"Trusteeship\" will be the new solution. But the\nword itself is ambiguous. What does it mean? It certainly seems\nto imply that the peoples to be placed under \"Trusteeship\" are\nnot sufficiently \"advanced\" for self-government. Such a sugges-\ntion would seem to be untenable in relation either to the Pales-\ntinian Arabs or to the Palestinian Jews. If however, what is now\nMAN\nproposed is a temporary United Nations Trusteeship merely for\n\"NATIONAL\nARCHIVES AND\nthe purpose of carrying out the Assembly's decision it would be\nRECORDS\nSERVICE\"\na very different matter. But is that intended? The final decision\nwas reached in November last after two General Assemblies had\ndealt most carefully and exhaustively with the matter, after all\nparties were heard, and after a special Commission involving\nvery heavy United Nations expenditure had visited Palestine and\nreported in favor of the principles of the plan ultimately adopted\nin the Assembly. The plan adopted is inappropriately labeled\n\"partition\" because it involves four separate points: first, eco-\nnomic union of the whole of Palestine under the control of an\nauthority with a majority of United Nations membership; second,\npolitical division of Palestine into two new states, Jewish and\nArab; third, United Nations Trusteeship over Jerusalem and\nBethlehem; and fourth, full safeguards for the holy places and\nespecially for the Christian churches throughout the whole of\nPalestine. The only alternative plan suggested to the Assembly\nwas to establish a unitary state under Arab domination with no\nadequate safeguards for the protection either of the Jewish people\nor of the Christian churches. This alternative was plainly inad-\nmissible and was rejected by an overwhelming majority. The\nUnited Nations decision was reached by more than a two-thirds\nmajority, the only dissentients being the Arab States and certain\nnations very closely associated with them. The decision was a\njust and impartial one and must not be lightly set aside.\nThe United Nations did not intermeddle in the Palestine\nmatter. It intervened ,only after the United Kingdom Govern-\nment had especially requested the United Nations Assembly to\nhandle the matter, as all previous efforts at reconciliation be-\ntween the Arabs and Jews had entirely failed. At the United\nagain may be very damaging to the authority of the United Na-\ntions. It has been contended that the \"enforcement\" of the\nAssembly's decision is not possible. Had the great powers who\ncomported the proposal at Take Success New York adhered"
}