Oh, Look, A Palestine Solution

Proposed March 1944

• 1. With the failure of twenty-five years of government in Palestine, a radically different settlement, freed from the commitments arising from World War I, seems to be required.
• 2. A Trusteeship for Palestine exercised by the three religious groups would be a failure. However, there is moral and political justification for the proposal that the three principal religious groups should be associated with the future plan of government.
• 3. It is recommended that Palestine be constituted as an International Territory under a charter; that a great power be appointed Trustee; that a Board of Overseers representing the three world religions be set up as an advisory body. The reasons and conditions that support this recommendation are as follows:
  • a. The administrator of Palestine must be capable of firm, decisive and prompt action. This requires experienced officials under central control.
  • b. Firm, decisive and prompt action cannot be taken if sectarian and political differences are allowed to exercise their divisive and delaying influences.
  • c. The political and economic problems being highly complex and interwoven with hitherto irreconcilable religious differences, only a centralized and experienced rulership will guarantee justice.
• 4. It is recommended that the Trusteeship should be awarded to Great Britain by the United Nations Organization under the charter. The charter would recognize the interest in Palestine of Christians, Jews, and Muslims. It would establish the Arab and Jewish communities as autonomous political entities with wide powers of local self-government.
• 5. The advantages of the proposed settlement are:
• a. It would eliminate the difficulties that arise because of the conflicting commitments of the past.
• b. It would place Palestine outside the bounds of both nationalist and imperialist ambitions.
• c. It would provide means by which to solve the basic economic problems.
• d. It offers a better prospect than any other plan yet proposed for cooperation in the government of Palestine and for eventual self-government of the people of Palestine.

Another example of State Department discombobulation.

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