U.N. Approves Partition Plan
The United Nations General Assembly passes Resolution 181 by a vote of 33-13 with 10 abstentions. The Resolution recommended the creation of separate Arab and Jewish states in Palestine, linked by an economic union.
Jewish Agency Accepts Partition Plan
David Ben-Gurion, the chairman of the Executive of the Jewish Agency since 1935, formally accepts the partition plan proposed by the United Nations Special Committee on Palestine (UNSCOP).
Arab Committee Rejects U.N. Partition Plan
September 29, 1947 The Arab Higher Committee for Palestine formally rejects the U.N. Special Committee on Palestine’s partition plan, which advocates for the division of the land into a separate Jewish and Arab states and…
U.N. Special Committee on Palestine Holds Final Meeting
The United Nations had set up UNSCOP in April 1947. Its purpose, like previous commissions that visited Palestine, is to investigate underlying causes for communal unrest and to make political recommendations about curtailing violence.
U.N. Special Committee on Palestine Formed
May 15, 1947 The United Nations establishes its Special Committee on Palestine, known as UNSCOP, to study and propose options for the future of British Mandatory Palestine. The committee’s formation comes in response to a…
Gromyko Addresses the United Nations
Soviet Foreign Minister Andrei Gromyko proposes a unitary state for Palestine, but vows to support partition if it is deemed the only workable solution.
Rabbi Abba Silver Addresses U.N. General Assembly
In his address, Abba Hillel Silver called upon UNSCOP to honor the 1917 Balfour Declaration.
Britain Seeks Special U.N. Panel on Palestine
April 2, 1947 The British government notifies the United Nations of its intent to bring the question of Palestine’s future before the next U.N. General Assembly. The United Kingdom also requests a special General Assembly…
The Truman Doctrine Is Delivered
In a speech delivered to a joint session of Congress, President Harry Truman outlines a new, decidedly anti-Soviet direction for American foreign policy.
Britain to Seek U.N. Help on Palestine
The British respond to rising violence in Mandatory Palestine by asking the United Nations to figure out what to do.
White Paper Didn’t Halt Land Sales, Report Finds
A Land Transfer Committee report reveals that Arabs in Palestine willingly continued to sell land to Zionists in the early 1940s despite the British legal prohibition on doing so.
Jewish Resistance Blows Up Rails Across Palestine
November 1, 1945 The newly formed Jewish Resistance Movement sets off explosions at more than 150 sites along the railway system of British Mandatory Palestine and blows up three British gunboats in the Jaffa and…
Harrison Report Confirms Deplorable Conditions of DP Camps
The Harrison Report, an inquiry into the conditions of displaced persons camps in occupied Germany, reveals that many of the rumors of poor treatment of Jews are indeed true and that “we appear to be treating the Jews as the Nazis treated them, except that we do not exterminate them.”
Bergen-Belsen Is Liberated
April 15, 1945 The British 11th Armored Division liberates the Nazis’ Bergen-Belsen concentration camp in northern Germany, discovering 60,000 starving prisoners, most of them seriously ill, and 13,000 unburied corpses. They are the remnants of…
Nazis Kill Palmach Paratrooper Haviva Reik
November 20, 1944 Haviva Reik and two other paratroopers from British Mandatory Palestine are among about 40 Jewish fighters executed by the Nazis after the suppression of an uprising in Slovakia. Reik, who was born…
Harold MacMichael Ends Term as High Commissioner of Palestine
Rattled by numerous attempts on his life, and fearing for the safety of his family, MacMichael steps down in August 1944.
U.S. Reveals It Will Not Bomb Nazi Death Camps
In a letter written to Leon Kubowitzki, head of the Rescue Department of the World Jewish Congress, US Assistant Secretary of War John J. McCloy states that the War Department would not order the bombing of Nazi Death Camps because they did not see it as a priority for US military resources.
U.S. Republican Convention Supports Jewish State in Palestine
At the 1944 Republican Party National Convention, New York Senator Thomas Dewey’s strong support for the establishment of a Jewish state in Palestine captures the attention of Zionists in Palestine and, more notably, American Jewry.
Extraordinary Zionist Conference Begins at Biltmore Hotel in New York
The Biltmore Conference will set the framework for Zionist policy in the years during and after World War II.
Russian Sub Sinks Refugee Ship Struma
After being mistaken as an enemy ship, the SS Struma, carrying nearly 800 Jewish refugees hoping to immigrate into Palestine, including 70 children, is sunk by a Russian submarine in the Black Sea.
Nazi Plan for “Final Solution” Is Drafted at Wannsee Conference
Nazis draw up a plan for the “Final Solution” of European Jewry in the Berlin suburb of Wannsee.
Louis Brandeis Dies
Louis Brandeis, retired United States Supreme Court Justice and celebrated American Zionist, passes away in Washington DC at the age of 84.
Munich Olympic Massacre Victim Yossef Romano Is Born
Weightlifter Yossef Romano, one of the eleven Israeli athletes murdered at the 1972 Munich Olympics, is born in Benghazi, Libya.
Mufti of Jerusalem Rejects Majority-Arab State
The Mufti has enormous power in his hands, yet he chooses non-engagement with the British, who controlled Palestine.
