United Nations Special Committee on Palestine Holds Final Meeting

August 31, 1947

UNSCOP (United Nations Special Committee on Palestine) has final meeting.

The United Nations had set up UNSCOP in April 1947. Its purpose, like previous commissions that visited Palestine, was to investigate underlying causes for communal unrest and to make political recommendations about next political steps.

The UNSCOP committee included eleven nations: Australia, Canada, Czechoslovakia, Guatemala, India, Iran, Netherlands, Peru, Sweden, Uruguay, and Yugoslavia. The report contained a majority proposal (endorsed by the representatives of 8 of the 11 nations, excluding Iran, India & Yugoslavia) which proposed a partition into two states with an economic union, and a minority proposal (endorsed by Iran, India & Yugoslavia) which proposed an independent federal state with Arab and Jewish states within it.

The photo above shows Chaim Weizmann giving his testimony to UNCSOP on July 8, 1947

A press release about the final meeting is on the UN’s website.