United Nations Special Committee on Palestine Holds Final Meeting

August 31, 1947

UNSCOP (the United Nations Special Committee on Palestine) has its 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 committee has representatives from 11 nations: Australia, Canada, Czechoslovakia, Guatemala, India, Iran, the Netherlands, Peru, Sweden, Uruguay and Yugoslavia. Its final report contains a majority proposal (endorsed by the representatives of eight of the 11 nations, excluding Iran, India and Yugoslavia) for the partition of British Mandate of Palestine into two states with an economic union, as well as a minority proposal (endorsed by Iran, India and Yugoslavia) for a federal state with Arab and Jewish states within it. The Jewish Agency accepts partition; the Arab Higher Committee for Palestine rejects it. The United Nations votes to approve the partition plan Nov. 29, 1947.