June 2, 1948
After more than six months of pushing to undo the U.N. partition resolution of November 1947, the U.S. State Department acknowledges that Israel is likely to survive its War of Independence. Philip Jessup, a U.S. deputy at the United Nations, sends a memo titled “Final Solution in Palestine” to the U.S. ambassador to the U.N., former Sen. Warren Austin, to address future U.S. policy in the Middle East on the basis of three assumptions:
- “There will be a State of Israel.” Therefore, a policy priority should be to encourage more countries to officially recognize Israel in the belief that more support for the new state will make it easier for its Arab neighbors to accept its existence.
- “There must also be an Arab State in Palestine.” But it’s not known whether the citizens of that state would accept King Abdullah of Transjordan as their leader.
- “There must be close relations between the Jewish and Arab states in Palestine, especially on economic lines.” This relationship could take the form of an economic union or a shared commonwealth under a U.N.-appointed leader overseeing foreign relations and finance.
The memo supports full empowerment of a U.N. mediator to negotiate during a four-week ceasefire, suggests strengthening a U.N. truce commission with high-ranking American, French and Belgian members, and proposes a boundary commission to resolve borders. Significantly, Jessup writes that both the plan for Jerusalem and the borders between the Jewish and Arab states could be changed from U.N. General Assembly Resolution 181.
In May 1967 when U.N. peacekeeping forces were precipitously withdrawn from the Sinai Peninsula at the demand of Egypt, the United States cited Jessup’s memo in response, stuck to its own decision not to station troops in the area and supported the appointment of an international truce commission.
