—PALESTINE and the MIDDLE EAST-N
PALESTINE AND MIDDLE EAST 409 —PALESTINE AND THE MIDDLE EAST-n By H. Lowenberg— PALESTINE THE YEAR BEGINNINO June, 1947, and ending May, 1948 was among the most crucial and critical periods in Palestine's modern history. The United Nations' historic partition decision of November 29, 1947, divided the year into two halves, each of different importance for the Yishuv and indeed for all Jewry: the uneasy peace before, and the commu- nal war after the UN decision; the struggle to find a solution to the Palestine problem before, and to prepare for and defend the Jewish state after that fateful day. Outside Palestine, in the Middle East as a whole, the UN partition decision and the Arab rebellion against it, left a mark scarcely less profound than in Palestine itself. UNSCOP On May 13, 1947, the special session of the General As- sembly of the United Nations created the United Nations Special Committee on Palestine (UNSCOP) with instructions to "prepare and report to the General Assembly and submit such proposals as it may consider appropriate for the solution of the problem of Palestine . not later than September ,1, 1947." In Palestine, the Arabs followed news of UNSCOP with apparent indifference. They adopted an attitude of hostil- ity towards the Committee, and greeted it with a two-day protest strike starting on June 15, 1947. Thereafter, they 410 AMERICAN JEWISH YEAR BOOK took no further notice of the Committee, the Arab press even obeying the Mufti's orders not to print any mention of UNSCOP. This worried the Committee, as boycott by one side to the dispute might mean a serious gap in its fact finding.
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