The Outsider: Elizabeth P. MacCallum, the Canadian Department of External Affairs, and the Palestine Mandate to 1947 by Richard Newport A thesis submitted to the Faculty of Graduate and Postdoctoral Affairs in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy in History Carleton University Ottawa, Canada © 2014 Richard Newport i Abstract Elizabeth Pauline MacCallum was Canada’s leading expert on the Middle East in the first part of the twentieth century. From 1925 to 1935, as a research analyst and author for the Foreign Policy Association (FPA), she gained international recognition for her scholarship on the problems and challenges confronting the Middle East and the British Mandate in Palestine, the central ground of dispute between the Arab and Jewish peoples. MacCallum joined Canada’s Department of External Affairs (DEA) in 1942, not as a regional specialist, but as a wartime clerk. Where there had been previously no clear official thinking regarding the Middle East, MacCallum, using a combination of expertise and persistence, slowly gained recognition among her peers for her understanding of the region. The purpose of this thesis is to examine MacCallum’s ideas about the Middle East by investigating the foundation, development, and substance of her ideas about the region. The thesis also identifies the role that she played in the Department of External Affairs and interrogates the manner in which she applied her ideas as a member of the DEA. In particular, this study assesses her part in the making of Canada’s first policy towards the Middle East, which came together in 1947. In assessing MacCallum’s ideas and her role as a member of the Department of External Affairs during the period 1942-1947, the thesis contends that she can best be understood as an outsider — a specialist in a department of generalists, a woman in a department of men, and an Arabist in a department dominated by Eurocentric and balance of power thinking. The thesis explores her efforts to put into practice her ideas as a basis ii for Canada’s approach to the Arab-Zionist dispute. The thesis further demonstrates that MacCallum made clear the dangers that the problem of Palestine posed to international peace and security, and the likely split that it would cause among the Great Powers over the territory’s fate. She opposed the division of Palestine between its Arab and Jewish peoples in 1947 and predicted the Middle Eastern war soon to come. iii Table of Contents Abstract……………………….……………………...…………………………...……….ii Introduction……………………….…………………………………………...….……….1 Chapter 1 An All-Embracing Imperialism, 1925-41…………..……………...………….27 A Balanced Skepticism………………….……………………………..…………..27 MacCallum and the Imperialists……..…………………………….………………31 The Great War and Great Power Maneuverings…….……………….……………38 MacCallum and Wartime Agreements……………………………….……………49 Mandates, Protectorates, and Alliance Treaties……………………..….………….57 Tolstoy’s Farm, Back to New York and Home Again……..………….…..………68 Conclusion…………………………………………………………..…….……….75 Chapter 2 An Insider’s (and a Male’s) Department of External Affairs, 1942-43……....78 Entering External Affairs…………………………………………………………..78 A Political Department, A Narrow Department………………………...…………85 Gravitating Around Men………………...…………………………………………93 MacCallum’s Entry into External………………………………………………….99 iv Conclusion……………………………………………………..…………………105 Chapter 3 A Voice Beginning to be Heard, 1944-45……...…………..………………..108 Britain’s Early Palestine Policies and MacCallum’s Reactions………………….110 The Arab Rebellion, Peel, and Woodhead………………………………………..129 The MacDonald White Paper of 1939………………………………..…....……..139 Emergent Canadian Government Thinking on Palestine…………………..……..144 Conclusion…………………………………………………………….………….170 Chapter 4 San Francisco: MacCallum and Canada at the Margins, 1945…….......….172 The Making of a Delegation…………………………………………….………..173 MacCallum, Trusteeship, and Palestine………………………………..…………179 “There is Really Nothing to be Discussed There”……………….……………….192 Anglo-American Differences, and Canada in the Middle……….……………….199 The Working Paper on Trusteeship………………………………………………213 Trusteeship Confirmed, Palestine Unresolved…………………….…………...…230 Conclusion……………………………………………………….……………….235 v Chapter 5 Palestine and MacCallum’s Warnings, 1945-46………………..………..…239 Transformations……………………………...…...………………………………240 Canada’s Growing Unease and MacCallum’s Concerns.………..……………….247 MacCallum, External Affairs, and the Anglo-American Dispute….…...………..258 The Anglo-American Report and MacCallum’s Responses……………………...273 Conclusion……………………………………………………………….……….300 Chapter 6 Pearson’s Triumph, MacCallum’s Tragedy: Palestine 1947……………...303 Moving Palestine to New York…………………………………………..………305 An UNSCOP in View…………………………………………………..………...317 An UNSCOP Investigation and MacCallum’s Misgivings………………………325 “Cutting the Palestinian Knot”…………………………………………….……..333 The Ad Hoc Committee and a MacCallum Opportunity………...…….…………341 The Ascendance of Pearson, and MacCallum’s Continued Opposition……..…...359 Conclusion………………………………………………………….…………….371 Conclusion………………………………………………………………...…………….374 Bibliography…………………………………...……………………..…………………385 vi Introduction Elizabeth Pauline MacCallum was Canada’s leading expert on the Near and Middle East in the first part of the twentieth century.1 From 1925 to 1935, as a research analyst and author for the Foreign Policy Association (FPA), she gained international recognition for her scholarship on the problems and challenges confronting the Middle East, and Palestine in particular. MacCallum joined Canada’s Department of External Affairs (DEA) in 1942, not as a regional specialist, but as a wartime clerk. Where there had been previously no clear official thinking regarding the Middle East, MacCallum, using a combination of expertise and persistence, slowly gained recognition among her peers for her understanding of the region. In 1947, MacCallum became a foreign service officer and was chosen as Canada’s technical adviser during the United Nations’ special debate on Palestine, the central ground of dispute between Arabs and Jews. The purpose of this thesis is to examine MacCallum’s ideas about the Middle East by investigating the foundation, development, and substance of her ideas about the Middle East during the period 1925 to 1935. The thesis also investigates the role that she played in the Department of External Affairs and interrogates the manner in which she applied her ideas as a member of the DEA. In particular, this study assesses her part in Canada’s first policy towards the Middle East, which came together in 1947. 1 Royal Institute of International Affairs (RIIA), The Middle East: A Political and Economic Survey (London and New York: RIIA, 1951), p. 1. “The ‘Middle East’ is a political rather than a geographic term and came into general use as a consequence of the establishment of the British Middle East Command. .The strict geographic rule was formally to distinguish between the Near East, comprising Greece, Bulgaria, Turkey, the Levant [Lebanon and Syria] and Egypt, and the Middle East, Arabia, Mesopotamia, Persia, and Afghanistan.” During the Second World War, the term Near East was replaced by the term Middle East as a consequence of the establishment of the British Middle East Command and corresponding civilian organizations. For the sake of clarity, the term Middle East will be used throughout to designate both the Near and Middle East. 1 The thesis begins with an examination of the articles and books on the Middle East that MacCallum wrote prior to joining the DEA. It was through her numerous writings for the New York-based Foreign Policy Association (FPA), a non-profit organization dedicated to inspiring the American public to learn more about the world, that MacCallum expressed her concerns about the disastrous effects that European imperialism had had on the Middle East during the interwar period. She was convinced that the policies of Britain and France ignored Arab rights of self-determination and reinforced anti-Western sentiment throughout the Middle East. She was particularly critical of Great Britain’s stance regarding Palestine, which she believed had impeded the natural development of the Arab community and reinforced a long-term animosity between the Arab and Jewish communities. This animosity, believed MacCallum, led the two peoples to adopt more and more violent means to achieve their ends. She was equally critical of the League of Nations’ Mandate System,2 which she believed had legitimated Europe’s seizure of Arab lands and endorsed Great Power abuses. MacCallum concluded that the League’s unwillingness to defend or protect Arab rights had alienated the Arab World and made difficult their co-operation in the finding of peaceful solutions to the problems besetting the Middle East. In assessing MacCallum’s ideas and her role as a member of the Department of External Affairs during the period 1942-1947, the thesis contends that she can best be 2 The League of Nations Mandate System gave legal status to certain territories transferred from the control of one country to another following the end of World War I. The Mandate System was established under Article 22 of the Covenant of the League of Nations, entered into on June 28, 1919. With the dissolution of the League of Nations after World War II, it was stipulated by the Great Powers at the Yalta Conference of 1945 that the remaining mandates should be placed under the Trusteeship of the United Nations, subject to