United Nations Conciliation Commission for Palestine The
following is the 4th in a series of articles being presented by
Palestine
& The UN regarding U.N. committees and bodies specifically
related to the question of Palestine.Â
The articles focus on the establishment of those committees and
bodies, as well as their histories, mandates, work and compositions. The 4th
to be reviewed in this series will be the United
Nations Conciliation Commission for Palestine (UNCCP). Since
1949, and until the early 1960s, the United Nations Conciliation
Commission for Palestine (UNCCP) was the main U.N. organ dealing with the
question of Palestine. Its work encompassed the major political, legal, and economic
aspects of the question. After
that, although still in existence, the Conciliation Commission did not
play a significant role, and its annual brief reports to the General
Assembly (GA) have indicated that, without substantial change in the
political situation, the possibilities for action by the Commission would
remain circumscribed. The
GA, following considerable debate on the recommendations contained in the
report of the U.N. Mediator on Palestine (Count Folke Bernadotte) adopted
resolution 194 (III) on 11 December 1948.Â
The resolution, inter
alia, established the UNCCP, consisting of 3 U.N. Member
States, which were designated as France, Turkey, and the United States, a
membership that has remained unchanged until this day. Resolution
194 specified the mandate of the UNCCP in three areas, namely
conciliation, Jerusalem and the Holy Places, and refugees.Â
In the area of conciliation, the Assembly requested the UNCCP to
assume the functions of the U.N. Mediator on Palestine. The UNCCP was also
requested to establish contact with concerned parties and promote
negotiations among the respective Governments and authorities, either with
the Commission or directly between the parties, towards final settlement
of all outstanding questions.
To
carry out its mandate, the Assembly authorized the UNCCP to appoint
subsidiary bodies and employ technical experts as necessary for the
effective discharge of its functions and responsibilities. The Assembly
decided that the Commission’s official headquarters would be established
at Jerusalem. In the final paragraph of the above resolution, the Assembly
requested the U.N. Secretary-General (SG) to provide the necessary staff
and facilities and to make arrangements to provide the required funds for
carrying out the terms of the resolution, including the mandate of the
UNCCP. In
undertaking its mandate, the UNCCP considered that its most pressing task
was to employ its good offices to enable the parties, namely the Arab
States and Israel, to reach a settlement. Soon after establishing
headquarters in Jerusalem in January 1949, the UNCCP undertook a series of
official visits to the Governments of Egypt, Saudi Arabia, Trans-Jordan,
Iraq, Syria, Lebanon, and Israel to ascertain their views in a preliminary
manner. Following these
initial contacts, the UNCCP invited the Arab States to hold meetings in
Beirut (21 March to 15 April 1949) for the purpose of exchanging views on
the issue of the Palestine refugees. Similarly,
the UNCCP met with the Israeli Prime Minister in Tel Aviv on 7 April 1949
to examine in depth the refugee question. At a later stage, it invited the
parties to the “Lausanne Meetings” in Switzerland, held from 27 April
to 15 September 1949. The Commission emphasized that such talks were not
to be considered peace negotiations, but rather exchanges of views that
might permit the achievement of concrete and positive results towards the
ultimate resolution of the outstanding issues and conflict among the
parties. Throughout,
the Commission stressed the interrelationship of all aspects of the
conflict, particularly the refugee question and the territorial question,
urging the parties to expand their dialogue to include all problems
covered by resolution 194. In
this regard, the UNCCP requested the parties to sign with it a Protocol,
which would constitute the basis of work. Â The
purpose of work was stated in the Protocol as “to
achieve as quickly as possible the objectives of the General Assembly’s
resolution of 11 December 1948, regarding refugees, the respect for their
rights and the preservation of their property, as well as territorial and
other questions.” The
Protocol signed was accompanied by a map indicating the boundaries defined
in GA resolution 181 (II) of 29 November 1947, commonly referred to as the
“Partition Resolution”. The
Lausanne meetings were resumed in 1950 in Geneva from January to July,
followed by meetings in Paris from September to November 1951. Ultimately,
UNCCP efforts at conciliation and mediation proved unsuccessful due to the
irreconcilable differences of the parties on fundamental issues and
Israel’s intransigent refusal to abide by resolution 181 (II), as well
as its refusal to comply with paragraph 11 of resolution 194 (III) on the
Palestine refugees. In terminating the Paris Conference in November 1951, the
UNCCP concluded that neither side was prepared to fully implement the
resolutions guiding its work, making it extremely difficult to carry out
its mandate. From
1961 to 1962, the UNCCP undertook efforts to explore, by means of a
Special Representative, the views of the parties regarding possible
actions that could be exerted to implement paragraph 11 of resolution 194
concerning the Palestine refugees. Then,
in 1963, the U.S. proposed that, as a member of the Commission, it would
initiate a series of talks at a high level with the 5 governments
concerned. However, these initiatives did not result in any progress in
terms of the UNCCP’s mandate for conciliation or its mandate for the
Palestine refugees. With
regard to the part of its mandate pertaining to Jerusalem, the UNCCP
established a Committee on Jerusalem and its Holy Places. This Committee
was authorized to establish contact with interested authorities for the
purpose of obtaining detailed information to carry out its
responsibilities in this area. The Committee also conducted interviews
with parties directly concerned, including representatives of Arab and
Jewish local authorities and with religious representatives in Jerusalem
and around the Middle East, seeking to encourage acceptance of the idea of
the international regime for Jerusalem and thus facilitating its potential
establishment. According
to records of the UNCCP, the Arab delegations were generally prepared to
accept the concept of an international regime for the Jerusalem area,
provided that the U.N. offered the necessary guarantees for the stability
and permanence of this regime. Israel, however, rejected this principle,
accepting international control only of the Holy Places. By
September 1949, the UNCCP submitted a draft proposal to the GA regarding a
special status for Jerusalem, including numerous provisions for how this
could be effected. Provisions
included, inter alia, those for the
establishment of a General Council of Arab and Jewish representatives for
the city; for an international tribunal to ensure respect for the plan;
and for the protection of and free access to the Holy Places. At the same time, this special status would allow for normal
powers of Government by the two adjoining states, namely Israel and
Jordan, within the Jewish and Arab parts of Jerusalem respectively.Â
Although the UNCCP fulfilled the part of its mandate regarding
Jerusalem, this proposal was never implemented. With
regard to its work concerning the Palestine refugees, the UNCCP determined
that their repatriation or resettlement could not be effectively carried
out without establishment of mechanisms to promote concrete actions to
alleviate their plight. This
required preparatory work of a technical nature. Accordingly, the UNCCP
established a Technical Committee in June 1949 to undertake several
studies. According to the Committee’s estimates at the time, the
population of Palestine refugees numbered approximately 711,000 persons.
On 14 December 1950, the GA adopted resolution 394 (V), mandating the UNCCP to
set up a Refugee Office in Jerusalem. The Refugee Office was established in May
1951 and determined that its immediate task was to arrive at a global estimate
of the value of abandoned Arab refugee property in Israel.Â
The Office estimated that the expanse of land abandoned by the Arab
refugees in the territory that came under the control of Israel was
approximately 16, 324 sq. km., of which 4, 574 sq. km. were cultivable. The
demilitarized areas and Jerusalem no-man’s land were not included in these
estimates. |