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American and British Diplomacy and the Bernadotte Mission*

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  11 February 2009

Mordechai Gazit
Mordechai Gazit
Affiliation:
Jerusalem
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Extract

Almost forty years have passed since the UN mediator for Palestine, Count Folke Bernadotte of Sweden, was assassinated in Jerusalem on 17 September, 1948 by the ‘Freedom Fighters of Israel’ (Lohamei Herut Yisrael. Hebrew acronym: LEHY), the smallest and most extreme of the three military organizations of the Yishuv (as the Jewish community in Palestine was called before the state of Israel came into being). The announcement made after the assassination was issued by ‘The Fatherland Front’ (Hazit ha-Moledet), a ‘front’ brought into being for the purpose by LEHY and which disappeared immediately afterwards. It declared that Bernadotte had been ‘an obvious agent of the British enemy’. Now that the British and American documents have been made available, this serious allegation can be examined, and as a result it can now safely be affirmed that the mediator acted in complete independence. He had no contact whatsover with British or American diplomacy over the political proposals that sealed his fate. These proposals he presented in his first Report on 28 June 1948.

Type
Articles
Information
The Historical Journal , Volume 29 , Issue 3 , September 1986 , pp. 677 - 696
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1986

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References

1 Nadel, Baruch, Retsah Bernadotte (The assassination of Bernadotte)(Tel-Aviv, 1968), p. 42Google Scholar. (Hebrew).

2 United Nations General Assembly (hereinafter GA) Resolution 186/II.

3 GA Resolution 181/II.

4 Bernadotte, Folke, To Jerusalem (London, 1951), pp. 95, 118Google Scholar; State of Israel Archives, documents on the foreign policy of Israel (hereinafter S.I.A.) vol. I, 14 May to 30 Sept. 1948 (Jerusalem, 1981), 182, no. 205, 17–18June; 216–17, no. 230, 25 June; 288, no. 282, 6 July. Bernadotte states in his account that on 30 May he told the secretary-general of the Arab League, Azzam Pasha, that he did not consider himself bound by the partition resolution. In an entry in mid-June (95) he says, ‘[The UN resolution of 29 Nov.] could hardly be regarded as a happy one…It seemed clear to me now, in working out my own proposal, that I could not follow (this) resolution but some modification must be found.’;

5 Quoted by Persson, Sune O., Mediation and assassination: Count Bernadotte: mission to Palestine, 1948 (London, 1979), p. 156, note 32Google Scholar.

6 Israel, a personal history (London, 1971), p. 185Google Scholar.

7 Pravda, 11 July 1948, quoted in British Foreign Office Documents (hereinafter F.O.) 371/68572/E9463.

8 Bevin remarked on one occasion, ‘The Palestine situation is just as serious as Berlin.’ Foreign Relations – United States (hereinafter F.R.U.S.) 1948, 1, 1292.

9 F.R.U.S. 1, 1122–4; S.I.A. 152, no. 178, 10 June; 153, no. 179, 11 June; 170, no. 195, 16 June; 173, no. 196, 16 June; 216, no. 230, 25 June.

10 F.R.U.S. v, 1123–4.

11 Ibid. 1132.

12 Ibid. 1143.

13 S.I.A. 220, no. 231, 25 June.

14 F.R.U.S. 1032.

15 Ibid. 1047–50.

16 Ibid. 1038.

17 Ibid. 1064.

18 Ibid. 1070.

19 Ibid. 1049.

20 The Israeli forces in May 1948 numbered, at best, 16,400 combat troops and 13,500 armed settlers, but only 60 per cent of the soldiers were properly armed (Ben-Gurion, , Israel, p. 90)Google Scholar. Israel had no air force and only a few pieces of ancient artillery. The invading Arab forces numbered from 24,000 to 32,000 troops (SirGlubb, John Bagot. A soldier with the Arabs (London, 1957) p. 96Google Scholar; Sachar, Howard M., A history of Israel (New York, 1979), p. 317)Google Scholar. Incomparably better armed and equipped, supported by artillery and air force, the Arabs wielded much greater firepower.

21 Bevin to U.S. ambassador, 18 June, F.R.U.S. 1121, 1122.

22 F.O. 371/68566/E8524.

23 Ibid. E8526.

24 F.O. 371/68564/E8137.

25 F.O. 37I/68573/E8627.

26 F.O. 371/68566/E8431.

27 F.O. 371/68564/E7899, 18 June.

28 F.O. 371/68566/E8495, 20 June.

29 F.O. 371/68568/E8857.

30 For the U.S. equivalent of this understanding see above, p. 681, note 11.

31 One of the mediator's assistants observed in his memoirs, ‘There was rather too much activity, too much coming and going, counting the minutes, taking rapid decisions and carrying them out without time for reflection – and all in a rather confused and chaotic manner.’ (de Azcarate, Pablo, Mission in Palestine, 1948–1952 (Washington D.C., The Middle East Institute, 1966), pp. 93–4Google Scholar.

32 S.I.A. 182, no. 205, I7–18 June.

33 S.I.A. 204, no. 220, 22 June; 216, no. 230, 25 June.

34 S.I.A. 219, no. 231, 25 June.

35 F.R.U.S. 1133–4.

36 F.R.U.S. 1138, footnote 1, based on state department telegram 809, 23 June, 5.54 p.m., from New York 501. BB Palestine 6–2348.

37 F.R.U.S. 1161, 1162, memorandum to secretary of state Marshall, 30 June. Jessup also referred to his having telegraphed the text on 23 June.

38 Persson, , Bernadotte, p. 143Google Scholar.

39 S.I.A. 264, no. 266, 5 July.

40 F.R.U.S. 1162.

41 Ibid. 1171–9.

42 Ibid. 1174.

43 Ibid. 1186.

44 F.O. 371/68568/E8861.

45 Ibid. E8882, 1 July.

46 Ibid.

47 S.I.A. 271, no. 273, 5 July.

48 F.O. 371/68569/9631.

49 F.R.U.S. 1192, editorial note.

50 F.O. 371/68569/E9164.

51 F.O. 371/68573/E9513.

52 F.R.U.S. 1199.

53 Ibid. 1203.

54 Ibid. 1210–11.

55 F.O. 371/68572/E10350.

56 F.O. 371/68576/E10208.

57 F.R.U.S. 1288, 6 Aug.

58 F.O. 371/68578/E10451.

59 F.R.U.S. 1308.

60 F.O. 371/68581/E10892.

61 Ibid. and 68582/11005.

62 It is worth noting that they also said that the Palestinians should have ‘the right to express their views in some manner’ (F.R.U.S. 1303). This was in reference to the open question of the future of the territories not controlled by Israel (the West Bank, the Gaza Strip and parts of Galilee).

63 F.R.U.S. 1352–4.

64 F.O. 371/68583/E1333, 30 Aug.

65 F.R.U.S. 1635, 1 Sept.

66 Ibid. 1384, 9 Sept.; S.I.A. 570, no. 493, 6 Sept.; 587, no. 504, 10 Sept.

67 F.R.U.S. 1639.

68 F.O. 371/68585/E11892, 10 Sept.

69 F.R.U.S. 1373.

70 F.O. 371/68585/E11806.

71 Ibid. E11892.

72 F.R.U.S. 1387.

73 F.O. 371/68586/E11950, 14 Sept.

74 Ibid. E11953.

75 Ibid. E 12017, Troutbeck to F.O., 14 Sept.

76 Ibid. 15 Sept.

77 Ibid.

78 Ibid. E12050, 15 Sept.

79 Ibid. E12051.

80 F.O. 371/68587/E12289.

81 F.R.U.S. 1398–1401.

82 GA progress report, supplement 11 (A/648) Sept. 1948.

83 In a memorandum by McClintock, he quotes an unnamed delegate to the U.N. trusteeship council as saying that the map of the U.N. partition of Palestine was like a portrait by Picasso, (F.R.U.S. 1135).

84 There is no reason to disbelieve Countess Bernadotte, who remarked in the margin of the Swedish version of the mediator's account that the exchange idea was not inspired by the British but was based on the actual situation of the war. (Quoted by Persson, , Bernadotte, p. 282Google Scholar, footnote 62.)

85 U.N. archive docs, DAG 13/3.3.0, box 43, as quoted by Persson, Bernadotte.