Prior to 1967 there were 14 Embassies of foreign countries in Jerusalem. This was hardly surprising as Jerusalem was declared as the Capital of Jerusalem by the new-born state. Jerusalem is where the Knesset and administrative centres of the State of Israel are located. All these embassies were located in Western area Jerusalem within the Green Line -- -- the armistice line established at the concluson of the 1948-9 War.
It is extraordinary that following the 1967 Six Days War all of these embassies closed, mostly to relocate to Tel Aviv.
The aim of this web page is to explain, and we point the finger at the Australian H.V. Evatt, who championed the creation of an extraordinary oversized International Jerusalem.
HV (Doc) Evatt was head of UNSCOP -- the United Nations Special Committee on Palestine --
whose role was to consider the future of the Palestine once the UK withdrew from the mandate at a date initially
specified to be August 1, 1948 -- later changed to midnight May 14 of that year.
The UK had definite plans for the outcome of its withdrawal. In 1946 the portion of Palestine East of the Jordan -- was declared a self governing kingdom, with the former Emir designated as King. Jordan was provided with a full fledged army, arms and ammunition, and highly experienced British Officers, including a British Lieutenant General, know as Glubb Pasha, to lead. In addition to supplying planes and training for both the Jordan and Egypt Britain maintained airfields for these newly formed Air Forces. West of the Jordan -- the remanant of Palestine once Transjordan had been excised -- there was a Jewish community body -- the Jewish Agency -- with clear potential to become the prime political entity once.
"Doc" Evatt was Chairman of the UN General Assembly, when Israel was admitted as a full member of the UN. This connection has lead some to see him in the role of midwife in the re-birth of the historic state of Israel, whose last coins were minted during the revolt against the Romans. But Evatt played a crucial role in the events leadng up to this decision as chairman of UNSCOP the United Nations Special Committee on Palestine. This Committee essentially adopted thr infamous White Paper of the British Government which proposed to divide the mandated territory of Palestine West of the Jordan River into three zones: coloured in map of UNSCOP Partiton Plan to the left
- Jewish controlled blue
- Arab controlled mustard
- Area of continued International Control white
USCOP came up with an essentially similar proposal for the subdivision
of the mandated territory West of the Jordan --
with the striking ommission of the British proposal that Jewish taxes should support the Arab State.
But UNSCOP proposed an Internationalised Jerusalem,of diameter over 17 km,
and with the city hub (tiny old and much larger new city) over 27 km (as the crow flies)
from the closest Jewish territory
The UNSCOP Report as tabled included this statement as for the rationale for an Internationalised Jerusalem:
"To protect and to preserve the unique spiritual and religious interests located in the city of the three great monotheistic faiths throughout the world, Christian, Jewish and Moslem; to this end to ensure that order and peace, and especially religious peace, reign in Jerusalem."
These noble words might well be seen as applicable to the OLD CITY of Jerusalem which in part at least might be comparable to say Vatican City of 44ha The Old City (Hebrew: הָעִיר הָעַתִּיקָה, Ha'Ir Ha'Atiqah, Arabic: البلدة القديمة, al-Balda al-Qadimah) is a 90ha [ 0.9 square kilometers ] (0.35 sq mi) walled area within the modern city of Jerusalem.
But for reasons that are far from clear, UNSCOP was lead by Evatt NOT to attempt to demarcate an area of special religious significance to three faiths -- but a larger region -- to be simply termed Jerusalem. And that this large region was to be "Internationalised"
But Evatt faced severe problems in credibility: the problem of the Jewish majority in and around Jerusalem.
- From the middle of the nineteenth century, there had been a Jewish majority in Jerusalem as reported by many independent observers -- one of whom was the American journalist/writer Journalist Mark Twain
- There was a massive Jewish majority within the Jerusalem municipal boundaries.
This strange (and almost irrelevant) claim for the huge Internationalised Jerusalem, was bolsted by a further piece of deliberate sloppiness introduced by Evatt: the use of old census data. But the really huge elephant in the room was UNSCOP's policy of ignoring the existence of around 250,000 Holocaust survivors in DP camps in Europe clamouring to return to their ancient homeland. [One poll taken in DP camps found that 98.4% Jews there wished to go to "Palestine".] By May 1948 there were 28,000 of these stateless Jews in "Internment Camps" in Cyprus.
One must mention that at when UNSCOP met there were 1.2 millin Jews living as dhimmis ( persons of reduced rights subject to a special tax ) within Arab lands and Iran. (The UNSCOP Committee actually included two representatives of Iran.) Arab spokesmen had already threatened members of these Jewish communities with expulsion plus violence if any Jewish state was established -- matters that a truly responsible UN committee ought to have at least acknowledged. UNSCOP appears to have accepted in advance the expulsion of these Jews from outside Palestine -- and knew of the desperate stateless Jews of the DP camps and Cyprus -- all with no place to go -- but did not flag how this would overnight reverse the population ratios they used in justification. Never mentioned was the fact that a Jewish State could provde a haven for the expelled and stateless Jews.
- In Bagdad Iraq, on June 1–2, 1941, the Jewish population were the victim of a massive pogrom referred to as the Farhud (Arabic: الفرهود )
- In Tripoli, Libya, on November 5, 1945, anti-Jewish riots broke out a, with more than 140 Jews killed in and around the city over the course of three days.