By April 27, 2008 Read More →

U.S., France Offer Police for Palestine, United Press, NY Herald Tribune, July 7, 1948.

UN in PalestineClick here to view the original article.

LAKE SUCCESS, N. Y., May 11 (U.P)-The United States and France made a joint 11th-hour move tonight to put some United Nations authority into Palestine after May 15 by introducing a new plan for a trusteeship over Jerusalem.

It was the first time since American abandonment of partition that the United States has received such support for any of its long series of proposals for dealing with the Palestine dilemma. Last month, the United States alone introduced a similar proposal, but it failed to whip up any enthusiasm.

There appeared little chance that the United States and France could push through the new proposal in the less than three days left before the British mandate ends and the Jews proclaim their state.

The American and French delegations have been following an increasingly similar line in recent days on the Palestine tangle.

Yesterday, France indicated it might refuse to serve on the proposed “shadow” agency for continuing a semblance of administration in Palestine as a whole after the mandate ends. And today, American Delegate Philip C. Jessup followed suit by telling a special U. N. subcommittee he doubted whether the United States would accept such a responsibility.

American and French Consuls in Jerusalem have been suggested as two members of a five-member agency to go to Palestine and try to mediate Jewish-Arab warfare.

The French-American draft, which will be referred tomorrow to the special subcommittee on Jerusalem, repeatedly specifies that the solution proposed is to last only until a final settlement is reached on the whole Palestine problem.

The draft calls for a high commissioner to be appointed by the U. N. Trusteeship Council with authority to organize volunteer police forces for maintaining law and order.

The draft says nothing about use of troops from specific nations in Jerusalem.

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