A Good International Citizen: H.V. Evatt, Britain, the United Nations and Israel, 1948-49

Abstract

Dr H.V. Evatt, Australian Deputy Prime Minister, Attorney-General and Minister for External Affairs in the Chifley Labor government, presided over Australian foreign policy at a critical juncture in the history of his nation, the British Empire and international relations. Assertion of distinctively Australian interests coincided with the evolution of the Empire into a Commonwealth of Nations, the emergence of the Cold War, and the development of a world body and an international jurisprudence aimed at preventing a recurrence of global conflict. Personally active in framing the United Nations Charter at the San Francisco Conference in 1945 and a recognized champion of the smaller powers, Evatt was intimately involved in a number of initiatives within the United Nations in the post-war years, some of only indirect Australian concern. Palestine was one of these. Evatt's role in the adoption of the proposal in 1947 to partition the British Mandate of Palestine into Arab and Jewish states with an internationalized zone for Jerusalem, Bethlehem and the Holy Places, has been analysed elsewhere. Some measure of disagreement has been evident amongst scholars, but it is generally accepted today that Evatt piloted partition through the United Nations Ad Hoc Committee on the Palestinian Question, which he chaired. The Ad Hoc Committee, representing all United Nations member states, was formed to consider the findings of the investigative United Nations Special Committee on Palestine (UNSCOP) which had by a majority recommended partition. Seven of its eleven members had produced a report in favour of partition; three had produced another in favour of a federal state with minority safeguards for the Jews. Only one member Australia, represented by John Hood and Sam Atyeo had abstained from making any recommendation, but Evatt's desire to appear neutral ahead of the 1947 vote for the presidency of the United Nations General Assembly goes far to explain his ambiguous behaviour in this period. Having lost that vote and being elected to chair the Ad Hoc