In February 1947, after nearly three decades of mandatory rule, the British decided to refer the Palestine problem to the United Nations. Underlying this decision were attacks on their forces in the country, the continuous internal conflict between Arabs and Jews, and the failure of a conciliation conference in London earlier that month. In early April the British Government informed the UN Secretary-General of its decision, asking for an inquiry commission that would be sent to Palestine to prepare a report for discussion at the UN's next regular session. Two months later, the United Nations Special Committee on Palestine (UNSCOP) was sent to the county to investigate the situation there. When the second regular session of the United Nations was opened in September, UNSCOP's report and recommendations were the main topic on the agenda of a General Assembly ad hoc committee set up to discuss the Palestine problem. On 29 November 1947 the UN General Assembly decided to partition Mandatory Palestine into two independent states: one Jewish, the other Arab.
It so happened that Canada played a crucial role in the formulation and the adoption of the United Nations Partition Resolution. The General Assembly's First Committee, assigned in April to discuss the Palestine issue, was chaired by Lester B. Pearson, then Canada's Under-Secretary of State for External Affairs. When following the decisions of that committee UNSCOP was sent to Palestine, one of its dominant members was Mr. Justice Ivan Rand of the Supreme Court of Canada. It was within the framework of UNSCOP that the proposal to partition Palestine was first raised by an official UN body, and Rand was one of its main architects. He opposed the Arab unitary state option (‘a betrayal’), the bi-national state idea (‘a deadlock’), and the federal state plan (‘an abortion’). ‘Justice Rand was by far the main contributor to the partition scheme’, said Léon Mayrand of the Canadian Department of External Affairs, who accompanied Rand to Palestine – a judgement shared by many.
When the ad hoc committee was formed in September, Canada was one of its member-states, and when this committee duly appointed a nine-state sub-committee to examine the partition idea, Canada was yet again one of its members. The sub-committee, for its part, appointed a four-state working group, comprising the United States, the Soviet Union, Guatemala and Canada, to study the implementation options of the partition idea. It was during this phase of the Palestine debate that the Canadian involvement became crucial.
Contrary to the standard belief, the United States and the Soviet Union did not see the situation eye to eye, despite their general support for partition. Disagreements about the desired date of the Mandate's termination and the composition of a UN commission supervising the implementation of partition nearly aborted the entire partition plan. But then, Lester Pearson, the Canadian member of the working group, managed to save the day by mediating between the two superpowers and finding the compromise formula on both issues. Pearson's suggestion that the commission should be appointed by the General Assembly (meeting the American stand), but be responsible to the Security Council (meeting the Soviet position), was particularly innovative.
Following Pearson's proposals, both superpowers agreed to modify their original stance and to adopt a unified position (with Pearson taking care to ensure that what had been agreed ‘meant the same thing to all parties’). This was a necessary condition for securing the required two third majority in the General Assembly, attainable only through the support of the two world blocs. In the words of the New York Times, this was ‘the turning point of the Palestine debate’ and a result of Pearson's ‘tireless efforts’. Furthermore, when subsequent British statements threatened to obstruct the entire effort, Pearson yet again took the initiative and introduced changes into the partition plan, intended to meet the British reservations (once again, of course, having to secure US-Soviet agreement). It was not for nothing that when Pearson returned from New York to Ottawa he was dubbed by Canadian Zionists ‘the Balfour of Canada’.
Yet, while Pearson, assisted by some other members of the Canadian delegation to the United Nations (and apparently with the silent backing of Secretary of State St. Laurent), promoted partition, Canada's Prime Minister, William Lyon Mackenzie King, a staunch supporter of Britain, resented the entire Canadian involvement in this affair. He believed that Canada should maintain a low profile in this issue so as to avoid antagonizing Britain. It was therefore up to Pearson and his colleagues at the United Nations to formulate their own personal policy towards the question, in contrast to their Prime Minister's stand. Deeply moved by the horrors of the Holocaust and the plight of the Jewish refugees in Europe after the war, Pearson and his colleagues reached the conclusion that establishing a Jewish State in Palestine through partition would be the only just solution to the problem, and they did their best to accomplish this in practice.1
When the US Under-Secretary of State, Dean Acheson, contemplated in April which states would suit the proposed inquiry commission for Palestine, he thought about Canada, because, he said, there was no ‘large and active Jewish community’ in that country.2 At the time, there were some 180,000 Jews in Canada. Their influence on Canadian public life was limited; the presence of the Palestine problem in domestic politics was almost non-existent. If at all, many of the English-speaking Canadians sympathized with the British and their difficulties in Palestine.
Nevertheless, Canadian Zionists, assisted by representatives of the Jewish Agency, did their utmost during that year to influence Canadian policy-makers to support the establishment of a Jewish state in Palestine. This lobbying was mirrored by members of Canada's Arab community who spared no effort to convince Canadian decision-makers to oppose the partition plan. The activities of these two lobbies are the topic of this essay.
The members of the Canadian delegation to the United Nations were the main targets of Zionist lobbying. During the special assembly of April–May 1947, Lionel Gelber, a Toronto-born adviser to the Jewish Agency, was in ‘close touch’ with George Ignatieff, a member of Canada's permanent delegation and an adviser to the delegation during the special assembly, and also maintained good relations with Pearson. Similarly, Eliyahu Epstein (Elath), Director of the Washington Office of the Jewish Agency, kept in ‘constant contact’ with the Canadian delegation, and, according to his own testimony, even befriended Elizabeth MacCallum, another adviser to the delegation, known for her pro-Arab proclivities.3
After the special assembly and before UNSCOP left for Palestine, Gelber had met Rand in person, and had sent reading material about Palestine to Rand's alternate in UNSCOP, Léon Mayrand of the Department of External Affairs. It was, however, David Horowitz, the Jewish Agency's liaison officer to UNSCOP during its tours in Palestine, who later on considered Rand ‘his special preoccupation’. He, too, sent Rand a book (Cecil Roth's The Jewish Contribution to Civilisation), but it was their personal contact which was to bear some concrete results.
On the second day of UNSCOP's tour of Palestine, Horowitz accompanied Rand for 11 hours, which he utilized to apprise him of the tragic fate of the Jews and of their aspirations. On Mount Carmel, Horowitz showed Rand the illegal immigration ships detained by the British in Haifa's harbour, and explained to him the Jewish struggle for free immigration. On the way to Jerusalem, Horowitz pointed at the British detention camp in Latrun, telling Rand about the arrest of Moshe Shertok (Sharett) and other Jewish leaders the previous year. Shertok himself, as Head of the Jewish Agency's Political Department, later invited Rand and the other delegates to an ‘informal dinner’ in his home, as did Chief Rabbi Herzog. The former reception was used by David Ben-Gurion, then Chairman of the Jewish Agency Executive, to informally present the Jewish perception of the problem before the delegates.4
When during July–August UNSCOP stayed in Geneva to formulate its conclusions, Horowitz frequently sent notes to Rand and the other delegates about the various desiderata of the Jews. In a ‘Note on Jerusalem’, he stressed that the inclusion of the city's Jewish part in the Jewish State was ‘an integral part of an effective partition settlement’. He and a couple of other Agency delegates tried to convince Mayrand of the impossibility of fulfilling Zionism without Zion (Jerusalem), emphasizing that the Jews would never support a partition plan that excluded Jerusalem. In a meeting with Rand, Horowitz tried to convince him to include the Negev and the Galilee in the Jewish State. In a note about ‘The Viability of the Arab State’, Horowitz tried to convince the UNSCOP delegates that the Arab State would be able to sustain itself economically, hence there would be no need for the Jewish State to subsidize it. Finally, shortly before UNSCOP's last meeting in Geneva, Horowitz begged Rand to fight the idea of a Jewish ‘truncated’ state, which Rand did. It was not for nothing that Shertok later described Rand as Horowitz's ‘greatest conquest’: ‘By three things we won this man – by what he had seen in Palestine, by his own conscience, and by Dulik H[orowitz]'s influence on him’.5
During the second assembly, the Jewish Agency emissaries continued to keep in close contact with the Canadian delegates, especially with Pearson. MacCallum related that Shertok would wait for Pearson every day and ‘was wrapping LBP around his finger’. Shertok even arranged a special dinner in Pearson's honour, at the end of which Pearson asked the Agency delegates to address him ‘whenever his counsel and help were needed’. For his part Gelber maintained his ‘constant touch’ with Pearson (or ‘Mike’, as he called him).
MacCallum's claim that Pearson was ‘wooed’ by the Zionist lobby was corroborated by Ignatieff, who remembered Pearson to be ‘under very strong Jewish pressure’. It reached the point that Ignatieff had to ‘candidly’ hint to Gelber, after the adoption of the partition plan, that in the future ‘we should not try to drag him [Pearson] out into the open’. Yet Ignatieff himself was in continuous contact with Shertok, Epstein and Gelber, and, according to his own evidence, he served as their ‘ally’ and ‘go-between’ in the corridors of the United Nations. He actually was counselling Gelber when and how to approach other Canadian officials, and when the Agency's ‘easy approach to Cabinet Ministers and officials’ had to be modified.6
The Jewish representatives approached the Canadian delegation constantly during the second assembly. When the ad hoc committee was contemplating the removal of the displaced persons from Germany so as to ease the pressure of immigration on Palestine, they warned the Canadians that this was just a ‘diversionary move’. When the Canadians were concerned about the legality of implementing partition, Gelber delivered Ignatieff a memorandum written by the Agency's legal adviser, to the effect that the General Assembly had the authority to implement partition or to appoint an organ on its behalf to carry it out. Through Pearson the Agency suggested various amendments to the proposals that were discussed in the working group. When the working group was discussing the formation of a United Nations commission to be sent to Palestine to implement partition, the Agency approached the Canadians with regard to the makeup of that commission. In this case, however, the Canadians told them that Canada would not participate in the proposed commission. Finally, when at the last stages of the Palestine debate Pearson tended to consider the Arab-Muslim proposal to refer the entire Palestine question to the International Court, they promptly explained to him that this was just an Arab ploy to delay a real solution, which would only complicate the Palestine situation and aggravate the Jewish refugee problem.7
While the Jewish Agency concentrated its efforts on the Canadian UN delegates in New York, Zionist activists in Canada sought to influence policy-makers in Ottawa. On the eve of the special assembly, Samuel Zacks, president of the United Zionist Council of Canada, and Ellsworth Flavelle, chairman of the Canadian Palestine Committee (about this organization, see below), sent a lengthy letter to St. Laurent, stressing the need to normalize the Jewish situation and establish a Jewish national home. They underlined Britain's inability to run the Palestine Mandate and the attendant misery caused to the Jewish refugees, forbidden to enter the country. They argued that as this situation was likely to create friction between Britain and the United States, an early solution to the problem was in Canada's best interest. In practical terms, they asked St. Laurent to ensure that no interested parties (that is, the Arab states) would participate in the proposed inquiry commission, to pressure Britain to increase the quotas of Jews admitted to Palestine, and to support the establishment of a Jewish State as fulfilment of the Mandate.8
After the majority of UNSCOP's members opted for partition, the Zionist activists in Canada tried to convince the Canadian government to adopt that recommendation. ‘A historic victory for Zionism’, it was called in a statement issued by the United Zionist Council of Canada. Rand's and Mayrand's contribution to the adoption of this recommendation was a source of ‘gratification’ for all Canadians, declared the statement, and ‘a special sense of pride’ for Prime Minister King, who had chosen them to participate in UNSCOP (King, of course, held a different view about this). The Canadian Government was called to support UNSCOP's majority opinion and to advocate an early termination of the mandate, in order to both alleviate the Jewish problem and lighten the burden of the British people. The statement was followed by a letter to King, in which Zacks asked for an audience to discuss the UNSCOP report. King was too busy for that, but Zacks was promised that his request ‘will be kept in mind’. Also the Canadian Jewish Congress commended Rand's role and called the government to support UNSCOP's majority. In a cable to St. Laurent, Samuel Bronfman, the Congress's president, expressed his confidence that Canada would follow the majority recommendation as the only feasible solution for Palestine. Both organizations welcomed Canada's statement in support of partition in the ad hoc committee, termed by Zacks as a reflection of the Canadian Government's fairness.9
Another form of lobbying was to approach members of parliament and ask them to advocate partition. These, in their turn, would apply to King and St. Laurent and apprise them of their constituents' opinions. This effort, apparently, had some influence. At one instance, for example, Bruce Claxton, the Minister of National Defence, told Ignatieff that ‘I don't mind how you vote but… don't forget that I have no Arabs in my constituency and I have forgotten how many hundred Jews’.10
Finally, there were ordinary people who considered it their duty to appeal to the policy-makers to promote the Jewish cause. Their influence, at least on the emotional level, was sometimes more noticeable than that of professional lobbying. A former student of Pearson wrote to him that he remembered him as a conscientious ‘square shooter’. With one third of world Jewry killed by the Germans, and with Canada and all other havens closed to them, ‘don't stop the Jews from surviving in Palestine’. ‘Now that you share the power to decide … don't do anything you won't be able to live with after you've retired from public life’. Pearson answered that he indeed hoped to do nothing which would ‘to use your own words, prevent me from living with myself after I have retired from public life’. Another letter informed Pearson of the plight of 2,000 Jewish children, survivors of Nazi camps, interned by the British in Cyprus. They needed supportive surroundings to get rehabilitated, said the writer, which could only be obtained in Palestine. They were ‘the responsibility of all of us’, she emphasized, as the democratic world knew the nature of Nazism, but did nothing. Pearson agreed that only by returning the children to normal conditions could the impact of their miseries be removed.11
The Canadian contribution to partition was eventually far beyond what the Jewish lobbyists could expect. When the United Nations had adopted partition, it became time to thank the appropriate parties. In most cases thanks were proffered to the right people, as when it referred to Rand's ‘credit’ or to Pearson's ‘skilful guidance’; many letters were sent to Pearson himself, commending him for his ‘steadfast efforts’ and ‘tireless leadership’. On other occasions this praise was somewhat misdirected (‘We know what a great satisfaction it must be to you’, Zacks wrote to King). Special thanks were expressed also for the efforts of the Canadian Palestine Committee to promote the Zionist cause.12
The Canadian Palestine Committee was a special enterprise to enlist non-Jewish Canadians for the Zionist cause. It was founded in 1943, comprising influential Christians, politicians, journalists, businessmen and clergymen who believed in the Zionist viewpoint regarding Palestine and volunteered to present it before the Canadian public opinion. It was chaired by Ellsworth Flavelle, a staunch adherent of Zionism, and its executive director was Herbert Mowat, a former Anglican preacher. Since late 1945 the organization also held an office in New York, under the name World Committee for Palestine, designed to function as the international parallel of the Canadian committee. The latter organization was also run by Flavelle and Mowat, who in September 1947 practically moved to New York to operate its lobbying activities in the United Nations. Though officially independent, for all practical purposes the Canadian Palestine Committee was directed by the United Zionist Council of Canada. ‘A façade’, called it later on Judge Harry Batshaw, Zacks's deputy, ‘they were an instrument to mobilize Christian support for Zionism’.13
The Committee's convictions found clear expression in early August, after the Irgun Zva'i Le'umi (IZL) hanged two British sergeants in Palestine in retaliation for the execution of three of its members by the authorities. Although Flavelle had previously denounced Jewish terrorism, at this juncture the Committee published a special release actually blaming Britain for what happened: it had turned Palestine into ‘a police state’. While the hangings were ‘detestable’, had the British commuted the executions into life imprisonment the sergeants would still be alive. The Committee proved to be a loyal ally to the Jewish Agency during both the special and the second assemblies. Mowat was assigned to contact Pearson, and also maintained contact with Ignatieff, Joseph Bradette and James Ilsley (the latter two, Chairman of the House of Commons Standing Committee on External Affairs and the Justice Minister, were also members of the Canadian delegation). After Ilsley had stated Canada's support for partition at the ad hoc committee, Flavelle cabled King and St. Laurent congratulating them.
When partition was adopted, Flavelle told a Zionist leader how happy he was for the Jews; he would even be happier had he worked harder for ‘the great cause of Zionism’. Mowat was asked then by Zacks to return from New York to Canada to help in public relations, since ‘the government went so far out and was a little ahead of public opinion’.14Zacks, for his part, when visiting New York himself during the second assembly, kept in touch with the Canadian correspondents there, explaining them the Jewish position.
Terrorist activities in Palestine generated negative reactions in the Canadian press. Yet, in general, when dealing with the Palestine issue, the Canadian newspapers seemed to favour the idea of establishing a Jewish State. As early as the beginning of April the Montreal Herald considered partition the ‘fair and logical’ solution to the Palestine problem. Following the special assembly the press favoured the Canadian participation in UNSCOR On the eve of the second assembly and during its deliberations, UNSCOP's majority recommendation in favour of partition was supported in many editorials. Even the pro-British Globe and Mail concluded that the British Mandate over Palestine had to terminate.
Following the speech delivered by Chaim Weizmann in the ad hoc committee, in his capacity as former president of the Jewish Agency, even the Montreal Daily Star, regarded as not particularly sympathetic to Zionism, reached the conclusion that there was no escape from partition.15
Another aspect of Jewish lobbying in Canada was to fight Arab propaganda. Information about Arab activities in Canada was sent by Batshaw, Zacks's deputy, to Epstein, Director of the Washington Office of the Jewish Agency. Furthermore, Jesse Schwartz, National Executive Director of the Zionist Organization of Canada, was assiduously trying to persuade Pearson, during the last phase of the Palestine debate, to ignore the protests against Canadian support for partition, uttered by Muhammad Said Massoud, President of the Canadian Arab Friendship League. This organization existed only on paper, maintained Schwartz, and even the few Arabs living in Montreal, where Massoud operated, were not affiliated with it.16
In 1947 there lived in Canada only some 12,000 Arabs. As early as 1938, the Arabian Muslim Association was founded in Edmonton by a group of local merchants of Arab origin for the purpose of building a mosque – the first to be built in Canada. It was, however, only in the early 1940s that Arab lobbying started to be noticeable in Canada, as a reaction to Zionist lobbying. In 1944, the Canadian Arab Friendship League was founded in Montreal by Muhammad Said Massoud, a Druze emigrant from Lebanon. A wealthy merchant who had arrived in Canada in 1909 at the age of 16, Massoud became involved in lobbying activities, according to his own testimony, as a result of an offensive article published in the Montreal Daily Star by a Jewish rabbi. According to Massoud, the article described the Arabs as lazy people who had dried up Palestine into a desert, and the Jews as those who would make it flourish. Massoud responded with a counter-article and soon a press campaign between him and the Zionists had begun.17
A short while later, Massoud decided that a more significant action was needed for promoting the Arab cause and alerting Canadian public opinion to its needs. He established the League with a national headquarters in Montreal and some rather small branches in other cities. The League's declared goal, according to the first article of its constitution, was ‘to promote, encourage and propagate friendship and understanding between Canada and the Arabic speaking nations of the world’. In order to accomplish this, the League would hold meetings and approach statesmen and newspapers (mainly the Daily Star, where Massoud had some friends), combating and protesting against the Zionist propaganda, particularly when it offended the Arab image. The League also set up the ‘Canadian Arab News Service’, a non-profitable organization intended to ‘better relations between Canada and the Arab world’. It was subsidized by Massoud, who also started to collect all news related to Arabs from many North American newspapers, sorting and indexing them, and responding when needed. A weekly ‘Arab-Canadian Newsletter’ followed, published by Massoud and sent gratis to Canadian newspapers and leading Canadian personalities.18
It was, however, the mimeographed Canadian Arab magazine (‘a link of friendship between Canada and the Arab world’), published by Massoud between May 1945 and December 1947, which was the more significant enterprise of the League. It was intended to refute Zionist arguments regarding Palestine and deflect public support for the establishment of a Jewish State. The magazine, in English but with the editorial translated into Arabic, was distributed gratis to statesmen, religious leaders, university lecturers, teachers, lawyers, businessmen and to libraries, and its circulation in 1947 reached 4,000 copies. It included news, commentaries, protests, correspondence and historical lectures, and in 1947 it became the spearhead of the League's lobbying.19
After the special assembly, the Canadian Arab warned that a Jewish State would be ‘the surest and quickest road to another World War’, as the Arabs were determined to defend ‘Southern Syria’ (that is, Palestine). The solution for Palestine was one democratic state, and not partition, maintained the magazine. After UNSCOP had presented its recommendations, the magazine expressed its shock, warning that there would never be peace in Palestine if the Zionists continued their threats. It was the duty of the United Nations to prevent violence, which could only be achieved if it succeeded in resisting Zionist dictatorship – otherwise the future would be smeared with the blood of millions.
When partition had been adopted, the magazine warned the United States, the Soviet Union and Canada that their support of the Jews would entangle the world with war; the West had ignored the goodwill of the Arab World. Palestine, torn to pieces as a result of this ‘shameful decision’, was about to become ‘the scene of the most terrible atrocities’. As Canadians of Arab descent they were especially disappointed at the role played by Canada, stressed the magazine, Pearson and Rand had no right to represent Jewish interests as they did.20
At a League meeting following the special assembly, Massoud described the latter as ‘a series of insults and threats’ against the Arab nations. He was also unhappy about the manner in which the Canadian press was reporting on the discussions in the second assembly: ‘sensationalism’, he called it, intended to serve the Zionist cause. At another meeting he warned that the Arabs were ready to take up arms to prevent partition (‘this is the opinion of most Canadian Arabs’). And on the eve of the adoption of partition, he issued a statement comparing it to the Japanese treachery in Pearl Harbour. The ‘peace-loving Arab peoples’ would never honour such a decision, and despite their ‘wholehearted’ support of the UN's ideas, they would fight partition to their best ability. Massoud denounced the Canadian support for partition and called for an eleventh-hour solution for Palestine, namely a single democratic state, like Canada. What would the Canadian delegates say ‘if French-speaking citizens of Canada desired to secede from the rest of the English-speaking provinces?’, he argued emphatically. ‘A vote for partition of Palestine will leave Canada no choice but to accept Quebec's demands’. Furthermore, rejecting partition was imperative if Canada wished to hold the Commonwealth together.21
When partition had been adopted and it was all over, Massoud could only threaten in a speech he delivered in Montreal that ‘the Arab World would “remember” Lester B. Pearson and Justice Rand [who] did their utmost to impose upon Arabs the infamous partition scheme’. He expressed his conviction that the two had ‘changed the official opinion of our Government’ and therefore, ‘the Arab World, I am sure, will remember them’.22
In addition to their press campaign, the Arabs approached various policy-makers in an attempt to influence their position. In April 1947, for example, Massoud cabled both the Canadian delegation and the General Assembly's President, Oswaldo Aranha, informing them of his League's opposition to partition. In May he again cabled Aranha, calling the United Nations to prevent another world war ‘which can only serve the interests of a small minority’. In September he cabled the chairman of the Canadian House of Commons External Affairs Committee, expressing surprise at the ‘incomprehensible’ negative attitude of the Canadians members of UNSCOP, and protesting against the damage done to both Canada and Britain. In November he warned the Department of External Affairs that their attitude to Palestine meant ‘friendship or war’ between the Canadian and the Arab peoples. Conversely, if Canada took a new course, all the Arabs would admire it, ‘like we are doing in Canada during every election’. When he reached the conclusion that Pearson was ‘appeasing the Russian government at the expense of Britain and the Arabs’, he cabled both the Department of External Affairs and Britain's Foreign Secretary, Ernest Bevin, expressing the Arab distrust of Pearson. The Canadian Government was required to support Palestine's independence according to the White Paper of 1939, he argued, and to instruct its delegation ‘not to increase the danger of war in the Near East’.23
Massoud was not the only one to use this method. In September, a Lebanese acquaintance of his from Nova Scotia sent a telegram to King, St. Laurent and Ian Mackenzie, the Minister of Veteran Affairs, in protest against the Canadian support for partition in UNSCOP. He asked them to use their influence to change the Canadian policy towards Palestine, as it was ‘vital’ for all Canadians. He also phoned Massoud, gave him a list of addresses, and proposed that he send the same protest to all of them. A reference to Arab support of the present government in elections was also made in this regard. In November, four telegrams reached St. Laurent simultaneously, expressing their senders' apprehensions of the damage Pearson was causing to Commonwealth-Muslim relations. Canada was advised to follow Britain's lead, rather than embarrassing Britain in its difficult hour. While the telegrams were supposedly sent from four different people, among them Member of Parliament Norman Jaques, the secretary of the Canadian Arab Friendship League and the president of the Arabian Muslim Association, they were in fact all cabled from Edmonton within five minutes, as the originals could attest.24
Massoud also maintained contact with the various Arab delegates to the United Nations – in one instance asking the Syrian delegate to send him the text of a speech he had made, so as to allow him to reprint it in the Canadian Arab. In August, one of the delegates of the Palestinian Arab Higher Committee asked him to arrange him a lecture tour in Ottawa and Toronto to counter Zionist propaganda; a similar request was sent to Jaques, to arrange meetings with members of parliament. Massoud revealed utter incompetence in handling these requests, which eventually came to naught. On another occasion Massoud suggested to arrange a meeting between the Syrian and the Egyptian delegates with Jaques, when the latter visited the United Nations during the special assembly: ‘Mr. Jacques is personally interested in our cause and could be of tremendous service to all Arab delegates’.25
Norman Jaques, an MP from Alberta on behalf of the Social Credit Party, was doubtlessly the most antisemitic member in the Canadian parliament at the time. He would deliver frequent speeches against international conspiracies, pointing at the Jews as the common denominator of all forces striving for world domination. He accused the Zionists of collaboration with ‘world left’ and of manipulating the United Nations, and considered the struggle for Palestine the key to world control. By the end of the special assembly he tried to convince the parliament that the Jews wanted the British to be ‘driven into the sea’. He then tried to prove that ‘political Zionism’ was generating animosity between British and Americans by means of ‘most violent and virulent’ propaganda, whereas world peace depended on friendly relations between the English-speaking peoples. Zionist propaganda, basing its case ‘on racial, cultural and commercial superiority’, was therefore the greatest threat to world peace. Furthermore, the pressure laid ‘by this small minority of political Zionists who seem to have political control, not only in the United States, but in Great Britain and in Canada’, was driving the Arabs into the hands of the Soviets.26
Jaques kept in close touch with Massoud, informing him of his ‘evident friendly relations with the Arab delegates’ when he had visited the United Nations, and about his intention ‘to oppose Zionism at my meetings and in my articles as, in fact, I always do. Shall do same in H[ouse] of C[ommons]’. But the Canadian House of Commons was not in session between mid-July and early December, namely during the entire period of the second assembly. So in the meantime Jaques used the Canadian Social Creditor to prove that ‘International Finance, International Political Zionism and International Socialism’ stood behind all international organizations. He furthermore blamed ‘shylockn and Marx’, the internationalist pagans, for smearing the Christian nationalists by accusing them of antisemitism.27
When parliament resumed, Jaques forcefully denounced partition, reprimanding the Canadian Government for defying the British. Partition was adopted ‘under threat and by force’, he argued. The Zionists were economically destroying any Christian, or Jew, who dared to oppose their positions. He presented proofs that the United States had secured the two-thirds majority in the General Assembly by pressuring delegates and states; Pearson ‘powerfully’ assisted the Americans in this, he insisted. The United Nations had thus been turned from an instrument of justice into ‘a vehicle of torture’. Furthermore, the Arabs, for their part, had already done enough. They had absorbed 600,000 Jews in their little Palestine. There was no reason for one small country to solve the entire Jewish problem. Moreover, partition meant not only antagonizing Islam, but relinquishing that part of the world to communism: everywhere, socialists and communists sided with Zionism. The course taken by the United Nations was bound to lead to a world war, he warned. It was therefore time to stop submitting to a ‘small but ruthless and unscrupulous minority’:
We must stop deciding international questions at the dictation of powerful minorities, for purposes of vote catching, or economic advantages.28
Jaques was always fearful that the Zionists would succeed in silencing him. Eventually, because of his blatant antisemitic remarks, radio stations in Edmonton refused to broadcast his speeches, which in his eyes confirmed the existence of a Zionist conspiracy to hush up his revelations. When he died in early 1949 of a heart attack, while some of his colleagues in the Social Credit just pinned it on the stress inherent in his crusades, others blamed his allegedly pro-Zionist doctors for his early death. In any case, it was not for nothing that Massoud was to write of Jaques that he ‘sided with truth, inspired by his conscience and by human justice’.29
There were also other anti-partitionist members in the Canadian parliament, among them John Hackett of the Progressive Conservative Party, who opposed Rand's appointment to UNSCOP in the first place: why involve a judge of Canada's highest court in ‘a political controversy in which Canadian opinion is sharply divided?’ The opposition of Progressive Conservative T.L. Church was of a broader nature, emanating from his objection in principle to the disintegration of the British Empire. When on one occasion the speaker did not let him express his opinions about the Palestine question, Church retorted that ‘the empire is being given away every day, and we do nothing about it’.30
The Jewish lobbying activities in 1947, as far as Canada was concerned, bore some influence, especially when direct connections on the individual level were concerned, certainly in the case of Rand, and apparently, to a certain extent, also in the case of Pearson and his colleagues.
The Arab lobbying activities (and those of their allies in parliament), on the other hand, bore no influence at all. As Ignatieff explicitly related in a later interview, the Canadian delegates ‘were more responsive … to Jewish pressure and influence than they were to Arabs’.31
1. For the Canadian contribution to the adoption of the United Nations Partition Resolution, see Eliezer Tauber, Personal Policy Making: Canada's Role in the Adoption of the Palestine Partition Resolution(forthcoming).
2. National Archives of Canada (NAC), Ottawa, RG 25/1048: tel. WA1245, Ambassador (Washington) to Secretary of State for External Affairs (Ottawa), 23 April 1947.
3. Central Zionist Archives (CZA), Jerusalem, Z5/456II: ‘Chart – Diplomatic Interviews’, n.d.; L35/72: letter, Eliahu Epstein (Washington) to Harry Batshaw (Montreal), 20 May 1947. See also Eliahu Elath, Ha-ma'avaq al ha-medina: Washington 1945–1948,Tel Aviv: Am Oved, 1979, 1982, Vol. II, pp.69–70.
4. CZA, Z5/487II: letter, Léon Mayrand (New York) to Lionel Gelber (New York), 30 May 1947; S25/5374: letter of invitation, Head of Political Department of the Jewish Agency (Jerusalem) to Ivan C. Rand, 29 June 1947; letter of invitation, Aubrey S. Eban (Jerusalem) to Rand, 29 June 1947. Israel State Archives (ISA), Jerusalem, 93.03/2270/12: letter, David Horowitz (Geneva) to Rand (Geneva), 26 August 1947. See also David Horowitz, State in the Making, New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1953, pp.167, 169–70, 176; Elath, Ha-ma'avaq (note 3) Vol. II, p. 186; Abba Eban, An Autobiography, New York: Random House, 1977, p.83.
5. CZA, S25/5970: ‘Conversation with Mr. Rand’, 12 August 1947; Talks about Jerusalem’, by D. H[orowitz], 19 August 1947; S25/5991: letter, Moshe [Shertok] (Geneva) to Golda [Myerson], 7 September 1947. ISA, 93.03/2270/12: ‘Note on Jerusalem’, enclosed with letter, Horowitz to Rand, 19 August 1947; note, ‘The Economic Viability of the Arab State in Part of Palestine’, enclosed with letter, same to same, 20 August 1947. Horowitz, State (note 4) pp.218–20.
6. CZA, Z5/487I: letter, Gelber to Batshaw, 12 November 1947. Memo, Gelber to Jewish Agency Executive, 29 January 1948, cited in State of Israel and World Zionist Organization, Political and Diplomatic Documents, December 1947 – May 1948, Jerusalem: Government Printer, 1979, pp.264–5. Jewish Public Library (Montreal), Bercuson files 9: interview with Elizabeth P. MacCallum, 25 July 1980; interview with George Ignatieff (Toronto), 24 November 1980. See also George Ignatieff, The Making of a Peacemonger, Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1985, p. 102; Elath, Ha-ma'avaq (note 3) Vol. II, pp.203, 289–90, 381; Peter Stursberg, Lester Pearson and the American Dilemma, Toronto: Doubleday Canada Limited, 1980, pp.69, 71–2; Anne Trowell Hillmer, ‘Canadian Policy on the Partition of Palestine 1947’, M.A. thesis, Carleton University, 1981, p. 175. Samuel Zacks, President of the United Zionist Council of Canada, maintained constant contact with the Canadian delegation, as did his vice, Judge Harry Batshaw, who had a long talk with MacCallum. See CZA Z5/487I: letter, Batshaw to Gelber, 18 September 1947; Zachariah Kay, Canada and Palestine: The Politics of Non-Commitment, Jerusalem: Israel Universities Press, 1978, p.119.
7. NAC, RG 25/3694: tel. 1281 ASDEL 125, Consul-General (New York) to Secretary of State for External Affairs, 9 October 1947; letter, Gelber to Ignatieff (New York), 20 October 1947, enclosing the memo. ‘The Powers of the General Assembly of the U.N. to Assume Responsibilities in regard to the Implementation of a Recommendation for the Solution of the Palestinian Question’; tel. 1724 ASDEL 447, Consul-General (New York) to Secretary of State for External Affairs, 19 November 1947. See also Elath, Ha-ma'avaq (note 3) Vol. II, pp.376, 392.
8. ISA 93.03/2266/24: letter, Samuel J. Zacks and Ellsworth Flavelle (Toronto) to Louis S. St. Laurent (Ottawa), 17 April 1947.
9. NAC, RG 25/3694: 'statement Issued by United Zionist Council of Canada’, by Zacks, 5 September 1947; MG 26J2/498: letter, Zacks to WL. Mackenzie King (Ottawa), 14 September 1947; letter, G.J. Matte (Ottawa) to Zacks, 18 September 1947; RG 25/1049: letter, Saul Hayes (Montreal) to Secretary-General, Canadian Delegation to the General Assembly of the United Nations (New York) 15 October 1947; RG 25/3694: letter, Zacks (Montreal) to St. Laurent 16 October 1947. Canadian Jewish Congress Archives (CJC), Montreal: BA/1: ‘Minutes of the Meeting of the National Executive Committee’, 21 September 1947; FA2–101: ‘Inter-Office Information’, nos. 235 and 236, 23 and 25 September 1947.
10. NAC, RG 25/4219: letter, Alistair Stewart (Winnipeg) to St. Laurent, 2 September 1947; MG 26J2/497: idem to King; MG 26L/18: letter, Jean T. Richard (Ottawa) to St. Laurent, 24 September 1947; MG 26J2/497: idem to King; MG 26L/18: Edouard Rinfret (Montreal) to St. Laurent, 25 November 1947. See also Stursberg, Lester Pearson (note 6) p.72; Hillmer, ‘Canadian Policy’ (note 6) p. 175.
11. NAC, MG 26N1/64: letter, I.M. Gringorten (Toronto) to Lester B. Pearson (New York), 9 May 1947; letter, Pearson to Gringorten 14 May 1947; RG 25/3694: letter, Helen E. Coleman (Toronto) to Pearson, 26 November 1947; letter, Pearson (Ottawa) to Coleman, 8 December 1947.
12. NAC, RG 25/3694: statement by Zacks, 30 November 1947, enclosed with letter, Jesse Schwartz (Montreal) to Pearson, 1 December 1947; MG 26L/18: idem to St. Laurent; MG 26J2/498: idem to King; RG 25/3694: tel., S. Hart Green (Winnipeg) to Pearson, 2 December 1947; MG 26L/18: idem to St. Laurent; MG 26J2/498: idem to King; RG 25/3694: tel., M. Dickstein (Montreal) to St. Laurent, 3 December 1947; MG 26J2/498: extract of letter, Zacks to King, 18 December 1947; RG 25/3694: letter, Hayes (Toronto) to Pearson 20 December 1947; letter, Rachel Bessin (Ottawa) to King, 30 December 1947. CJC, FA2–101: ‘Inter-Office Information’, no. 279, 1 December 1947. The Canadian Zionist 15/1 Qanuary 1948) pp.12, 16.
13. CZA S5/787: letter, Leon Cheifetz (Montreal) to L. Lauterbach (Jerusalem), 14 March 1947; Z5/471: ‘Confidential Memorandum from H.A. Mowat’, 25 September 1947; Bulletin Letter From: World Committee For Palestine (New York), 1 October 1947. NAC, RG 25/3831: ‘Memorandum for Mr. Pearson – World Committee for Palestine’, by MacCallum, 12 June 1947. Jewish Public Library, Bercuson files 9: interview with Batshaw, 17 July 1980. Bernard Figler, ‘History of the Zionist Ideal in Canada’, in Eli Gottesman (ed.), Canadian Jewish Reference Book and Directory 1963,Montreal: Jewish Institute of Higher Research, 1963, pp.91–2; Shira Herzog Bessin and David Kaufman (eds), Canada-Israel Friendship: The First Thirty Years, Toronto: Canada-Israel Committee, 1979, p.15.
14. CZA, Z5/471: Canadian Palestine Committee – Supplement to August 1st, 1947 Release, ‘The Reprisal Tragedy’, 7 August 1947; Z5/456II: ‘Chart – Diplomatic Interviews’, n.d.; Z5/471: ‘Memorandum on an Interview with Joseph Bradette, MP, Chairman of the External Affairs Committee of the Canadian House of Commons, Member of the Canadian Delegation to the General Assembly of the UN’ (by Herbert A. Mowat), 16 September 1947; ‘Confidential Memorandum from H.A. Mowat’, 25 September 1947; letter, Mowat (New York) to Gelber, 16 December 1947. NAC, RG 25/4218: letter, Ignatieff to Pearson, 3 September 1947; RG 25/3694: tels. Flavelle (New York) to St. Laurent and to King, 16 October 1947. Letter, Flavelle to Schwartz, 10 December 1947, cited in The Canadian Zionist 15/1 (January 1948) p. 16; Zachariah Kay, ‘The Canadian Press and Palestine: A Survey, 1939–48’, International Journal 18/3 (1963) p.369.
15. CZA S5/787: letter, Cheifetz to Lauterbach, 14 March 1947; Z5/485II: memo, ‘The Canadian Government and the Majority Proposals: Recent Developments’, by Gelber, to Members of the American Section, Jewish Agency Executive, 11 September 1947, citing the Montreal Star and the Globe and Mail; Z5/487I: letter, Batshaw to Gelber, 18 September 1947, citing the Toronto Star. CJC, ZA1947/8/81: ‘Memorandum on Publicity’, 2 April 1947, citing the Montreal Herald. ISA 93.03/2274/53: letter, Zacks to Arthur Lourie (New York), 29 October 1947, citing the Montreal Daily Star; letter, Lourie to Zacks, 3 November 1947. See also Kay, ‘Canadian Press’ (note 14) p.370, citing the Winnipeg Free Press; Elath, Ha-ma'avaq(note 3) Vol. II, p.310.
16. CZA L35/72: letter, Epstein to Batshaw, 20 May 1947. NAC, RG 25/3694: letter, Schwartz to Pearson, 21 November 1947.
17. Muhammad Said Massoud, J Fought as I Believed: An Arab Canadian Speaks Out on the Arab-Israeli Conflict, Montreal: Ateliers des Sourds, 1976, pp. 11–13; Baha Abu-Laban, An Olive Branch on the Family Tree: The Arabs in Canada, Toronto: The Canadian Publishers, 1980, rep. 1985, pp.57, 88–9, 139, 147.
18. Massoud, I Fought (note 17) pp.13, 15, 18, 183; ibid., ‘Constitution of the Canadian-Arab Friendship League: Aims, Objectives and Purposes’, pp. 14–15; Muhammad Sa'id Mas'ud, al-Arab wal-Quwwat al-Ajnabiyya, Beirut: Dar al-Ra'id al-'Arabi, 1973, p.53; Abu-Laban (note 17) p.147.
19. Massoud, J Fought (note 17) pp.17–18; Letter, Muhammad Said Massoud (Montreal) to Adii Arslan (New York), 23 October 1947, ibid., p.185; Mas'ud, al-Arab (note 18) p.138; Abu-Laban, Olive Branch (note 17) pp.147, 152.
20. The Canadian Arab, Vol. 3, No. 1-2-3, April-June 1947, pp.2–4; No.4-5-6, July-September 1947, pp.2–4; No.7-8-9, October-December 1947, pp.2–3.
21. Ibid., No.1-2-3, April-June 1947, p.14; The Gazette, 31 October 1947, cited in Massoud, I Fought (note 17) p. 108; La Presse, 3 November 1947, ibid.; The Gazette, 28 November 1947, ibid., pp.110–11.
22. The Canadian Arab, Vol. 3, No.7-8-9, October-December 1947, p. 12, citing The Gazette, 18 December 1947.
23. Tel., Massoud to Canadian Delegation to the Special Assembly of the United Nations (New York), 28 April 1947, cited in Massoud, J Fought (note 17) p. 176; Tels., Massoud to President of the General Assembly, 30 April and 29 May 1947, cited in The Canadian Arab, Vol. 3, No.1-2-3, April-June 1947, p.13; Tel., Massoud to Chairman of the Foreign Affairs Committee, House of Commons, 10 September 1947, ibid., No.4-5-6, July-September 1947, p.5. NAC, RG 25/3694: tels., Massoud to Department of External Affairs, 4 and 14 November 1947. Public Record Office, Kew, London, FO 371/61888, E10814/951/31: tel., Massoud to Ernest Bevin (London), 14 November 1947; Massoud, I Fought (note 17) pp. 106–7, citing The Gazette, 28 April, 6 November 1947; ibid., p. 109, citing The Gazette and Montreal Daily Star, 15 November 1947; ibid., p.110, citing La Presse, 15 November 1947.
24. NAC, RG 25/4219: tels., John E. Seaman (Liverpool, Nova Scotia) to King and to St. Laurent, 18 September 1947; MG 26L/18: idem to Ian Mackenzie (Ottawa); RG 25/3694: memo, Jake H. Warren (Ottawa) to St. Laurent, 8 November 1947, enclosing tels, from Norman Jaques, D.M. Teha, Roy H. Ashby, and A. Shaben (and originals of same, sent from Edmonton on 6 November 1947 from 6:56 a.m. to 7:01 a.m.). Tel., Seaman [to Massoud?], September 1947, cited in Massoud, I Fought (note 17) p.131; Letter, Norman Jaques (Mulhurst, Alberta) to Massoud, 7 November 1947, ibid., pp. 186–7.
25. Tel., Massoud to Qustantin Zurayq and Mahmud Hasan (New York), 29 April 1947, cited in Massoud, J Fought (note 17) pp. 129–30; Letter, Isa Nakhla (New York) to Massoud, 19 August 1947, and letter, Massoud to Nakhla, 29 August 1947, ibid., p. 183; Letter, Massoud to Adii Arslan (New York), 23 October 1947, ibid., pp.184–5.
26. Dominion of Canada, Official Report of Debates – House of Commons, Third Session -Twentieth Parliament, 1947, Ottawa: Edmond Cloutier, 1947–48, Vol. IV, p.3087; Vol. VI, pp.5114–16; Alan Davies (ed.), Antisemitism in Canada: History and Interpretation, Waterloo, Ontario: Wilfrid Laurier University Press, 1992, pp.179–81.
27. Letters, Jaques to Massoud, 9 May and 7 November 1947, cited in Massoud, J Fought (note 17) pp.176, 187. Davies, Antisemitism (note 26) p.181, citing The Canadian Social Creditor, 9 October 1947.
28. Dominion of Canada, Official Report of Debates – House of Commons, Fourth Session -Twentieth Parliament, 1948, Ottawa: Edmond Cloutier, 1948, Vol. II, pp.1391, 1393; Vol. IV, pp.3507–8; Vol. V, pp.4581–2.
29. Davies, Antisemitism (note 26) p.181; Mas'ud, al-Arab (note 18) p.99.
30. Official Report of Debates, 1947, Vol. IV, pp.3369, 3512–13. NAC, RG 25/4219: memo, 'special Committee on Palestine of the United Nations General Assembly – Canadian Participation’, 18 June 1947.
31. Hillmer, ‘Canadian Policy’ (note 6) p. 175, based on an interview with Ignatieff.
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Eliezer Tauber is Associate Professor of History at Bar-Ilan University.