BERNADOTTE, Folke (1895-1948). Palestine No. 1 (1948). Progress Report of the United Nations Mediator on Palestine. Rhodes, 16th September 1948. [Cmd. 7530.] London: HMSO, 1948.

Rare United Nations proposal for the partition of Palestine in the wake of the 1948 Arab-Israeli War. Bernadotte, Swedish nobleman and diplomat, was vice-chairman of the Swedish Red Cross during the Second World War. In this position, he negotiated 11,000 prisoner-of-war exchanges via Sweden between 1943-1944, and in the spring of 1945, organised the 'White Buses' operation to rescue some 15,000 people from German concentration camps. In May 1948, Bernadotte was unanimously appointed 'United Nations Mediator in Palestine'. This was the first offical U.N. mediation in its history, in response to the 1948 Arab-Israel War which had erupted as a consequence of the United Nations Partition Plan for Palestine (adopted by the U.N. General Assembly as Resolution 181 (II) in November 1947). Bernadotte proposed that the Partition Plan be altered to take account of the existing military frontiers, that the Jews should get all of Galilee, Jerusalem should lose its special status and remain under Arab control, and the Negev, allocated to Jews to absorb increased future immigration, should be returned to the Arabs. Furthermore, Arab refugees should be permitted to return to their houses immediately. Bernadotte had originally hoped to create a 'union' or confederate state of Palestine and Transjordan with two members, one Arab and one Jewish, but in the event this was rejected, and the present lot is Bernadotte's second proposal featuring two independent states.

One of Bernadotte's first achievements was to bring about a truce between the Jews and the Arabs, but it was this success that was to lead to his assassination. Believing Bernadotte to be a stooge of the British and their Arab allies, the Jewish paramilitary group Lehi ('The Stern Gang') feared that the Israeli leadership would agree to Bernadotte's peace proposals, which they considered disastrous. The day after the publication of the present report, Bernadotte's motorcade was ambushed in Jerusalem, and he was shot at point blank range. Khalidi & Khadduri 2015, noting that this was simultaneously published as U.N. document A/648.

Octavo (244 x 152mm). 74pp. (Tips of lower corner light dogeared and some light creasing at gutter of lower margin.) Original blue-green printed wrappers, stapled (tip of lower corner of rear cover chipped, faint creasing at foot of spine).

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