Ad Hoc Committee on the Palestinian Question

The committee was chaired by H. V. Evatt, who was later to write in his memoirs: "I regard the establishment of Israel as a great victory of the United Nations.

Of the majority report (the Partition Plan areas), Silver vacillates saying that he was prepared to “recommend to the Jewish people acceptance subject to further discussion of the constitutional and territorial provisions”.

[4] While three members endorsed a federal state (the minority report) similar to the Morrison-Grady Plan that had been rejected by both Jews and Arabs and the UNSCOP found that a canton system “might easily entail an excessive fragmentation of the governmental processes, and in its ultimate result, would be quite unworkable.” No members of the UNSCOP endorsed a one-state solution as recommended by the Arab Higher Committee and on 29 September Jamal al-Husayni, vice-president of the Arab Higher Committee, announced opposition to the UN Partition Plan.

Subcommittee 1 (chaired by Ksawery Pruszyński[5]) comprised nine members ( United States, Soviet Union, United Kingdom, Canada, Poland, Czechoslovakia, Uruguay, Guatemala, Jewish Agency for Palestine )[6] and was responsible for producing a plan of implementation of the UNSCOP majority report; and subcommittee 2 (chaired by Muhammad Zafarullah Khan after October 28[7]) was composed of six Arab delegates and three supporters of the minority plan and reviewed the UNSCOP minority report which was a plan for a single federal Palestinian state, with Jewish and Arab provinces and a split Jerusalem as federal capital.

Britain as the Mandatory Power was to use its best endeavours to ensure that an area situated in the territory of the Jewish State, including a seaport and hinterland adequate to provide facilities for a substantial immigration, was to be evacuated at the earliest possible date and in any event not later than 1 February 1948.