United Kingdom Requests General Assembly to Address the Question of Palestine

On 2 April 1947, the United Kingdom requested that the question of Palestine be handled by the General Assembly. The General Assembly created a committee, United Nations Special Committee on Palestine (UNSCOP), to report on 'the question of Palestine'. In July 1947, the UNSCOP visited Palestine and met with Jewish and Zionist delegations, while the Arab Higher Committee boycotted the meetings. During the visit, the British Foreign Secretary Ernest Bevin ordered that passengers from an Aliyah Bet ship, SS Exodus 1947, be sent back to Europe. The Holocaust surviving migrants on the ship were forcibly removed by British troops at Hamburg, Germany. The principal non-Zionist Orthodox Jewish party, Agudat Israel, recommended to UNSCOP that a Jewish state be set up after reaching a religious status quo agreement with Ben-Gurion regarding the future Jewish state. The agreement granted an exemption from military service to a quota of yeshiva students and to all Orthodox women, made the Sabbath the national weekend, guaranteed kosher food in government institutions, and allowed Orthodox Jews to maintain a separate education system. On 29 November 1947, in Resolution 181 (II), the General Assembly adopted the majority report of UNSCOP, but with slight modifications. The Plan also called for the British to allow 'substantial' Jewish migration by 1 February 1948. Neither Britain nor the UN Security Council took any action to implement the recommendation made by the resolution, and Britain continued detaining Jews attempting to enter Palestine. Concerned that partition would severely damage Anglo-Arab relations, Britain denied UN representatives access to Palestine during the period between the adoption of Resolution 181 (II) and the termination of the British Mandate. The British withdrawal was finally completed in May 1948. However, Britain continued to hold formerly illegal Jewish immigrants of 'fighting age' and their families on Cyprus until March 1949.