The Bevin Plan, also described as the Bevin–Beeley Plan was Britain's final attempt in the mid-20th century to solve the troubled situation that had developed between Arabs and Jewish people in

Mandatory Palestine Mandatory Palestine ( ar, فلسطين الانتدابية '; he, פָּלֶשְׂתִּינָה (א״י) ', where "E.Y." indicates ''’Eretz Yiśrā’ēl'', the Land of Israel) was a geopolitical entity established between 1920 and 1948 ...

. The plan was proposed by the

British Foreign Secretary The secretary of state for foreign, Commonwealth and development affairs, known as the foreign secretary, is a minister of the Crown of the Government of the United Kingdom and head of the Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office. Seen ...

Ernest Bevin Ernest Bevin (9 March 1881 – 14 April 1951) was a British statesman, trade union leader, and Labour Party politician. He co-founded and served as General Secretary of the powerful Transport and General Workers' Union in the years 1922–194 ...

at the London Conference of 1946–47, following the rejection of the

Morrison–Grady Plan The Morrison–Grady Plan, also known as the Morrison Plan or the Provincial Autonomy Plan was a joint Anglo-American plan announced on 31 July 1946 for the creation of a unitary federal trusteeship in Mandatory Palestine. Following the issuance ...

. Bevin had been advised by diplomat Harold Beeley. It was also rejected by all parties. Bevin and Beeley were subsequently cast in a negative light in Israeli legend "as a malevolent midwife at the birth of the state". Following the rejection, the British Government referred the issue of Palestine to the United Nations, leading to the creation of the

United Nations Special Committee on Palestine The United Nations Special Committee on Palestine (UNSCOP) was created on 15 May 1947 in response to a United Kingdom government request that the General Assembly "make recommendations under article 10 of the Charter, concerning the future govern ...

. A number of elements of the Bevin plan were similar to the March 1948 American trusteeship proposal for Palestine, proposed four months after the

United Nations Partition Plan for Palestine The United Nations Partition Plan for Palestine was a proposal by the United Nations, which recommended a partition of Mandatory Palestine at the end of the British Mandate. On 29 November 1947, the UN General Assembly adopted the Plan as ...

The plan

The plan maintained the principle of cantonization suggested in the Morrison-Grady Plan, whilst proposing that Palestine be placed under a five-year trusteeship regime. The admission of "100,000

displaced persons Forced displacement (also forced migration) is an involuntary or coerced movement of a person or people away from their home or home region. The UNHCR defines 'forced displacement' as follows: displaced "as a result of persecution, conflict, g ...

", proposed in the Harrison Report, would be allowed at a rate of 4,000 immigrants per month over two years. From the Zionist perspective, the plan was worse than the

, as it did not propose partition at the end of the trusteeship period. Instead, it proposed the election of a "Constituent Assembly", for which decisions would require a "majority of the Jewish representatives and a majority of the Arab representatives".Bevin Plan, Article 16: "Termination of Trusteeship Agreement"

References

Bibliography

* H. Levenberg
"Bevin's Disillusionment: The London Conference, Autumn 1946"
''Middle Eastern Studies'', Vol. 27, No. 4 (October 1991), pp. 615–630

External links

Bevin Plan (1947)
{{Arab–Israeli diplomacy 1947 in international relations Documents of Mandatory Palestine