The Birth of Israel
by .Knopf, $3.50.
This is the first report in book form from a member of the United Nations Special Committee on Palestine. Mr. Garcia-Granados, chief of Guatemala’s delegation to the UN, started with no views about the problem and became a leading champion of partition. The candor, intelligence, and deep feeling with which he tells his story make it a striking one, even though much of it is no longer news.
The author’s data corroborate and amplifY previous charges that the British Government systematically obstructed the Committee; that its Palestine officials stacked the cards in favor of the Arabs; that later Mr. Bevin openly set out to sabotage the partition decision and encouraged Arab defiance of the united Nations.
Our own State Department, most of the time, was discreetly working with the Foreign Office. Neither seems to have been swayed by the fact that the UN’s prestige was critically involved. One trivial item sums up the story: when the Committee required plane transportation from Switzerland to the displaced persons camps, both the British and the American military authorities refused it.