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 was a British Empire, British geopolitical entity that existed between 1920 and 1948 in the Palestine (region), region of Palestine, and after 1922, under the terms of the League of Nations's Mandate for Palestine. After ...

. The plan was proposed by the British Foreign Secretary

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 from 1922 to 1940 and ...

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. The plan effectively c ...

. 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 of the United Nations, General Assembly "make recommendations under article 10 o ...

. 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 to partition Mandatory Palestine at the end of the British Mandate. Drafted by the U.N. Special Committee on Palestine (UNSCOP) on 3 September 1947, the Pl ...

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 or forced relocation) is an involuntary or coerced movement of a person or people away from their home or home region. The United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees, UNHCR defines 'forced displaceme ...

", 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