On The Attlee Government's Palestine Policy (1945-1948)

This paper mainly based on the investigation of the Attlee Government's policy to Palestine in the early period of postwar, tries to compare the divergence on the Palestine affairs inside the Attlee Government which is represented by Bevin, and the contradictions on the policy of Palestine between Britain and America, then announces the essence of the Attlee Government's policy to Palestine in the early period of postwar. It focuses on the crucial years from 1945-1948. The period is crucial because it was during this time that Britain evacuated from Palestine, and especially Palestine conflicts were set in moulds. After the end of the World War I, in the name of caring out the mandate, the English had ruled Palestine for 30 years. After the Second World War, Britain evacuated from Palestine, which was the epitome of the British Empire from wax to wane. Facing the American non-cooperation and the Israeli violent opposition, Britain had to submit the Palestinian issue to the UN with the hopelessness of reaching an agreement between the Arabian and the Israeli, which had induced Palestinian partition.The paper contains five chapters except the introduction and epilogue. Chapter1 briefly reviews the origin of Palestine issue and the United Kingdom's Palestine policy between the two World Wars. Chapter2 analyzes diplomacy idea of the Attlee Government represented by Bevin. Firstly, it introduces the special life experiences of diplomacy minister--Bevin, then introduces the domestic and international environment of the United Kingdom in early postwar years, and explains the historical setting about the research problems, aiming to find the sources of their specially appointed diplomacy strategic thinking and foreign policy; secondly, this chapter deals with the policy to Palestine which combines Attlee government idealism with pragmatically-inclined principle, then provides definite historical basis to discuss the scheme of Middle East strategy.Chapter 3 investigates Bevin's initial policy to Palestine and its evolution process, following the divergence process on the policy to Palestine inside the British government, to seek the causes and origins of Bevin's policy to Palestine. This part analyzes the reasons from an angle of history, economy, politics and personal characteristics. It was the decline of the United Kingdom in Postwar that forced the Attlee government had to explore American support on the problem of handling Palestine.Chapter 4 explores cooperation and conflicts on the Palestine issue between Britain and the USA. The USA attends to a matter negligently on treating the UK-US cooperation problem; But it is not in the mood to undertake corresponding responsibility in the process of carrying out the Anglo-American Committee of Inquiry report and"Molisen-Geleidi plan", besides, Jew terrorism was rampant then, which made all the Britain efforts on resolving Palestine problems failed. Chapter 5 analyzes the factors briefly summarized as 3 points that lead to the failure of the policy. Finally, Britain couldn't continue its rule to Palestine, so it had to withdraw.In the paper, with the analysis of the process of the British withdraw from Palestine, we think that the Labor Party Government represented by Bevin utmost avoided Palestinian partition and maintained Palestinian unity. Although, their efforts still had failed after all, the Attlee government had already used up maximal effort. And it is unfair to blame Britain too much because Palestinian locality Arab, Jew, the USA and the UN could not shirk their responsibilities on the issue.