Political and Diplomatic Documents of the State of Israel

This is a preliminary volume of the series Docucuments on the Foreign Policy of Israel, which will tse published by the Israel State Archives as the files of the Israeli Ministry for Foreign Affairs become available for inspection under the thirty years rule which governs the declassification of foreign affairs files in Israel. The volume covers the period between the adoption, on 29 November 1947, of the United Nations resolution on the partition of Palestine and the proclamation of the State of Israel on 14 May 1948.The volume comprises 510 documents - reports, memoranda, telegrams, etc. - mainly from the files of the Political Department of the Jewish Agency for Palestine - the pre-State equivalent of the Ministry for Foreign Affairs. Among the authors of these documents are a number of well-known personalities such as David Ben-Gurion, Moshe Shertok (Sharett) and Golda Meyerson (Meir). The volume records the policies pursued by the Jewish Agency with a view to ensuring implementation of the U.N. resolution and the establishment of the Jewish State, against the background of the escalating armed confrontation between Jews and Arabs in Palestine. Among the prominent topics are: Jewish efforts to prevent the United States from renouncing its support for partition and, subsequently, the struggle against the U.S. trusteeship proposal; the endeavors of Jewish representatives to induce the U.N. Palestine Commission to carry out the duties assigned to it by the U.N. resolution; negotiations with the British authorities in Palestine and with the Colonial and Foreign Offices in London with a view to ensuring an orderly handover of the administration and preventing British interference with Jewish defense in Palestine and with the timely deployment of Jewish forces; political activities in Paris; contacts with Soviet representatives in the U.S.; the attempts of the Security Council and of the State Department to establish a truce in Palestine prior to the termination of the British Mandate; and negotiations designed to persuade King Abdallah of Transjordan to abstain from taking part in a military onslaught on the emerging Jewish state.The documents have been selected and annotated by a team of professional historians with a view to presenting a full and objective record of Jewish policies during the months preceding the establishment of the State of Israel. The documents are published in the original languages (mainly English) with Hebrew and English headings, while the editorial and introductory material in the Main Volume is in Hebrew. The English Companion Volume comprises, inter alia, a full English translation of the annotation and introductory material, English summaries of the Hebrew documents and an English index.Contents:MAIN VOLUME Part 1 Documents (Nos. 1-287.1 December 1947-19 March 1948) Part 2 Documents (Nos. 288-510. 19 March-13 May 1948) Appendices a) Resolution of the United Nations General Assembly of 29 November 1947 b) Draft articles of truce for Palestine April-May 1948 MAPS Map of Jerusalem, Map of Palestine ENGLISH COMPANION VOLUME Preface / Forward / Introduction / List of documents / List of archives and abbreviations in references / List of publications and abbreviations in references / Glossary / Summaries of Hebrew documents / Notes / Index to main volume and companion volume