Members of the United Nations Special Committee on Palestine tour the Old City of Jerusalem in 1947 (Screenshot of newsreel footage from YouTube)
In this newsreel from June 1947, members of the United Nations Special Committee on Palestine arrive in Jerusalem for their first meeting.
“The public were admitted to these deliberations,” the narrator reports. “The delegates are sifting the evidence and trying to solve what appears on the surface, at least, to be an almost insoluble problem.”
The committee was formed when the British Mandate gave responsibility for Palestine to the United Nations. Later in the year, UNSCOP would recommend the Plan of Partition to the UN General Assembly.
The video’s narrator foresaw the years of strife that would follow. “I’m afraid there’s no doubt about it,” he concludes. “Settling the question of Palestine is a tremendous undertaking.”
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(The Associated Press and Movietone News recently released their vast video archives on YouTube, allowing the public to freely access a million minutes worth of historical news clips dating back to 1895 — including many iconic scenes from Israel’s history featured in this Times of Israel series.)
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