 |
| 1948 - The Nakba (the disaster) as Palestinians are pushed from of their towns and villages into Gaza |
Some of our long-time readers may recall a series of articles on UNICEF's history that I wrote in 2021 in connection with UNICEF's 75th Anniversary. We called the series - 'A Little History'. I thought now might now be an appropriate time to add a little more to that series.
Many of us know about UNICEF's early work in Europe and Asia, but few know of its role in Palestine and Israel. This article is an attempt to fill in a few of those gaps. I also hope that in writing what I now know, others who are more knowledgeable about UNICEF's work there, may come forward.
In 1948 UNICEF played a pivotal role in the immediate postwar response to the refugees from the first war between newly-independent Israel and the surrounding Arab states. In the immediate aftermath of the Israeli victory, hundreds of thousands of Palestinian civilians were forced to abandon their towns and villages and seek shelter in nearby countries. Many fled or were pushed to Gaza which had an undetermined status at the time.
On 14 May 1948 the UN Security Council unanimously approved the appointment of Count Folke Bernadotte of Sweden as its first mediator in Israel and Palestine. His appointment came on the same day that Israel declared its independence. Both the US and the USSR rushed to recognize the newly-declared state. One day later, on 15 May, Arab states surrounding Palestine declared war.
Bernadotte's appointment came in the wake of the violence which broke out following the UN's November 1947 approval of a partition plan for Arabs and Jews in Palestine.
......
Gaza, partly by helping to finance and supply food through t the American Friends Service Committee's (AFSC) team in Gaza. The AFSC was (and is) one of several Quaker-inspired
until 1950. The That unit gave UNICEF two of its earliest Representatives, Alice Shaffer and Cordelia Trimble who went on to lead new UNICEF offices in Latin America. When the AFSC closed in Gaza it handed over its operations to the then still nascent UNRWA. Just 4 years later Henry Labouisse became the Director General of UNRWA which he headed until 1958.
In 1948 when the UN Mediator for Palestine, Count Folke-Bernadotte, could find no donors for the initial establishment of UNRWA, he appealed to Maurice Pate and UNICEF Executive Board to put up a small amount of funds. Bernadotte also convinced a reluctant Swedish government to provide public health personnel for a programme financed through UNICEF and run in cooperation with WHO. The programme continued for years after his death covering MCH, BCG, anti-syphilis, and trachoma. In the early 1950s UNICEF had provided over $10 million in funding.
On 16 September 1948 just one day before Bernadotte was assassinated by one of the Jewish terrorist groups in Jerusalem, Bernadotte included the following in what would be his final report to the UN Security Council:
"IMMEDIATE RELIEF OF BASIC NEEDS - United Nations International Children’s Emergency Fund.
The first portion of this programme involved an immediate estimate of the availability of emergency relief in terms of supplies and personnel. On 12 august 1948, therefore, in virtue of paragraph II, 1, (c) of General Assembly resolution 186(S-20), I invited the United Nations International children’s Emergency Fund to consider assisting me in carrying out certain of my responsibilities in respect of the children, pregnant women and nursing mothers, who constitute an estimated three-quarters of the Arab refugee total.
On 13 August 1948, Dr. M. Kahany, the representative at Geneva of the Provisional Government of Israel, requested that similar facilities should be extended to his Government in respect of Arab and Jewish women and children (some 12,000 children and some 8,000 women) in the areas under Jewish control.
Both these proposals were recommended and sent forward to the Executive Board of the Children’s Fund which, at its meeting on 17 august 1948, was convinced that an emergency situation existed in which Fund could be of assistance, and that such assistance was within the competence of the Fund (document E/ICEF/75).
I had asked for an appropriation equivalent (plus shipping) to $796,000 for the Arab refugees. The Executive Board, however, after adjusting the request to include the increased numbers mentioned as requiring relief by the representative of the Provisional Government of Israel, excluded cereals and agreed to provide a global sum not to exceed $411,000 plus shipping costs, allocating that amount for a two months’ programme. This allocation, although less than requested, has served as the foundation for the programme of immediate relief."
This initial 'seed money' from UNICEF ultimately grew to an allotment/
Folke Bernadotte
A Royal Introduction - In 1928 a 32 year-old Swedish cavalry officer and nobleman, Folke Bernadotte (Count of Wisburg) and known to friends simply as "Folke" was on a visit to Nice when his uncle, King Gustav V, introduced him to Estelle Manville, daughter of a prominent American industrialist. The Manville family had built its fortune in asbestos and construction projects as founders of the Johns Manville Corporation. Shortly after their introduction, the Manville family announced their engagement and the couple married in a 'fairy tale' wedding at St. John's Episcopal Church and the Manville Estate in Pleasantville, New York.
An earlier affair - There are indications that Folke's family were anxious to get him to marry 'someone suitable'. Years earlier Folke had met and fallen deeply in love with an American-born Swedish / American singer and actress, Lillie Christina Ericson, who was part of a cabaret group touring towns in Sweden and Norway. Folke and Lillie were engaged, but Folke's aristocratic family forbade his marriage, even after the couple's daughter was born in Oslo in 1921. Lillie later married and her new husband adopted their daughter, Lillian. It is said that Folke was heart-broken when his attempt to marry Lillie failed, but that he parted with her promising to 'do something good for the world'.
A few years later Folke was back in the US on behalf of Sweden's newly formed agency for unemployment and poverty relief to study relief efforts during the Great Depression in the US. In addition to social welfare efforts, Folke had a long-time involvement in the Swedish Boy Scouts movement and in 1937 became director of the organization.
The World of Tomorrow - the New York World's Fair opened in April 1939 with a theme of 'The World of Tomorrow', an unintended, but somewhat prescient theme, considering that World War II broke out a few months later in September. Nonetheless, some 60 countries had exhibits at the Fair, including Sweden. Folke headed the Swedish Commission for the Fair and the Swedish exhibit focused on one of Folke's longstanding interests, low-cost housing and social welfare innovations.
Sweden declared its neutrality immediately as soon as World War II began. This reflected an earlier stance of neutrality going back over a century and a half including during World War I. Swedish neutrality gave it a somewhat unique role as an intermediary and negotiator during World War II. The same was true of the role Folke began to play in building informal bridges with Germany around releases of prisoners of war. In 1942 Folke had his first success, negotiating the release of a small group of disabled British POWs. He then began negotiations for the release of specific categories like disabled veterans, medical personnel, and civilians caught in the crossfire. He also negotiated for entry of humanitarian relief in occupied territories.
Swedish Red Cross - In September 1943 Sweden hosted a major international conference in Stockholm at the request of the Swiss Government and the ICRC. Just a month earlier Folke's work on prisoner exchanges had led him to take up a new post as Vice-Chairman of the Swedish Red Cross. His primary work for the Red Cross was again focused on prisoners of war. In 1943 and 1944 Folke managed to negotiate the release of some 11,000 POWs from Germany.
Following a failed assassination attempt against Hitler in July 1944, Heinrich Himmler became head of the Einsatzheer (the German Army within Germany proper) and Reichsminster of the Interior. As such, Himmler became responsible for all prisoners of war. Around the same time, in opposition to the position of his own government, the Norwegian diplomat, Niels Christian Ditleff launched an effort to rescue more POWs from Germany. Norway and Denmark had at the time urged a 'stay put' strategy for their POWs, suggesting that they were safer in POW camps than being brought home.
Ditleff enlisted Folke to go to Germany to negotiate further prisoner releases along with the ICRC. This brought Folke to meet Himmler. Events were moving quickly in Germany by April and Berlin was near collapse before the Soviet Army. Himmler met Hitler for the last time on Hitler's birthday, 20 April 1945. Hitler resolved to stay despite the likely fall of Berlin. Himmler and Goring both left the city as quickly as possible. Himmler met a Swedish representative of the World Jewish Congress, Norbert Masur, on 21 April to discuss possible release of Jewish inmates in concentration camps.
Himmler met Folke Bernadotte two days later in Lubeck. One result of their meeting was Himmler's agreement on what was called the 'White Bus' initiative, which allowed some 21,000 POWs to leave Germany by road. Another result was a letter Himmler asked Bernadotte to bring to General Eisenhower, offering that German forces would surrender to western (US and UK) armies, on the condition that they would then join in resisting the Soviets. Bernadotte told Himmler that the idea would never be accepted, but Himmler insisted nonetheless that he transmit the message. The proposal was rejected by the western allies. Berlin fell to the Soviets on 2 May, 1945.
Maurice Pate - In this period Maurice Pate had become the Chief of the Prisoners of War Branch within the US War Department. Oddly, Pate did not join the US delegation to the Stockholm Conference
Constance Sutton -
The Friends
To understand how UNICEF and several other humanitarian agencies of today came into being, it is important to look back at least as far as World War I.
to the groups which grew up amid the devastation that World War I brought to Europe and the Middle East. Prominent among these groups were the Quakers, otherwise known as the Religious Society of Friends, or more commonly simply as 'the Friends. The anti-war activism of the Quakers goes back to their founding in the mid-17th Century during the English Civil War (1642 - 1651). The refusal of Quakers to take up arms put them at odds with both sides of the Civil War and led to their persecution. While they did not take up arms, the Quakers distinguished themselves in setting up field hospitals, and caring for the wounded on both sides of the war.
The Quakers took similar roles in subsequent wars and became well-known for their humanitarian work in the wars of the 19th Century - in the UK for Crimean and Boer wars, and in the US during the American Civil War. Somewhat similar pacifist religious groups grew up in Switzerland, the Netherlands, and Russia. One group with Swiss roots is known in the US as the Mennonites.
World War I
Two Quaker organizations which played major roles in the founding of UNICEF were the Friends' Ambulance Unit (FAU) in the UK and the The American Friends' Service Committee (AFSC) in the US. Members of the FAU drove ambulances and established field hospitals on the battlefields of Europe.
In 1911 Maurice Pate, then a 16 year old boy, graduated a year early from a high school in Denver, Colorado and immediately went on to university at Princeton where he graduated with honors in 1915. On a visit home to his family in Denver he read an article about the work of Herbert Hoover, a rich American living in London.
Hoover had grown up in a Quaker family in Iowa, but went on to train at Stanford University as a mining geologist. He quickly made a fortune as a ruthless developer and owner of gold mines in Australia and China. Once his fortune was made, Hoover settled down in London managing his companies and investments from afar. When war broke out in Europe in 1914, Hoover suddenly seemed to develop a social conscience.
Following the German invasion of Belgium in August 1914 World War I threatened civilians in Belgium and northern France with starvation. Hoover grew concerned with their plight and established a group called the Commission for Relief in Belgium (CRB) to aid civilians suffering due along the front lines in France and Belgium. Maurice Pate went immediately to New York and signed up with Hoover's CRB. CRB sent Pate to oversee food aid distribution and flour mills along the Belgian / French border. Pate and other Americans were withdrawn when the US entered the war in 1917
In 1947 and 1948 UNICEF played a pivotal role in the immediate postwar response in Gaza, partly financing and supplying the American Friends Service team in Gaza until 1950.
That unit gave UNICEF two of its earliest Representatives, Alice Shaffer and Cordelia Trimble who went on to lead new UNICEF offices in Latin America. When the AFSC closed in Gaza it handed over its operations to the then still nascent UNRWA. Just 4 years later Henry Labouisse became the Director General of UNRWA which he headed until 1958.
In 1948 when the UN Mediator for Palestine, Count Folke-Bernadotte, could find no donors for the initial establishment of UNRWA, he appealed to Maurice Pate and UNICEF Executive Board to put up a small amount of funds. Bernadotte also convinced a reluctant Swedish government to provide public health personnel for a programme financed through UNICEF and run in cooperation with WHO. The programme continued for years after his death covering MCH, BCG, anti-syphilis, and trachoma. In the early 1950s UNICEF had provided over $10 million in funding.
On 16 September 1948 just one day before Bernadotte was assassinated by one of the Jewish terrorist groups in Jerusalem, Bernadotte included the following in what would be his final report to the UN:
IMMEDIATE RELIEF OF BASIC NEEDS - United Nations International Children’s Emergency Fund
The first portion of this programme involved an immediate estimate of the availability of emergency relief in terms of supplies and personnel. On 12 august 1948, therefore, in virtue of paragraph II, 1, (c) of General Assembly resolution 186(S-20), I invited the United Nations International children’s Emergency Fund to consider assisting me in carrying out certain of my responsibilities in respect of the children, pregnant women and nursing mothers, who constitute an estimated three-quarters of the Arab refugee total. On 13 August 1948, Dr. M. Kahany, the representative at Geneva of the Provisional Government of Israel, requested that similar facilities should be extended to his Government in respect of Arab and Jewish women and children (some 12,000 children and some 8,000 women) in the areas under Jewish control. Both these proposals were recommended and sent forward to the Executive Board of the Children’s Fund which, at its meeting on 17 august 1948, was convinced that an emergency situation existed in which Fund could be of assistance, and that such assistance was within the competence of the Fund (document E/ICEF/75). I had asked for an appropriation equivalent (plus shipping) to $796,000 for the Arab refugees. The Executive Board, however, after adjusting the request to include the increased numbers mentioned as requiring relief by the representative of the Provisional Government of Israel, excluded cereals and agreed to provide a global sum not to exceed $411,000 plus shipping costs, allocating that amount for a two months’ programme. This allocation, although less than requested, has served as the foundation for the programme of immediate relief.
In 1948 when the UN Mediator for Palestine, Count Folke-Bernadotte, could find no donors for the initial establishment of UNRWA, he appealed to Maurice Pate and UNICEF Executive Board to put up a small amount of funds. Bernadotte also convinced a reluctant Swedish government to provide public health personnel for a programme financed through UNICEF and run in cooperation with WHO. The programme continued for years after his death covering MCH, BCG, anti-syphilis, and trachoma. In the early 1950s UNICEF had provided over $10 million in funding.
On 16 September 1948 just one day before Bernadotte was assassinated by one of the Jewish terrorist groups in Jerusalem, Bernadotte included the following in what would be his final report to the UN:
IMMEDIATE RELIEF OF BASIC NEEDS - United Nations International Children’s Emergency Fund
The first portion of this programme involved an immediate estimate of the availability of emergency relief in terms of supplies and personnel. On 12 august 1948, therefore, in virtue of paragraph II, 1, (c) of General Assembly resolution 186(S-20), I invited the United Nations International children’s Emergency Fund to consider assisting me in carrying out certain of my responsibilities in respect of the children, pregnant women and nursing mothers, who constitute an estimated three-quarters of the Arab refugee total. On 13 August 1948, Dr. M. Kahany, the representative at Geneva of the Provisional Government of Israel, requested that similar facilities should be extended to his Government in respect of Arab and Jewish women and children (some 12,000 children and some 8,000 women) in the areas under Jewish control. Both these proposals were recommended and sent forward to the Executive Board of the Children’s Fund which, at its meeting on 17 august 1948, was convinced that an emergency situation existed in which Fund could be of assistance, and that such assistance was within the competence of the Fund (document E/ICEF/75). I had asked for an appropriation equivalent (plus shipping) to $796,000 for the Arab refugees. The Executive Board, however, after adjusting the request to include the increased numbers mentioned as requiring relief by the representative of the Provisional Government of Israel, excluded cereals and agreed to provide a global sum not to exceed $411,000 plus shipping costs, allocating that amount for a two months’ programme. This allocation, although less than requested, has served as the foundation for the programme of immediate relief.
Comments
Post a Comment