Only Pleasing Themselves: The United Nations' Internationalization of Jerusalem, 1947-54

Abstract

As the British mandate in Palestine ended in mid-May 1948, responsibility for the territory shifted to the newly-formed United Nations. With tensions between Zionist settler Jews and Indigenous Arab Palestinians at an apex, the international organization sought to engender peace by implementing an internationalization of the Holy City of Jerusalem and its environs. This MA thesis examines the United Nations’ vision of internationalization and the supranational sovereignty it imagined for itself over Jerusalem, as well as local Palestinian, Jordanian, and Israeli residents within the city. Notwithstanding the creation of a commission, local consultations, international conferences, and two draft statutes, the UN plan to internationalize the area encompassing the Holy City failed by the mid-1950s. This examination reveals that the plan to internationalize Jerusalem failed because it only pleased the United Nations.