Brutal images of the murder of civilians, including many children, haunt us hourly as all media project a non-stop carousel of bloody scenes. How can we ever come to grips with the mass violence that has attended a bloody Palestinian uprising, and a vicious military reaction on the part of Israel?
The recent NDP convention passed an emergency resolution calling for a ceasefire and an end to Israel’s total siege of Gaza. Foreign affairs critic Heather McPherson has said that she’s going to challenge Justin Trudeau: “I’m going to ask them why they haven’t fought for a ceasefire. I’m going to ask them why they haven’t treated the people in Gaza, the Palestinian population, the same as they’ve treated … the care that they provided for Israelis.”
After the brutal bombing of a hospital in Gaza, voices around the world are joining in that call.
As we seek to halt the bloodshed now, we should not avoid looking to the past, to the moments that led to this seemingly unending conflict.
In that regard, those of us on Turtle Island may want to heed the voice of Elizabeth MacCallum, one of Canada’s first woman diplomats, who was advising the Canadian delegation at the United Nations when it made some fateful decisions regarding Palestine.
Born in the Ottoman Empire (Turkey) in 1895, MacCallum was fluent in Arabic and graduated from Queen’s and Columbia University. She joined Canada’s department of external affairs in 1942, one of the first women to break the gender barrier and become a foreign service officer. She was Canada’s first specialist on the Middle East, was widely respected, and appointed chief advisor to Canada’s delegation to the United Nations in 1947 when the issue of Palestine was debated.
At the time, she wrote extensive policy papers advising government representatives. Sensitive to the impact of the Nazi death camps, she noted that “‘Arabs regard it as a matter of essential justice that Europe itself should make reparations to the Jews for the sufferings it has inflicted on them…and that a “fundamental element in the Arab position is the belief that Asia is not the property of westerners, to be parcelled out among European interests as was done at the close of the last war.” Here, MacCallum was referring to the aftermath of World War I (1914-1918).
This was when the UK first seized control of Palestine. The UK, the US, and other imperial powers, faced with decolonizing insurgencies occurring in India, Egypt, China, Korea and elsewhere, constructed a deeply racist international mandate system. The UK seized control of Palestine as part of this system in which imperial powers supposedly had a “civilizing mission” in regard to the “backward” peoples, the peoples of what we now call the Global South and Indigenous lands including Turtle Island.
British control of Palestine after 1919 only made matters worse and by 1947 they wanted to wash their hands of Palestine, unloading the issue onto a poorly prepared United Nations in 1947. One solution proposed in the UN in 1947 was the partition of Palestine.
In that regard, MacCallum contended that both Canadian and international public opinion were deeply divided. She rejected the Zionist contention that a Jewish State was the proper recompense for the age-old problem of anti-Semitism in Europe; or that it would ensure that never again would the Jewish people have a minority status in a country; or that it was the only hope for the security of the Jewish community.
The proposed partition would curtail the Arab right of self-determination, declared MacCallum, the new Jewish State would acquire new enemies, continued insecurity, the unending need for a Great Power to ensure its existence, and the constant danger of conflict with its Arab neighbours.
She also argued that the General Assembly had no legal authority “to divide the country against the wishes of the majority of the population and to turn over 65% of the territory to the Jews, who now own only 6% of the land.” This violated the UN Charter that stated that the United Nations’ purpose, among others, was to “develop friendly relations among nations based on respect for the principle of equal rights and self-determination of peoples, and to take other appropriate measures to strengthen universal peace.”
Hers was a voice for peace at the time, for Palestinians and Jews to live together and share the land. But, as foreign policy scholars John Kirton and Peyton Lyon have pointed out, Lester Pearson “treated her, the department’s first Arabist, with great respect but ignored her advice as he swung Canada towards a more pro-Israel position than she wanted.”
In the end, the UN group approved partition by a narrow margin of 14 to 13, with Canada supporting partition. This invited further conflict at the UN and in Palestine. However, in May 1948, Israel declared its independence as a Jewish state, leading to civil war and what is now referred to as the “Nakba,” – the expulsion of an estimated 700,000 Palestinians who today number nearly six million. Many are in Gaza and continue to demand the right to return.
In the coming days, the world will be consumed in difficult conversations about the terrible impacts of the current war.
MacCallum’s voice, however, reminds us that Canada was there at the creation. Had the government heeded her voice at the time the outcome may have been different.
We should not make the same mistake today.
MacCallum’s role in these years is fully recorded in Richard Newport’s dissertation,
“The Outsider: Elizabeth P. MacCallum, the Canadian Department of External Affairs, and the Palestine Mandate to 1947.” Support rabble today!
We’re so glad you stopped by! Thanks for consuming rabble content this year.
rabble.ca is 100% reader and donor funded, so as an avid reader of our content, we hope you will consider gifting rabble with a donation during our summer fundraiser today.
Whether it be a one-time donation or a small monthly contribution, your support is critical to keep rabble writers producing the work you’ve come to rely on as a part of a healthy media diet.
Become a rabble rouser — donate to rabble.ca today.
Nick Seebruch, editor
John Price is professor emeritus of history at the University of Victoria and author or Orienting Canada: Race, Empire and the Transpacific.
