Uruguay’s Stance on the Palestinian Problem at the United Nations and the Creation of the State of Israel

The British Stance

From early 1947 on, Britain was opposed to the partition of the Palestinian territory into two states. The Foreign Office and Colonial Office ministers (Ernest Bevin and Arthur Creech-Jones, respectively) sought alternatives, attempting to have Arabs and Zionists negotiate on their own terms. According various researchers (Beckerman-Boys, 2013; Cohen, 1982; Lepkin, 1986), possible alternatives at the time included (1) partition (generally rejected by Britain but defended by Creech-Jones), (2) a binational state and British trusteeship, (3) a federal state with provincial autonomy, (4) a single Arab state, and (5) maintenance of the status quo (implementing the 1939 White Paper). Fearing that Arab rejection would weaken its position in the Near East, the British considered the first of these of little benefit to their interests. The next two were rejected by the Jewish Agency, the Arab states, and the United States. The British desire to separate the issue of displaced persons from the Palestinian problem was thwarted by pressure from the United States, which was promoting the immigration of 100,000 displaced persons. The Arabs were in favor of the last two possibilities —they preferred an Arab state, but maintaining the status quo was considered acceptable if it retained the restrictions on migration imposed in 1939. For Britain this would allow time to mitigate the displaced-persons problem (Beckerman-Boys, 2013: 128–136, 259–262). Britain was torn between the need to maintain cordial relations with the United States (hoping to gain its support for its negotiating points) and not endangering its relations with Arab nations for strategic reasons (Cohen, 1982: 108).

The options for the mandatory power were reduced to imposing a solution without consensus (negative from a strategic point of view and burdensome resourcewise) and withdrawing from Palestine. The idea of delegating the problem to the UN prevailed between February and April 1947, but Britain was unwilling to become involved in enforcing the stipulations of the majority plan of the UN Special Committee on Palestine (UNSCOP), going so far as to boycott the activities of this committee and the Arab Higher Committee (AHC) (Cohen, 1982: 265–268).

The United States’ Position

Until October 11, 1947, when the U.S. government gave explicit official support to partition, its stance was hesitant and widely debated internally. Truman struggled between the State Department (headed by Edward Stettinius until 1945, later by James Byrnes, and from 1947 on by George Marshall) and the Jewish lobby, which used its community’s votes in key states as an instrument of pressure (Cohen, 1990: 165). Moderate Zionism had the support of the influential pro-Zionist advisers in the White House David Niles and Max Lowenthal. Since 1945 the U.S. State Department had been insisting on the importance of oil interests in the Near East and their strategic postwar value, recommending not altering relations with the Arab states (Stettinius to Truman, 4/18/1945; Grew to Truman, 6/6/1945, Truman Library, http://www.trumanlibrary.org). Nevertheless, Truman’s public declarations (especially his 1946 Yom Kippur speech), often interpreted as support for Zionism, contravened these recommendations and the British efforts to bring the parties closer to its terms. The United States did not work for the victory of the partition proposal in the November 25 General Assembly vote, but afterward Truman shifted to a more active stance, pressuring some countries to thwart the decisive November 29 vote (Cohen, 1982: 292–300). The Soviet pronouncement possibly conditioned this decision.

The Soviet Position

The Soviet stance changed as it strengthened its diplomatic ties with Zionist organizations during the war and in its later negotiation of its spheres of influence ² with a Britain in decline (Ro’i, 1980: 15–25). During the 1946 Anglo-U.S. negotiations, the Soviets pressured for the problem to be delegated to the UN (Gorodetsky, 2003: 13–14), since a bilateral agreement would exclude them. Aware of this fact, the Jewish Agency stepped up its conversations with its diplomats (N. Goldman Memorandum, cited in Bentsur and Kolokolov, 2000: 128–130). In early 1947 the Soviet position was still separating the Palestinian conflict from the situation of displaced Europeans and recommending an international trusteeship (Maksimov to Nemchinov, 3/5/1947, cited in Bentsur and Kolokolov, 2000: 166–168). But on May 14, the General Assembly delegate Andrei Gromyko defended a binational state or, if this were not viable, partition (UN, General Assembly, A/PV.77). ³ Foreign Minister Viacheslav Molotov, in secret correspondence, would later acknowledge that the reference to a binational state was merely tactical (Bentsur and Kolokolov, 2000: 227).

The Zionist Position

Political Zionism proclaimed itself the legitimate voice of a people vaguely defined in terms of cultural, religious, and ethnic criteria. Although various tendencies often in conflict existed within their cores, its UNSCOP and AHC representatives were in agreement on certain basic points justifying the creation of a Jewish state. The principal argument was the ancestral right of the Jewish people to Palestinian territory, based on historical-ethnic and religious references and expressed in an enduring desire for return. Palestine was necessary to redeem the Jewish people and to normalize its situation in the world as much as this people was necessary to redeem Palestine with its work and civilizing contribution (UNSCOP, A/AC.13/PV.26). The second most important argument was the right granted by the international agreements based on the 1917 Balfour Declaration (Laqueur, 1969: 18–20), betrayed, according to the Jewish Agency, by the 1939 White Paper. The third argument was the persistence of anti-Semitism in Europe, calling for Jewish migration to a safe place shielded from the ambitions of Amin al-Husseini (the grand mufti of Jerusalem and Palestinian Arab religious and political leader, known as a philo-Nazi). The displaced-persons issue was thus linked to the Palestinian question, placing moral pressure on the UN, whose members were mostly sensitized by the Nazi genocide (UNSCOP, A/AC.13/PV.26). The civilizing and modernizing benefits conferred on the Arabs by the Jews in their recent migrations operated as another argument, one that assumed an attitude of civilizing superiority of Western origin (UNSCOP, A/AC.13/PV.16).

Lastly, another argument was the denial of Palestinian nationalism, considered the fiction of an elite that had mobilized an uncouth and naïve mass inspired by petty interests and a violent message (UNSCOP, A/AC.13/PV.21 and A/AC.13/PV.31). This rationale justified the possibility of a forced “transfer” of Palestinian Arabs to other Arab countries in the region (Masalha, 2008) because it presumed a common national identity of the former with a broader Arab nation. The Zionist positions were radicalized after the Twenty-second Zionist Congress in December 1946, in which the leadership of Ben Gurion and Abba Hillel Silver over and above Chaim Weizmann was reaffirmed (Weizmann, 1949: 604–605).

The Arab Stance

While Mufti Husseini was relentless in his boycott of UNSCOP (García Granados, 1949: 50), with the exception of King Abdullah I of Jordan, whom the committee expressly visited, the representatives of the Arab League attended its final sessions (UNSCOP, A/AC.13/PV.38, A/AC.13/PV.39). The League rejected the Jewish Agency’s charge of philo-Nazism and concentrated its arguments on questioning the legitimacy of the Mandate in imposing Zionist aspirations on the true titleholders of the territory. It rejected the Balfour Declaration and upheld the status of Palestinians as an interested party capable of deciding the future of the territory of the defeated Ottoman Empire, denied by Britain and the League of Nations on the basis of the right of conquest following World War I. Its second core rationale fell into a pseudoscientific realm of genealogies and the formation of “races,” refusing to recognize the Jews as a people and therefore their right to Palestinian land. It also criticized terrorism and the violence inherent in the Zionist claims.

In addition, the League maintained that the projected Arab state should have the power to regulate immigration in its territory in order to safeguard the rights of the Palestinian people while guaranteeing those of the Jewish minority already residing there. It added that Palestine could no longer sacrifice itself to alleviate European guilt. Ultimately it rejected the civilizing benefits of Jewish immigration, deploring the displacement of Arabs. Moreover, it argued the economic unviability of a Jewish state. It also pointed to an evident pro-Zionist bias of several members of UNSCOP, among them the delegates from Uruguay and Guatemala.

The Uruguayan Position

From the time that UNSCOP began to operate, the questions asked in hearings by the Uruguayan delegate, Enrique Rodríguez Fabregat, demonstrated a position critical of British imperialism and in sympathy with the Zionist positions (UNSCOP, A/AC.13/PV.24: 10).

In presenting the majority plan of UNSCOP to the General Assembly on September 3, 1947, the delegate left no room for doubt (General Assembly, A/364, Add.1:57):

The creation of a Jewish State will be the territorial solution to the European Jewish problem and will make partial amends for the terrible biases that . . . the Jewish people have suffered, while still exposed to new injustices and racial discrimination. . . . Hence the urgent need to provide a territorial solution to the Jewish problem. And to do so basically in Palestine. . . . Europe’s Jews are demanding that today, as survivors of Nazi extermination, capable of enduring the harshest ordeals . . . in order to obtain the land twice promised them: in the promise by their God on Mount of Revelation and in the promise of the Nations in 1922 in San Remo, detailing the provisions of the Mandate.

He defended partition as the only possible solution and as necessary to do justice to a people recognized as a nation with a right to the territory, granting legitimacy to the association of the Palestinian problem with that of the displaced persons and the commitments deriving from the Balfour Declaration. The increased humanitarian consciousness regarding the Nazi genocide also played an important role.

From the start, Rodríguez Fabregat maintained an inflexible defense of the legitimacy of the British Mandate (AHC, A/AC.14/SR.6: 33), although he criticized the British imperialist interests that violated their guardianship obligations. ⁴ The fresh memory of the failure of the League of Nations and the concern for the possible disparagement of the UN explain that position: questioning the Mandate could undermine the legitimacy of the resolution debated (since the decision-making authority was based on the legacy of the League of Nations) and compromise the power of the UN in general to resolve similar problems.

Action by the Jewish Lobby

The Jewish community in Uruguay, especially in Montevideo (where it was largely concentrated), was numerically significant (25,000 in 1938) and, strengthened by the migration of refugees prior to and during the war, amounted to approximately 50,000 during the 1950s (Feldman, 2001: 185; Raicher, 2003: 18). Its community organizations were fortified during the 1940s, achieving a degree of unity with the creation of the Israeli Central Committee of Uruguay. Its commitment to the Zionist cause grew during the war, and the creation of the Jewish Agency office in Montevideo (led first by Rabbi Isaac Algazi and later by Jacobo Hazán) marked an important milestone. These institutions carried out various actions aimed at persuasion (in favor of a pro-Zionist stance) of the public and the country’s political elite. These actions involved publications aimed at the Jewish community to encourage Zionist activism, calls to meetings and public events, radio programs, distribution of flyers and posters, interviews with renowned politicians, and messages and propagandistic publications sent to government institutions (Avni and Raicher, 1986: 23). The most effective influence on the political elite, however, was their personal relations with key members of the legislative and executive branches and the diplomatic service (Avni and Raicher, 1986: 37–59).

The Jewish Agency’s local office created a “committee of friends” of the Zionist cause composed of important non-Jewish figures in Uruguay’s political and cultural life: the Comité Uruguayo Pro-Palestina (Pro-Palestine Committee of Uruguay—CUPP) was founded on July 8, 1944, and headed by Augusto Turenne. Its members included Héctor Paysée Reyes (a major supporter of the Zionist cause in the General Assembly), Jaime Bayley (delegate to the UN), the Batllista politician Hugo Fernández Artucio, the Catholic Party deputy Tomás Brena, the socialist leader José Pedro Cardoso, and important Uruguayan intellectuals of the time including Celedonio Nin y Silva, Emilio Oribe, Alberto Zum Felde, and Carlos Sabat Ercasty. The CUPP held various meetings and conferences, concluding with “a brilliant public event in Montevideo’s Ateneo, with an enthusiastic audience of some 5,000 people” (CUPP, 1945: 1). Some of the speeches were published in a pamphlet whose goal, in addition to combating anti-Semitism, was to advocate for the creation of a Jewish state in Palestine. Turenne declared (CUPP, 1945: 6):

We would like Uruguay’s voice to join the universal clamor so that, by historical right, national relevance, and the unspeakable suffering endured over long years, the Jewish people may have the right to live where more than two millennia ago it was capable of organizing a civilization, creating an ideological line that is the root of current Christian civilization, and preserving a sense of unity, unique in history, in the midst of the most dire historical developments.

The Jewish Agency’s influence on the CUPP can be seen in the committee’s publications and in the correspondence of its leadership, with Rajel Sefaradí Yardén, head of the Latin American Division of the Jewish Agency, reporting on its activities (Avni and Raicher, 1986: 60–61).

The Zionist movement’s publicity also sought to influence Uruguay’s Foreign Ministry and may have had some impact on the development of its stance. According to Hazán (quoted in Avni and Raicher, 1986: 31; see also Tov, 1983: 258), there was frequent communication between them:

In 1947, we presented the Jewish Agency as a Jewish government, as yet unrecognized, but a government in fact, and we obtained . . . credentials to be presented to the president at the time, Mr. Tomás Berreta, and to the Foreign Minister, Eduardo Marques Castro. This gave us an unofficial status before the government, and like the population and government, despite British pressure, they were pro-Jewish. According to the norm, we held a status that at least allowed us to enter the Ministry of Foreign Relations as if we were diplomats. . . . The various foreign ministers that held the office were all very favorably inclined toward Israel and we had regular discussions, went to make requests and to stress that they maintain a favorable line.

Hazán also recalls his telephone conversations with Batlle Berres’s secretary, Juan Carlos Schauritch (whom he calls “a very close friend”), and had been the family doctor of Rodríguez Fabregat’s mother, developing a familiarity that allowed him to serve as a liaison in his first meeting with Moshe Tov (who succeeded Rajel Sefaradí Yardén in his post) in the United States (Tov, 1983: 47; Daniel Rodríguez Oteiza, interview, Montevideo, May 10, 2016).

Thus a close relationship was formed between members of the Uruguayan delegation and members of the Zionist movement prior to the start of the UNSCOP sessions. Tov highlights the influence of Hazán on the Uruguayan government (Tov, 1983: 258):

I remember that during one of the roughest Assemblies at the United Nations, Professor Fabregat admitted that on a certain issue of debate, it was absolutely necessary for him to receive precise instructions and have freedom of action in order to maneuver his position in the Latin American bloc. I merely had to telegraph Hazán; . . . he quickly obtained an audience with the foreign minister, whom he convinced that we were in the right, and within a few hours Fabregat had the ensuing cable with the appropriate instructions in his hands.

The Voice of the British Community in Montevideo

The archives I consulted did not corroborate Rosa Perla Raicher’s (2003: 181) theory that there was British pressure on the Uruguayan government in favor of support of its interests in the Palestine question. The Uruguayan ambassador in London, during a key time in the trade and finance negotiations with Britain (Loy, 2000), was aware of the new geopolitical reality: “Britain has lost ground; the United States and the Soviet Union are taking over many of its former spheres of influence.” Nevertheless he felt that, given the Labour victory, a rapprochement with that country was necessary and advantageous: “This is a decisive moment for recovering and improving positions” (Roberto MacEachen to Marques Castro, 9/18/1947, Archivo Histórico-Diplomático del Ministerio de Relaciones Exteriores de la República Oriental del Uruguay, [hereafter AHD-MMRREE], Fondo Gran Bretaña, File 15). The difficulties and diplomatic pressures that the Palestine problem may have meant for relations between the two countries have yet to be fully documented.

In this phase of the investigation, reading just the Sun, the voice of the British community in Montevideo, can provide some idea of how this community, which represented powerful interests in Uruguay, attempted to exert pressure on decisions by the government. The tone of this newspaper’s editorials, very concerned about the Palestinian problem, varied throughout the period. Until May 1947 they were confident that the partition option would fail in the UN. Later, when this solution was approved, defying their predictions, their anti-Zionist tone was more heated, bordering on anti-Semitism. The Sun’s opinion on the Zionist movement was “We look upon political Zionists as the worst enemies of Jewry today, and we shall continue to campaign against them as long as we can lift a pen” (September 27, 1947). Finally, following approval of the partition, an extensive editorial argued that the UN had received a mortal wound, destroying its own legitimacy by acting against its own charter in “a case of suicide” (December 2, 1947). Despite the immensely critical attitude of those who defended partition that led the Sun to make harsh statements about the Guatemalan delegation, it was extremely cautious with the equally committed Uruguayan support for this solution. This is apparent in the editorial commenting on Uruguayan recognition of the State of Israel, considered regrettable. Nevertheless, the opportunity to raise suspicions about the motivations for this recognition was not lost (Sun, May 21, 1948):

In conformity with what we consider to be the proper conduct of a foreign newspaper published in any country, we refrain to comment on the above decree in any way. We nevertheless allow ourselves to express the hope that Uruguay’s recognition of the Zionist State will not in any way diminish the readiness she has always shown to admit displaced Jews. . . . We express this hope because we have been informed on reliable authority that several Latin American countries will limit the immigration of Jews on the ground that they now have their own country in Palestine to which they can go.

An Incipient Pro-Arab Sector

In contrast to the activities of Zionist lobby and the pro-Zionist organizations, the pro-Arab view never had the same force, access to the media, or number of supporters. Both the demographic weight and the activist commitment of Uruguay’s Arab community seem to have been limited. According to assessments by Israeli diplomatic staff in Uruguay in 1950, the Arab population (immigrants and descendants) was about 15,000 (Raicher, 2003: 175), although it probably included a good number of non-Muslim Lebanese. The first public expression found in an anti-Zionist Arab organization, the Arab Committee in Defense of Palestine, appeared in the pages of Marcha for December 5, 1947: “We are especially pleased to inform you that an Arab Pro-Palestine Defense Committee has been formed in Montevideo whose primary goal is to raise awareness of the problems of our brothers and sisters and to fight for the defense of their legitimate rights.” A transcription of two very terse telegrams addressed to the Uruguayan delegation to the UN, expressing solidarity with the Arab cause in Palestine, followed.

No reference to this organization or to its publicity was found in the government archives. This contrasts with the situation of the Zionist lobby and pro-Zionist sectors, which had the support of an international institution (the Jewish Agency), a solid discourse, substantial capacity to generate and disseminate publicity, and, perhaps most important, a foothold in Jewish community organizations and networks of contacts previously established with government and diplomatic figures. Further, the late emergence of the pro-Arab petition limited its success once the Uruguayan stance had been clearly presented at the UN.

In Argentina the pro-Arab sector was better organized and carried out a larger publicity offensive (see Comité Árabe Pro Ayuda a Palestina, 1948). The relation between the Uruguayan and Argentine committees has yet to be ascertained, and in fact Uruguay’s publicity employs the lines established by the office of the Arab League in Río de Janeiro, which apparently did not have much influence even in Brazil (Vigevani and Kleinas, 2000: 98).

Palestine in the Partisan Press

The Uruguayan press covered the Palestinian problem largely through cables from foreign press agencies, devoting little editorial space to it. El Debate, the voice of Herrerismo (the largest political opposition sector), exhibited a very mild critical tone toward Zionism: it rejected Jewish terrorism and emphasized (in a tone that could be interpreted as rejection) the power of the U.S. Jewish lobby in the UN given that it operated in New York, “the spiritual and official capital of the Jewish world.” It was even suggested that the Jews would not comply with the UN decision, since the Jewish Agency itself “did not . . . rule out the possibility of defending the extremist line of the movement if it did not obtain full satisfaction of its autonomy demands in the UN” (May 8, 1947). It is noteworthy that this newspaper was the only one in Uruguay to give space to an interview with Mufti Husseini (taken from the international press) in which he advanced his arguments against Zionism (April 15, 1947). A more recent survey of El Debate has shown that while it continued to adopt anti-Semitic and philofascist stances (October 20, 1946), later it published editorials in which the Zionist cause was included among those that, in accordance with the nationalist definitions of Herrerismo, ought to be accepted (Jlly 20, 1947; May 16, 1948). The complex and never unanimous stances within this sector deserve to be examined in depth.

In turn, the voice of Nacionalismo Independiente. El País (December 2, 1947), called for “sanity and common sense” in order to avoid another war and expressed solidarity with the Zionist cause. Ultimately, it expressed its agreement with the partition solution: “The Hebrew people have the right to have place under the sun, as do all others on the earth. This was a millennial problem, heightened during this century, that needed a solution, and it was logical to find it by placing them in their traditional land, which according to history and an old religious legend held their original cradle.” The Nacionalista El Plata collected several notes written by the U.S. journalist Walter Lippmann expressing relatively critical support for partition, which he considered inevitable in the context of the decline of the old colonial empires. Adopting a pragmatic stance, he felt that the best solution was the one that created the least harm in the Near East, especially considering the possibility that the Soviet Union would seek to exploit the instability to broaden its sphere of influence. Moreover, he insisted on defending the UN as a guarantor of peace and rational policy in the face of the realpolitik criteria and the Cold War in the making. He argued that much of the responsibility for finding solutions to these issues fell on “small and medium-sized nations” (May 10, December 2, and December 8, 1947).

In the governing Partido Colorado’s publications there was more coverage of the topic. The Riverista ⁶ La Mañana projected a fairly pessimistic position on the tensions between the great powers, particularly in light of the Soviet aspirations for intervention that were hidden behind its support for partition. This was expressed in both its editorials and its cartoons (December 6, 1947). It also had an affinity with Zionism, agreeing with one of its typical arguments, the civilizing superiority of the Jews. In addition, it exalted the work of the UN in terms similar to those of El Plata (April 27, 1947).

El Día (November 13, 1947), representing Batllismo (the majority sector of the governing party, which controlled the executive branch), was noted for publishing firsthand information on UN debates, thanks to articles by one of the Uruguayan delegates, Jaime Bayley. This diplomat was optimistic about the possible success of what he considered a pro-partition tendency within the General Assembly, assigning a key role to Rodríguez Fabregat:“We have a great deal of faith in the righteousness of the cause and in the perseverance, ability, and fervent dedication to the matter of our permanent delegate to the UN and rapporteur Rodríguez Fabregat, who is endorsed with zeal and love in his honorable endeavor by García Granados of Guatemala, Zuloaga of Venezuela, and other prestigious delegates.” Furthermore, the editorials in El Día reflected critical support for the Zionist cause, considering it just but distancing itself from the terrorist methods of some of the organizations that supported it, while at the same time backing the UN’s authority to recommend a solution to the conflict.

Among the leftist press, the Communist weekly Justicia stood out with a position that varied throughout the period. Between August and September 1946, a series of notes denounced the machinations of the capitalist powers and the complicity of the Jewish and Arab elites against their peoples, perpetuating a conflict situation. Ultimately it declared itself against partition (August 30, 1946):

The motto of the Jewish State . . . defended by the most reactionary sectors of Zionism . . . is a false and antidemocratic one—the Jewish population in Palestine totals 600,000 while the Arabs number 1,300,000—and provokes a violent Arab reaction, facilitating the British “divide and rule” policy and the more daring projects for division, such as the plans for partition of Palestine. In this way some Zionist leaders have taken positions that border on treason against the interests of their own people. . . . Moreover, the Arab League serves to create illusions about an abstract Arab unity and achieving independence through negotiations, diverting the masses from any real anti-imperialist cooperation and from the struggle for effective independence in each Arab country.

This position changed in 1947, once the Soviet Union had committed its support to partition and it had been approved: “In the Arab peoples’ preparations for war, the hand that controls the oil consortia in the Near East is not unconnected, given that an Arab-Jewish war would give the Yankee imperialists the excuse to intervene in the name of peace. This what the USSR delegate sought to avoid by accepting, in principle, the partition of Palestine” (March 2, 1948). The arguments in support of partition did not differ from those wielded against it (anti-imperialist arguments). Justicia did not mention the violent discrepancies between the two nationalisms in dispute, demonstrating a not very realistic trust in the conciliatory doctrine of the Communist Party of Palestine, with which it was in solidarity (May 14, 1948).

The weekly Marcha, a self-proclaimed independent tribunal, dealt with the problem in more detail. Initially, it presented only the Zionist arguments, while maintaining that the viability of the UN was at stake in the success of partition: the title of one of its articles read “Palestine Is the Touchstone for the UN” (December 19, 1947). Only in December 1947, because of a reader’s protest, was space given to a pro-Arab communiqué and to an article by the British scholar and former anti-Zionist colonial officer William Stace, who asked, “Since when has it become a principle of justice that in a dispute regarding property or anything else the strong desire of one of the parties to have whatever is in dispute gives him claim to it?” (December 19, 1947). This provoked angry protests from Jewish readers, who responded with the typical Zionist arguments.

In sum, the majority of Uruguayan newspapers—privileged creators of opinion and representatives of the principal sectors of the most important political parties in the country—held pro-Zionist views, although the importance given to the issue varied in different publications. However, this survey, focused on the papers with the most circulation, remains to be complemented by one of other, smaller newspapers. The consensus displayed by most of the political sectors is due, in large part, to the development of Uruguayan political confrontation stemming from the Terra dictatorship that displaced the power of Batllismo through an alliance with the Partido Nacional’s Herrerista sector. During the latter half of the 1930s and as the war progressed, the sectors in opposition to Terrismo and Herrerismo built a strong antifascist identity with respect to their political opponents, accusing them of being philofascists (Oddone, 1990). According to Feldman (2001: 76), “It was no accident that the antifascists were anti-Terristas. The sectors opposed to the 1933 coup were true Batllistas, independent Blancos, Blanco supporters of Dr. Quijano, socialists, anarchists, and communists, and also those most identified with antifascism worldwide.” Political leaders linked to these sectors were the driving force of the antifascist and pro-Allies organizations during the war, with the Ateneo of Montevideo as their main center for meetings and transmission of ideas. Their relationship to the Zionist sectors was established in these organizations, where they combined efforts and created solidarity almost naturally. The exchange of ideas, political sympathies, and personal ties generated there are important in explaining the philo-Zionist consensus of the period that followed.

The Palestinian Problem in the General Assembly

The Palestinian problem was rarely raised in the regular sessions of the General Assembly. Both international affairs committees (whose minutes were apparently not written down or simply not preserved) debated the issue but declared themselves in support of the formally constituted State of Israel once the Uruguayan diplomatic stance had been determined. Therefore there is no reason to think that the legislature’s work had much influence on the executive’s pro-Zionist position. The sporadic pronouncements from both houses were overwhelmingly pro-Zionist. In July 1946 the Nacionalista representative José Olivera Ubíos was the first to speak in favor of the Zionist cause, expressing solidarity with “the population of another tiny land” (Diario de Sesiones de la Cámara de Representantes de la República Oriental del Uruguay [hereafter DSCR], Vol. 467, 94). Almost a year later Héctor Paysée Reyes, a Nacionalista Independiente linked to the CUPP, praised Rodríguez Fabregat’s actions (although regretting the limited information available on them), but the first significant exchange of views did not take place until May 1948, spurred by a letter sent by “distinguished citizens” requesting support for the Jewish state. Several deputies defended its existence at that time: Batllistas, Nacionalistas Independientes, and the socialist José Pedro Cardoso spoke out. In addition, Paysée Reyes underscored the legitimacy of the UN, which was placed on the line in the decision regarding partition (DSCR, Vol. 467, 273):

It compromises not only the existence of the newly formed state but also something much larger: the effort made by the civilized world as the war ended and it became a legal entity in the organization of the UN. With the events in Palestine it is balancing on the razor’s edge. If the UN is unable . . . to have its resolution respected, we will have to say, very bitterly, that the UN, the world’s organized structure, has committed suicide.

On June 2, 1948, in the Senate, in response to the letter cited, the Communist Party representative Julia Arévalo de Roche led the pro-Zionist defense (Official Journal of the House of Senators, Vol. 188, 214). Only one discordant voice was raised in the House of Representatives—that of Deputy Stewart Vargas, an Herrerista and journalist from El Debate, who was ridiculed:

The Jews have as much to do with Israel or Palestine as I do with Jews, which is nothing. In addition, to organize Jews into a State, within an Arab nation where Jews have for centuries exploited the Arabs, is to provoke a war and not promote peace. (Not supported) This problem is somewhat fictitious, because the Israelis’ desire to go to Palestine did not come from them: it was proposed during the last century. . . . (Laughter).

The Problem in the Executive Branch

Given the hesitant U.S. stance and its belated support for partition, the pro-United States alignment of the Berreta and Batlle administrations does not fully explain their position on the Palestinian problem (although it cannot be ruled out as a factor that influenced their adoption of a pro-Zionist stance). Even when the United States proposed trusteeship instead of partition in 1948, Uruguay was opposed. Meanwhile, the executive’s desire to increase Uruguay’s importance at the diplomatic level—to have renown and initiative in international politics surpassing what would be expected of a small nation on the periphery with little power, exploiting its highly valued reputation as a democratic country in the postwar context—must be considered as an incentive (Batlle Berres, 1966: 61–62) This attitude was consistent with a commitment to multilateralism that, despite the pan-American alignment of which Rodríguez Larreta’s doctrine was a clear exponent, was conceived “from a relatively autonomous position” (Clemente, 2005: 34). Pan-Americanism, which served to safeguard the country’s security at a regional level, was complemented by a certain amount of autonomy on issues of secondary importance (Armand Ugón to Batlle Berres, 11/15/1947, Archivo General de la Nación, Fondo Luis Batlle y Ordoñez, Uruguay [hereafter AGN-LBB], Case 109, f. 2), with Palestine apparently one of them. The privileged space for the advancement of this policy was the UN (Armand Ugón to Batlle Berres, 10/25/1948, AGN-LBB, Case 110, UN).

Rodríguez Fabregat, a former deputy and former government minister exiled during Terra’s dictatorship, was a university professor and a journalist in the United States during World War II, gaining experience in the field of international relations (Etchegoimberry, 1997: 83–84). This background, along with a Batllista affiliation and his friendship with Luis Batlle, resulted in his designation as a representative to the international body and the freedom of action he was granted. As an official of the Uruguayan delegation in UNSCOP he was accompanied by Óscar Secco Ellauri and Edmundo Sisto.

At that time, the Uruguayan Foreign Ministry seems to have been experiencing organizational problems and economic difficulties in the diplomatic delegations (Paysée Reyes to Batlle Berres, 4/24/1948, AGN-LBB, Case 110, UN File, f. 2), compounded by internal disputes, in the case of the UN, among delegates of different party affiliations (Jaime Bailey to Marcos Battle Santos, 9/23/1947, AGN-LBB, Case 38, Correspondence File). Nevertheless, Uruguay actively participated in all the committees, presenting projects and amendments and putting forth a clear position as well as a full agenda of extraofficial meetings with important diplomats, and issued numerous press releases (Armand Ugón to Batlle Berres, November 1948, Report to the Ministry of Foreign Relations, November 1948, AGN-LBB, Case 110, UN). It is possible that some of these extraofficial activities were designed to persuade other delegations in order to obtain the votes necessary to approve Resolution 181 (Rodríguez Oteiza, interview, May 10, 2016). By comparing the Foreign Ministry’s documents with the presidential correspondence, it is possible to contend that many of the UN Uruguayan delegation’s diplomatic instructions were given through personal correspondence, evading ministerial channels.