ABSTRACT

Why was Evatt opening himself to Zionist advocacy at this late hour? The vote for the Assembly presidency was past, he had lost, and this freed him of any immediate need to curry favour with the Arabs though he and his subordinates were to remain engaged in this effort. Once in New York, efforts to woo the Arab bloc for the 1948 vote intensified even as the Committee worked towards partition. Atyeo’s opposition to partition was known, he was Evatt’s most trusted lieutenant and this effort was principally entrusted to him. According to Landa, Atyeo in turn was being fortified in his advocacy against partition by Arab money: ‘A lot of that was going on.’1