ABSTRACT
This chapter discusses the ways in which Eleanor Roosevelt conducted herself, both within the delegation and outside of it, as the discourse on human rights got underway. Eleanor Roosevelt's reaction to the issue of Palestine laid bare the dichotomous nature of her stance. On one side of the coin, she was a conforming dutiful citizen, willing to subsume her individual views to the greater American interests. Roosevelt justified her support for Zionism as being part of the democratic liberal agenda, despite the official and informal advises that indicated otherwise; the State Department's opposition was led by General George Marshall. However, on the flip side, she acted with disarming effectiveness to progress what became, from early 1946, her favoured project: to champion the creation of Israel. The United Nations became the vessel into which she channelled her enormous energy, in part to accord due respect to Franklin Delano Roosevelt's efforts, but also to enshrine her own convictions.
