ABSTRACT
As mentioned previously, under the Royal Commission's Plan, Jerusalem in its entirety and its environs, was incorporated within the boundaries of the permanent mandatory enclave. Even prior to publication of the Royal Commission's Plan, a majority on the Executive believed that it would prove necessary to swallow the amputation of the Old City, including the Jewish holy places (such as the Western Wall), from the territory of the Jewish State. There was no chance that the British would assent to a demand to incorporate the Old City, or at least the Jewish holy places, within the boundaries of the Jewish State. Furthermore, the Jewish Agency Executive assumed that a Zionist demand for the Old City, i.e. ‘control over the holy places … the Holy Sepulcher, the Mosque of Omar, etc’, 1 would provoke an Arab uprising on the one hand, and stir up Christian criticism on the other. This could seriously endanger the possibility of implementing the partition proposal. Additionally, whether the Jews demanded the entire Old City or merely the sites within it that were sacred to Judaism, such a démarche would elicit a similar Arab counter-demand. Ben-Gurion did not even hesitate to state, that in the unlikely event that all of Jerusalem were offered to the Jews, he would have attempted to persuade them to spurn acceptance of the Old City.
