41 Fall 2025 172. Id.; ZIPPERSTEIN, supra note 25, at 372-376, 385; see also Palestine: Termination of the Mandate, Colonial Office and Foreign Office 10 (May 15, 1948), https://content.ecf.org.il/files/M00702_TerminationOfTheMandate COReport1948OriginalEnglish.pdf (“Arabs announced their intention of resisting it [the partition plan] by every means within their power and were promised full support in their resistance by Egypt, Iraq, Lebanon, Saudi Arabia, Syria, Transjordan and the Yemen.” For declarations made by Arab delegates immediately after the adoption of the Partition Resolutions, see The Arab Reaction, Ministry of Foreign Affairs (Nov. 29, 1947), https://www.gov.il/en/ Departments/General/the-arab-reaction-29-nov-1947. 173. General Assembly resolutions are without binding effect; see MALCOLM SHAW, INTERNATIONAL LAW 1077 (Univ. of Cambridge 9th ed. 2021) (“Except for certain internal matters, such as the budget, the Assembly cannot bind its members. It is not a legislature in that sense, and its resolutions are purely recommendatory”). The wording and history of Resolution 181(II) clearly indicate that G.A resolutions are merely recommendations and are not legally binding. As noted by Crawford: “The conclusion must be that the partition plan, though valid, was intended as no more than a recommendation. This conclusion is reinforced by the history of the resolution after 29 November 1947. Both the Security Council and the United Kingdom refused to enforce the partition plan, and various alternative schemes were mooted… By 14 May 1948 the Assembly itself had, in effect, abandoned the partition plan as a whole.” see JAMES CRAWFORD, THE CREATION OF STATES IN INTERNATIONAL LAW 430-432 (Oxford Univ. Press 2nd ed. 2007). On 14 May 1948, the UN resolved to stop the work of the Palestine Commission whose purpose was to assist with implementing Resolution 181(II), see Further Consideration of the Question of the Future Government of Palestine, G.A. Res. 554, U. N. Doc. A/554 (May 4, 1948). 174. Colonial Office and Foreign Office, supra note 36, at 12. area who immediately executed a previously threatened conflict with the area’s Jewish communities.172 Having been rejected, the implementation of Resolution 181(II) was abandoned.173 Britain had already declared its intention to terminate its Mandate failing the achievement of a solution acceptable to the interested parties. Following the failure to implement Resolution 181(II), the British government stated that it would end its Mandate on 15 May 1948. When the time came, the British noted that “it had originally been the intention of the United Nations that the [Palestine] Commission appointed to implement the Assembly’s recommendations should succeed to the authority exercised by the Government of Palestine and should arrange for the transfer and maintenance of the essential services operated by the Government”; however, acknowledging the failure of the UN effort to implement a resolution, the British unilaterally declared that “British responsibility for Palestine has ceased.”174
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