Year: 2026
Type: article
Abstract: As Minister for External Affairs in the Chifley Government, Herbert Vere Evatt played a pivotal role at the United Nations in securing the partition of Palestine and recognition of the State of Israel. These endeavours were represented by Evatt and in subsequent commentary as exemplifying Evatt's commitment to justice. This article questions how this could be the case when Evatt, in steering partition through UN forums, knowingly disregarded the opposition to partition by the Arab majority of Palestine. The article explains this apparent contradiction by challenging the view that Evatt's principal motivation was humanitarian. While acknowledging that Evatt's sympathy for Jewish suffering was sincere, it is argued that Zionism was, for Evatt, a cause that enabled him to advance an imperialist Australian foreign affairs agenda in the United Nations. It was this agenda that led him to support partition against the wishes of Palestinians. The article argues that partitioning Palestine under the auspices of the UN advanced Australia's foreign policy goals in two ways. It helped Evatt to validate the UN as an institution capable of delivering outcomes beneficial to medium powers, thus advancing Australia's strategic goal of a regional zone of control comprising Australian‐administered UN trusteeships over non‐state territories of the southwestern Pacific. Second, it undermined the UN's doctrine of self‐determination by subordinating the sovereignty of Indigenous peoples to a system of mediated imperialism.
DOI: 10.1111/ajph.70043
Author: Jeff Rickertt
Institution: The University of Queensland
Language: English
Subfield: Sociology and Political Science
Field: Social Sciences
Domain: Social Sciences
Open Access status: hybrid
Estimated APC paid: $2,900
Funder: University of Queensland
OpenAlex ID: W7127039345
FWCI:
Cites:
Cited by:
Related to: