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al-Dawalibi, then deputy for Aleppo and later prime minister of the Syrian state, and Rasim al-Khalidi, to contact members of the International Committee of Inquiry and follow its work in Switzerland in the summer of 1947. They performed commendable work by contacting some members of the Committee, Mr. Camille Chamoun, then Lebanon’s interior minister, in his capacity as the Arab states’ delegate to the Committee of Inquiry, Mr. Jamil Makkawi, Lebanon’s minister plenipotentiary in Switzerland, Mr. Khalid al-Azm, Syria’s minister plenipotentiary, and other Arab diplomats. These contacts showed that the Committee’s Swedish chairman, Sandström, was strongly biased toward the Jews, as were most of its members, in accordance with the Anglo-American-Zionist plan.

I had sent a telegram to the prime minister of Iran, hoping that he would urge Iran’s representative on the Committee of Inquiry to support the Arabs’ right in Palestine. I also sent telegrams to Pakistan’s leader, Muhammad Ali Jinnah, in Karachi, and to Pandit Jawaharlal Nehru in Delhi, asking them to urge India’s representative on the Committee, Mr. Abd al-Rahman, to do the same. (This was before Pakistan separated from India.)

On this occasion I recall that India’s representative, Mr. Abd al-Rahman, visited me in Cairo. During this visit we reviewed the Palestine question in its current state, and in the course of our conversation I showed him the dangers that the colonial and Zionist plans, including partition, posed to Palestine and to the Arab and Islamic worlds.

At the September 1947 session, the Committee sent another delegation to the United Nations, composed of Jamal al-Husayni, Henri Kattan, Isa Nakhla, and Wasif Kamal. Despite the great efforts and strenuous initiatives undertaken by the Arab delegations and the Palestine delegation, the United Nations approved the partition resolution by 33 votes to 13, with 11 abstentions.

In 1947, the Committee sent a delegation to Europe composed of His Eminence George Hakim, metropolitan of the Greek Catholic community in the Galilee of Palestine, who later became His Beatitude Maximos V Hakim, Patriarch of Antioch and All the East of the Greek Catholics, Professor Muhammad al-Afifi, and Dr. Yaqub al-Khuri. The delegation visited Italy, the Vatican, France, and Belgium and carried out effective advocacy there for the Palestine cause.

In July 1947, the Committee sent a delegation composed of the professors Akram Zu‘aytir, representing Palestine, Nasri al-‘Aluf, currently deputy for Beirut, representing the Lebanese government, and Tawfiq al-Yaziji, representing the Syrian government. The delegation toured the countries of Latin America and Central America