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no armed persons other than police would be allowed to move about in the city. The idea of a " Red Cross City " was, of course, novel and unprecedented, but many representatives felt that it might offer the best chance of finding a solution. If the Council had decided to adopt the United States proposal for a temporary trusteeship it would undoubtedly have prejudiced the chances of success of the Red Cross plan which depended entirely on the agreement of Arabs and Jews, and accordingly the United States proposal was not pressed at this stage. United Kingdom Proposal for Appointment of Municipal Commissioner At this point in the discussions in the Council, when the majority would accept neither the French nor the United States, proposals mainly on the grounds that the Arabs opposed both schemes and the Jews had reservations about one of the plans, the United Kingdom delegate (Mr. Fletcher Cooke) came forward with an entirely new proposal. As representative of the mandatory Power, he informed the Council that the minimum necessary administrative provision in Jerusalem after 15 th May (the date of the termination of the mandate) might be made through the appointment by the British High Commissioner of a neutral person acceptable to both Arabs and Jews, as Special Municipal Commissioner. The Jerusalem Municipal Commission ordinance did not, however, give the Municipal Commission any power to maintain law and order in Jerusalem, and therefore the proposed Special Municipal Commissioner would not have any such powers. The great advantage of the proposal was that it presented no legal difficulties, since (at any rate in the view of the United Kingdom Government) relevant existing Palestinian legislation would continue in effect after the expiration of the mandate. Both the Arab Higher Committee and the Jewish Agency accepted this proposal in principle, but the Arab Higher Committee was unable to agree on political grounds to various additional proposals advanced in a desire to render the scheme more effective, as, for instance, that the Special Municipal Commissioner should be nominated by the United Nations and that he should be entrusted with the functions of maintaining law and order in addition to his normal municipal duties. Report to the Assembly It was now apparent that a continuation of the debate would produce nothing in the way of furthet positive results. Accordingly, the Council decided to set about drafting its report to the Assembly. The discussion of the contents of the report was extremely protracted, continuing to the early hours of the morning on several occasions.

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