into two parties, one Jewish and the other Arab.”^70 While partition meant
a severing of even the minimal contacts between the two communities,
the federal plan rested on continued cooperation between two noninter-
acting communities. Given this state of aff airs, the federal plan required
a superhuman eff ort— if not divine intervention— to bring about mutual
trust and cooperation between the two communities.
Third, the plan suff ered from a number of operational diffi culties.
While proposing the constitution of a federal state, Rahman stipulated a
number of conditions. They were aimed at safeguarding the rights and
privileges of the Jewish minority in a predominantly Arab federation.
These provisions encroached upon the proposed sovereignty of federal
Palestine. Internal communal tensions between the two nations de-
manded active involvement of a third party (as with the Mandate) for its
implementation. Otherwise, it would not be possible to protect the rights
of the Jewish minority, and this in turn would have challenged the no-
tion of in de pen dence.
Fourth, the success of the plan was predicated on tolerance and democ-
racy. It is highly debatable whether in 1948 the Palestinian community
could have maintained a demo cratic character within a federal arrange-
ment. The members of the UNSCOP had serious reservations about the
Palestinian leadership. They were skeptical about the structure and func-
tioning of the Arab Higher Committee headed by the mufti, even though
it represented a large section of the Arabs of Palestine. The UNSCOP did
not hesitate to recognize the intimidation tactics used by the Arab Com-
mittee in preventing Arabs from testifying before the committee in Jeru-
salem.^71 This becomes far more complicated if one compares the mufti-
dominated Arab community to the well- organized yishuv.^72 The federal
state visualized by India would thus comprise a centralized and nondemo-
cratic Arab unit and a decentralized, institutionalized, and functioning
Jewish unit. One could not have found a worse systemic mismatch.
Fifth, the federal plan exposed India’s own hypocrisy. The Indian rep-
resentative signed the UNSCOP report on August 31, 1947, and by then
the subcontinent was partitioned along communal lines. Nehru was ad-
vocating a solution for Palestine that he was not prepared to accept for
India, where the conditions were far better. Hindu- Muslim relations in
India were not as poisoned or insurmountable as Arab- Jewish relations
were in Palestine. This was true even taking into account the communal
bloodshed that followed partition. Even after the formation of the Islamic
102 the partition of palestine