"Without the Canadian mediation between the two world blocs in 1947, the UN resolution to partition Palestine - 181(II) - might not have been adopted by the General Assembly. Canadians were among the main initiators of the partition plan and the establishment of a Jewish state, although involvement was not an official Canadian policy. The push was a private initiative of certain high-ranking foreign service officials who believed partition was the only practicable solution to the Palestine question.".

"Based upon many original Canadian, British, American, UN, and Israeli documents, this study shows that the motivation of Lester Pearson - Canada's undersecretary of state for external affairs, and leader of the initiative - was not the desire to make Canada a middle power involved in international affairs, as some scholars of Canadian international affairs have previously argued.

Instead, the impact of the Holocaust drove these officials to break ranks with their superiors to support the establishment of a Jewish state in Palestine. Their actions, contradicting the express will of their own prime minister, would forever change the history of the Middle East."--BOOK JACKET.