Master of Mediation

“Bunche was gifted, some thought almost a genius, at drafting; sooner or later he was able to contrive a formula to defeat almost any problem.” *

The most important assignment of Bunche's career was his peaceful mediation of the armistice agreements between the new nation of Israel and her four Arab neighbors: Egypt , Jordan , Lebanon and Syria . This ended the first Arab- Israeli war in 1949 and, to date, remains the only time that all the parties to the Middle East conflict signed armistice agreements with Israel.

The UN's involvement in the region began with creation of the United Nations Special Committee on Palestine (UNSCOP) in early 1947, to deal with the sensitive issue of the partition of then British mandate, Palestine . On 29 November 1947, the UN voted on the historic partition plan for Palestine, including what would become the new State of Israel. However, dissatisfaction with the plan fuelled a series of violent incidents in the region which rapidly degenerated into all-out war. To diffuse the situation, in May 1948 the General Assembly appointed Count Folke Bernadotte of Sweden as the first United Nations Mediator in Palestine, and the first mediator in UN history. At the outset of the conflict, Bunche was assigned to work with Bernadotte, and the team traveled extensively in the Middle East , trying to prolong a fragile but temporary cease-fire established by the UN.

As hostilities increased, negotiations faltered and tensions escalated among the parties, the UN became the target of attacks. On 17 September 1948, Bernadotte and a French UN Observer were assassinated by a militant Israeli group known as the “Stern Gang”. Bunche was immediately appointed acting Mediator in Palestine, and made recommendations to the General Assembly and Security Council in Paris in October. This was followed by continued pressure on all parties for an agreement to a cease-fire and finally resulted in the opening of armistice talks on 12 January 1949 on the Greek island of Rhodes.

Following six intensive weeks of endless negotiating at the Hotel des Roses, Bunche's patience and determination paid off, and he obtained signatures on armistice agreements between Israel and the Arab States . This was the first major challenge to confront the United Nations, and Bunche's achievement proved that the Organization could fulfill its peacekeeping mandate.

On 10 December 1950, Bunche was awarded the Nobel Prize for Peace for his work on the Rhodes armistice agreements. He was the first black man in the world to receive the prestigious Peace Prize, and was selected over such luminaries as British statesman Winston Churchill, U.S. President Harry S. Truman, U.S. General George C. Marshall and French humanist Albert Schweitzer.

Ralph Bunche, the authority on peace mediation, dedicated himself to the exacting work of settling conflicts throughout the 1950s and 1960s, and was responsible for bringing peace to such war-ridden areas as Congo, Cyprus, Kashmir and Yemen.

— *Walter Eytan, from “Ralph Bunche: An American Odyssey”, by Brian Urquhart

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