Following the initial Security Council discussion of Syria’s proposal for an advisory opinion, the Legal Advisor for the Provisional Government of Israel, Jacob Robinson, approached Hersch Lauterpacht, Professor of international law at the University of Cambridge, asking him to suggest arguments to make in opposition to Syria. A few months earlier, at the request of the political body proposing Jewish statehood, Lauterpacht had drafted a declaration for a Jewish state in Palestine. Lauterpacht answered with a series of reasons why members of the Security Council should defeat Syria’s proposal. Lauterpacht stressed the complexity of the issue as a reason against seeking an advisory opinion. He also suggested saying that the issues on which Syria wanted an opinion were political rather than legal in nature. Lauterpacht’s responses reflected both his legal advice and his personal opposition to Syria’s proposal. His reasons were conveyed to Aubrey Eban, who was the main spokesperson for the PGI at the United Nations.

In support of the world’s most dispersed minority, Jewish lawyers and advocates had been among the staunchest supporters of the interwar minority rights regime. This support was such a foundational part of Jewish internationalism that it did not subside even as the postwar world abandoned international minority protection. Flying in the face of prevailing trends in international politics that promoted the solution of minority problems through population transfer and domestic assimilation, Jewish advocates abortively sought to rescue minority rights from the historical dustbin. Many found the individualist cast of human rights to be an insufficient shield against potential policies of forced assimilation and sought to salvage some forms of groupist protection in various forums, including during negotiations over the postwar European peace and international treaty-making at the United Nations. Jewish activists developed an associational-inflected critique of human rights that was ahead of its time but ignored altogether in its day.