everyone, regardless of race or creed. He believed in 'the essential goodness of all people, and that no problem in human relations is insoluble.' Through the UN Trusteeship Council, Bunche readied the international stage for a period of rapid transformation, dismantling the old colonial systems in Africa and Asia, and guiding scores of emerging nations through the transition to independence in the post-war era. Decolonization Bunche was instrumental in ending colonialism. His work to end colonialism began early in his academic career, during which time he developed into a leading scholar and expert of the impact of colonialism on subjugated people, and developed close relationships with many anti-colonialism leaders and intellectuals from the Caribbean and Africa, in particular during his field research and his time at the London School of Economics. Bunche characterized economic policies in colonies and mandates as exploitative, and argued that the colonial powers misrepresented the nature of their rule. He argued that Permanent Mandates Commission needed expanded powers to investigate how the mandates were governed. Bunche's work on decolonization was influenced by the work of Raymond Leslie Buell. However, Bunche disagreed with Buell on the relative merits of British and French colonial rule. Bunche argued that British rule was not more progressive – British rule was characerized by paternalism at best and white supremacy at worst. Historian Susan Pedersen describes Bunche as the "architect" of the United Nations' trusteeship regime. Bunche was a principal author of the chapters in the UN charter on non-self-determining territories and trusteeship. He was later head of the Trusteeship Division of the UN. Arab–Israeli conflict and Nobel Peace Prize Beginning in 1947, Bunche was involved with trying to resolve the Arab–Israeli conflict in Palestine. He served as assistant to the United Nations Special Committee on Palestine, and thereafter as the principal secretary of the UN Palestine Commission. In 1948, he traveled to the Middle East as the chief aide to Sweden's Count Folke Bernadotte, who had been appointed by the UN to mediate the conflict. These men chose the island of Rhodes for their base and working headquarters. In September 1948, Bernadotte was assassinated in Jerusalem by members of the underground Jewish Lehi group, which was led by Yitzhak Shamir. Following the assassination, Bunche became the UN's chief mediator; he conducted all future negotiations on Rhodes. The representative for Israel was Moshe Dayan; he reported in memoirs that much of his