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On 29 November 1947 the United Nations Partition Plan for Palestine or United Nations General Assembly Resolution 181, a plan to resolve the Arab-Jewish conflict in the British Mandate of Palestine, was approved by the United Nations General Assembly, at the UN World Headquarters in New York. The plan partitioned the territory of Western Palestine into Jewish and Arab states, with the Greater Jerusalem area, encompassing Bethlehem, coming under international control. The failure of the British government and the United Nations to implement this plan and its rejection by first the Palestinian Arabs and then Israel resulted in various wars, starting with the 1948 Arab-Israeli War.

Creation of the plan

After the First World War and the collapse of the Ottoman Empire, Palestine was placed under British mandate. At the time, 90% of the population was Muslim or Christian. But antisemitism in Europe, which had been on the rise since the late 19th century, led to an influx of Jews. Theodor Herzl had proposed a Jewish State at the first Jewish World Congress and eventually it was decided that this state was to take shape in Palestine (another option had been Argentine). In 1930, the British proposed a division of the territory between a Jewish and an Arab State. In May 1945, however, the Jewish Agency demanded a Jewish State in an 'undivided and undiminished' Palestine. When the British didn't comply, some Jewish started using violence. In response, the British strengthened their forces and tried to stop the Jewish influx, but this was met with little international approval and finally the British decided to leave and handed the problem over to the United Nations.

The United Nations, the successor to the League of Nations, attempted to solve the dispute between the Jews and Arabs in Palestine. On May 15 1947 the UN appointed a committee, the UNSCOP, composed of representatives from eleven states. To make the committee more neutral, none of the Great Powers were represented. After spending three months conducting hearings and general survey of the situation in Palestine, UNSCOP officially released its report on August 31. A majority of nations (Canada, Czechoslovakia, Guatemala, Netherlands, Peru, Sweden, Uruguay) recommended the creation of independent Arab and Jewish states, with Jerusalem to be placed under international administration. A minority (India, Iran, Yugoslavia) supported the creation of a single federal state containing both Jewish and Arab constituent states. Australia abstained.

On November 29, the UN General Assembly voted 33 to 13, with 10 abstentions, in favor of the Partition Plan, while making some adjustments to the boundaries between the two states proposed by it. The division was to take effect on the date of British withdrawal. Both the United States and Soviet Union agreed on the resolution. In addition, pressure was exerted on some small countries by Zionist sympathizers in the United States.

The 33 countries that voted in favor of the partition, as set by UN resolution 181: Australia, Belgium, Bolivia, Brazil, Belarus, Canada, Costa Rica, Czechoslovakia, Denmark, Dominican Republic, Ecuador, France, Guatemala, Haiti, Iceland, Liberia, Luxembourg, Netherlands, New Zealand, Nicaragua, Norway, Panama, Paraguay, Peru, Philippines, Poland, Sweden, South Africa, Ukraine, United States, USSR, Uruguay, Venezuela.

The 13 countries that voted against UN Resolution 181: Afghanistan, Cuba, Egypt, Greece, India, Iran, Iraq, Lebanon, Pakistan, Saudi Arabia, Syria, Turkey, Yemen.

The ten countries that abstained: Argentina, Chile, Republic of China, Colombia, El Salvador, Ethiopia, Honduras, Mexico, United Kingdom, Yugoslavia.

One state was absent: Thailand.

Following the adoption of the plan, Arab countries proposed to query the International Court of Justice on the competence of the General Assembly to partition a country against the wishes of the majority of its inhabitants (it would place 36% of the Arabs inside the Jewish state. This was narrowly defeated.

Meeting in Cairo in November and December of 1947, the Arab League then adopted a series of resolutions aimed at a military solution to the conflict.

The division

The land allocated to the Arab state consisted of all of the highlands, except for Jerusalem, plus one third of the coastline. The highlands contained no large bodies of standing water and were relatively secure from malaria, allowing a substantial permanent population to exist.

The Jewish state was to receive 55% of Mandatory Palestine. In the north, this area included three fertile lowland plains -- the Sharon on the coast, the Jezreel Valley and the upper Jordan Valley. All three were extremely fertile in 1947, but were largely uninhabitable before 1900 due to silting caused by deforestation. The resulting marshes allowed mosquitos to breed, but also made potential farmland available to Jewish settlers. (Mark Twain's travel journal, Innocents Abroad contains a vivid description of malaria in Palestine in the 1870's.)

The bulk of the proposed Jewish State's territory, however, consisted of the Negev Desert. The desert was not suitable for agriculture, nor for urban development at that time. The Jewish state was also given sole access to the Red Sea and the Sea of Galilee (the largest source of fresh water in Palestine). The land allocated to the Jewish state was largely made up of areas in which there was a significant Jewish population (Map of population distribution). Palestine's land surface was approximately 26,300 km², of which about one third was cultivable. The land in Jewish possession had risen from 456 km² in 1920 to 1,393 km² in 1945 (Khalaf, 1991, pp. 26-27) and 1,850 km² by 1947 (Avneri p. 224).

Regarding the Arab ownership, the MidEast Web states "At the time of partition, slightly less than half the land in all of Palestine was owned by Arabs, slightly less than half was "crown lands" belonging to the state, and about 8% was owned by Jews or the Jewish Agency." The precise amount of land owned by local Arabs and the state has been subject to considerable dispute as the Ottoman Empire did not maintain an accurate land registration system and many land claims consisted of little more than contracts between private parties that may or may not have been based on actual possession.

Much of the Jewish population, especially in rural areas, lived on land leased from Arab owners.

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The UN General Assembly made a non-binding recommendation for a three-way partition of Palestine into a Jewish State, an Arab State and a small internationally administered zone including the religiously significant towns Jerusalem and Bethlehem. The two states envisioned in the plan were each composed of three major sections, linked by extraterritorial crossroads. The Jewish state would receive the Coastal Plain, stretching from Haifa to Rehovot, the Eastern Galilee (surrounding the Sea of Galilee and including the Galilee panhandle) and the Negev, including the southern outpost of Umm Rashrash (now Eilat). The Arab state would receive the Western Galilee, with the town of Acre, the Samarian highlands and the Judean highlands, and the southern coast stretching from north of Isdud (now Ashdod) and encompassing what is now the Gaza Strip, with a section of desert along the Egyptian border. The UNSCOP report placed the mostly-Arab town of Jaffa, just south of Tel Aviv, in the Jewish state, but it was moved to form an enclave part of the Arab State before the proposal went before the UN.

The plan was a compromise position based on two other plans.

The plan tried its best to accommodate as many Jews as possible into the Jewish state. In many specific cases, this meant including areas of Arab majority (but with a significant Jewish minority) in the Jewish state. Thus the Jewish State would have an overall large Arab minority. Areas that were sparsely populated (like the Negev), were also included in the Jewish state to create room for immigration in order to relieve the "Jewish Problem".

The UNSCOP Report also noted that "in addition there will be in the Jewish State about 90,000 Bedouins, cultivators and stock owners who seek grazing further afield in dry seasons."

Reactions to the plan

The majority of the Jews and Jewish groups accepted the proposal, in particular the Jewish Agency, which was the Jewish state-in-formation. A minority of extreme nationalist Jewish groups like Menachem Begin's Irgun Tsvai Leumi and Yitzhak Shamir's Lehi, (known as the Stern Gang) which had been fighting the British, rejected it. Numerous records indicate the joy of Palestine's Jewish inhabitants as they attended to the U.N. session voting for the division proposal. Up to this day, Israeli history books mention November 29th (the date of this session) as the most important date in Israel's acquisition of independence. However, Jews did criticise the lack of territorial continuity for the Jewish state.

The Arab leadership (in and out of Palestine) opposed the plan, arguing that it violated the rights of the majority of the people in Palestine, which at the time was 67% non-Jewish (1,237,000) and 33% Jewish (608,000). Arab leaders also argued a large number of Arabs would be trapped in the Jewish State as a minority. While some Arab leaders opposed the right of the Jews for self-determination in the region, others criticised the amount and quality of land given to Israel. (The proposal, however, was not solely for the Jews in Palestine but for a secure homeland for Jews outside of Palestine.)

Great Britain refused to implement the plan arguing it was not acceptable to both sides. It also refused to share with the UN Palestine Commission the administration of Palestine during the transitional period, and decided to terminate the British mandate of Palestine on May 15th, 1948.

Fighting began almost as soon as the plan was approved, beginning with the Jerusalem Riots of 1947. The fighting would have an effect on the Arab population of Palestine, as well the Jewish populations of neighboring Arab countries.

Text of the Resolution

• from the Israel Ministry of Foreign Affairs
• from the Yale Law School
• Information on UN 181 from The Jerusalem Fund/Palestine Center

See also

• Arab revolt
• Hussein-McMahon Correspondence
• Sykes-Picot Agreement
• British Mandate of Palestine
• Balfour Declaration 1917
• Churchill White Paper, 1922
• 1922 Text: League of Nations Palestine Mandate
• Declaration of the Establishment of the State of Israel, May 14, 1948
• Jewish refugees
• Palestinian refugees
• Immigration to Israel
• 1948 Arab-Israeli War
• 1949 Armistice Agreements
• Arab-Israeli conflict
• Israeli-Palestinian conflict
• Proposals for a Palestinian state
• Jewish exodus from Arab lands
• Palestinian exodus
• Map comparing 1947 partition plan borders with 1949 armistice lines

Notes

1. "Palestine." Encyclopædia Britannica. 2006. Encyclopædia Britannica Online School Edition. 15 May 2006 <http://school.eb.com/eb/article-45071>.
2. "Palestine." Encyclopædia Britannica. 2006. Encyclopædia Britannica Online School Edition. 15 May 2006 <http://school.eb.com/eb/article-45071>.
3. "Palestine." Encyclopædia Britannica. 2006. Encyclopædia Britannica Online School Edition. 15 May 2006 <http://school.eb.com/eb/article-45071>.

References

• Bregman, Ahron (2002). Israel's Wars: A History Since 1947. London: Routledge. ISBN 0415287162
• Arieh L. Avneri (1984). The Claim of Dispossession: Jewish Land Settlement and the Arabs, 1878-1948. Transaction Publishers. ISBN 0878559647
• Khalaf, Issa (1991). Politics in Palestine: Arab Factionalism and Social Disintegration, 1939-1948. SUNY University Press. ISBN 0791407071
• Fischbach, Michael R. (2003). Records of Dispossession: Palestinian Refugee Property and the Arab-Israeli Conflict. Columbia University Press. ISBN 0231129785
• "Palestine." Encyclopædia Britannica. 2006. Encyclopædia Britannica Online School Edition. 15 May 2006 <http://school.eb.com/eb/article-45071>.

External links

• Legal Status of West Bank, Gaza and East Jerusalem
• Partition Map
• Maps of Palestine
• Ivan Rand and the UNSCOP Papers
• Detailed Map

• 1947
• 1948 Arab-Israeli War
• History of Israel
• Israeli-Palestinian conflict
• UN General Assembly Resolutions