Key points: Introduction: Britain fails to balance competing claims to Mandatory Palestine • UN General Assembly Resolution 181 (hereinafter the partition plan) sought to Following the Allied victory in the First World provide a solution to what was perceived as a War and the collapse of the Ottoman Empire, confict of two peoples with conficting rights the Allied Supreme Council met in San Remo in and claims in Palestine / the Land of Israel 1920 and agreed to create a Mandatory power and established the principle of two states for within Palestine that “should be responsible for two peoples that is still relevant today. putting into efect the [Balfour] declaration…in favour of the establishment in Palestine of a • The decision by UN Special Committee on national home for the Jewish people”. In 1922, Palestine (UNSCOP) to recommend partition the Council of the League of Nations legally resulted from a variety of reasons: the confrmed Britain as the Mandatory power impressive institutions and organisational for Palestine and provided recognition “to the infrastructure established by Jewish historical connection of the Jewish people with community in Mandatory Palestine; Its leaders’ Palestine and to the grounds for reconstituting willingness to cooperate with UNSCOP and their national home in that country”. accept the principle of partition – in contrast to the Arab Higher Committee who boycotted Over the subsequent years, British rule in UNSCOP and rejected both its majority and Mandatory Palestine – which following the 1921 minority recommendations; and the pressing creation of Transjordan comprised the territory need to fnd a solution to the hundreds of between the Jordan River and the Mediterranean thousands of Jewish displaced persons in Sea – came under increasing strain as it tried to Europe who had survived the Holocaust. maintain a delicate balance between fulflling rival demands by Palestinian Jews and Arabs. • The rejection of the UN General Assembly On 18 February 1947, following years of violence Resolution 181 by Arab states and the by both sides against the British, and increased subsequent war in 1948 eroded the relevancy international pressure calling for immigration of the proposed borders of the Partition Plan. to Mandatory Palestine for European Holocaust However, even 70 years on, the principle of survivors, UK Foreign Secretary Ernest Bevin partition remains the accepted paradigm in announced that the Palestine issue would be the international community for resolution to referred to the UN. the Israeli-Palestinian confict. A session of the UN on 28 April 1947 • Israel’s Declaration of Independence bases agreed to set up the Special Committee on the legitimacy of Jewish statehood on both the Palestine (UNSCOP), consisting of 11 neutral Jewish people’s historic rights in Palestine / states – Australia, Canada, Czechoslovakia, the Land of Israel as well as the partition plan Guatemala, India, Iran, Netherlands, approved by the international community. Peru, Sweden, Uruguay and Yugoslavia. The proclamation announces that Israel was Representatives of these states were charged declared “by virtue of our natural and historic with making proposals for a solution to the right and on the strength of the resolution of confct which would then be discussed by the the United Nations General Assembly”. UN General Assembly. • This paper details background to the recommendation of partition and the partition UN Special Committee on Palestine plan’s acceptance by the international Recommendations community on 29 November 1947 as well as the consequences of the vote. It also describes The Palestinian Arabs, under the auspices of the history of the principle of partition as the Arab Higher Committee (AHC), opposed well as alternatives that were suggested at proposals to grant Jews national self- the time. determination in Mandatory Palestine and decided to boycott UNSCOP. With British 1 Displaced Persons (DP) camps in Europe. The Committee was ultimately infuenced by its visits to Jewish communities around the country as well to its conversations with various Jewish Agency leaders. It was also reportedly swayed by the plight of the Exodus ship, which arrived at Haifa port in July carrying over 4,500 refugees from European DP camps. The UNSCOP Yugoslavian and Swedish representative were in Haifa to personally witness the British boarding the ship, towing it into harbour and sending it back to Europe. In its fnal report, UNSCOP afrmed that a Jewish National Home as enshrined in the Balfour Declaration and Mandate was a legal right to the “Jewish people as a whole” and did not “preclude the eventual creation of a Jewish State”. The Committee also concluded that the Arabs had strong claims to rights in Palestine “by virtue of being for centuries the indigenous and preponderant people there”. The Committee unanimously approved nine recommendations, which called for the end of the Mandate and suggested that “the preservation of the economic unity of Palestine as a whole is indispensable to the life and development of the country and its peoples”. UNSCOP rejected several options: a Jewish or Arab state in the entirety of the area; canton arrangements; and the creation of a binational state, which the Committee called artifcial and impractical. The majority proposal adopted by UNSCOP Mandate authorities also refraining from making called for two states – one Arab and one any recommendations to the Committee, the Jewish – with an area surrounding Jerusalem Jewish Agency for Palestine, which served as reaching as far south as Bethlehem to be under de-facto government of the Yishuv (the Jewish international trusteeship. The boundaries population of Palestine), was left as the only were drawn to ensure the largest concentration player in the feld. The Jewish Agency saw of Arabs and Jewish populations at the time, UNSCOP’s creation as an opportunity to press as well as for the future requirements of the their claims for independence and voted to sustainability of each state. The Negev desert “take an active initiative” to cooperate fully was added to the Jewish state to allow for with the committee. “considerable room for further development and settlement”. UNSCOP met formally and informally with numerous members of the Yishuv, before The majority proposal would have resulted travelling to Lebanon, Transjordan – where in approximately 500,000 Jews (which would King Abdullah secretly suggested annexing have been supplemented by increased Jewish any Arab area proposed by partition – and immigration over time) and 380,000 Arabs in 2 the Jewish state and approximately 700,000 The UN General Assembly Resolution 181 Arabs and 10,000 Jews in the Arab state. vote and its aftermath The minority proposal, which was advanced In November 1947, the UNSCOP majority by India, Iran and Yugoslavia, called for an recommendations – with amendments to the independent federative structure composed of boundaries that removed approximately 2,000 an Arab and Jewish province with autonomy Square Kilometres in the Negev / Beersheba regarding internal matters. In this proposal, area from the proposed Jewish state – were the territory intended for Jews was primarily incorporated into UN General Assembly limited to a region along the coast and to a Resolution 181. The partition formula was large region in the heart of the Negev desert. presented as a genuine compromise between the competing claims and the large Arab A Zionist General Council meeting in minority in the Jewish state guaranteed September 1947 accepted the majority constitutional requirements respecting their proposal, although some parties continued minority rights. to reject partition and others saw it as a signifcant compromise. Speaking to the UN Resolution 181 was adopted on 29 November Ad Hoc Committee on Palestine of behalf of by 33 votes to 13 with 10 abstentions, which the Jewish Agency, Abba Hillel Silver argued constituted more than the required two-thirds that partition “was never contemplated by majority on. Voting was signifcant in that the Balfour Declaration or the Mandate” and both the USSR and USA voted in favour of the “entails… a very heavy sacrifce on the part proposal. Britain abstained. of the Jewish people,” before concluding that the Jewish Agency was prepared to Although the Partition plan gave 55 per cent of accept it. In a letter to his wife, Chairman the territory to the Jewish state, it posed several of the Jewish Agency executive (and future signifcant challenges: It didn’t provide it with frst Prime Minister of Israel) David Ben- enough arable land to absorb the millions of Gurion acknowledged that should the plan Jews in refugee camps following the Holocaust; be implemented, “it would truly be the it wasn’t thought to provide a long-term solution beginning of the redemption, and more than to the security of the state – especially in light the beginning” while Moshe Shertok (later of the opposition of Arab neighbours; and it Moshe Sharett and the future second Prime created a sizeable Palestinian Arab minority Minister of Israel) referred to the report as “an who would likely rebel against the new state incredible achievement”. and create instability. It also separated the proposed Jewish state from the Holy City of The Palestinian Arab leadership rejected both Jerusalem, which had a Jewish majority. the majority and minority proposals. The vote Those countries voting in favour of the resolution included: Canada, United States, Australia, New Zealand,