United Nations Partition Plan for Palestine
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The United Nations Partition Plan for Palestine or United Nations General Assembly Resolution 181 was a plan approved by the United Nations on November 29, 1947 to terminate the British Mandate of Palestine by August 1, 1948 and recommend the creation of two states, one Jewish and one Arab, in Palestine. The plan was approved by the United Nations General Assembly by 33 votes to 13, with 10 abstentions.
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[edit] Background
The Mandates originated outside the League of Nations. They were drafted in the councils of the Great Powers. The League of Nations could not alter them in any substancial way.[1] In 1937, members of the Permanent Mandates Commission of the League of Nations had privately informed the leadership of the Jewish Agency that the Palestine Mandate could not be implemented according to the Agency's wishes. Faced with the prospect of remaining a minority, the Jewish Agency Executive decided that partition was the only way out of the impasse.[2] The principle of partition was placed on the agenda of the twentieth Congress of the Zionist Organization.
When the Jewish and Arab leadership could not agree on a course of administration that would lead to an independent state, the government of the United Kingdom requested that the question of Palestine be placed on the Agenda of the General Assembly. They asked that the Assembly make recommendations, under Article 10 of the Charter, concerning the future government of Palestine.[3]
From the outset, there were important preliminary legal questions regarding the validity of the Balfour Declaration of 1917, the Anglo-French Declaration, the League of Nations British Mandate of Palestine, and the competence of the United Nations or any of its members to enforce a solution against the wishes of the majority of the indigenous population.
There were also suggestions that the Mandate should be placed under the UN trusteeship program. All of these issues were more or less brushed aside by routine procedural decisions. For example, Article 26 of the Palestine Mandate provided that:
'The Mandatory agrees that, if any dispute whatever should arise between the Mandatory and another member of the League of Nations relating to the interpretation or the application of the provisions of the mandate, such dispute, if it cannot be settled by negotiation, shall be submitted to the Permanent Court of International Justice...'
The Jewish Agency claimed that the Mandate created a binding legal obligation to establish a sovereign Jewish State. In an earlier dispute involving the grant of the Rutenberg Concessions, the Permanent Court of Justice had ruled it had jurisdiction over every such dispute:
'The Court is of opinion that, in cases of doubt, jurisdiction based on an international agreement embraces all disputes referred to it after its establishment. In the present case, this interpretation appears to be indicated by the terms of Article 26 itself where it is laid down that "any dispute whatsoever .... which may arise" shall be submitted to the Court.'[4]
Colombia had been a founding member of the League of Nations. On 25 November 1947 the Colombian delegate, Mr. Fernandez, announced that he favored the first draft resolution of the minority sub-committee, which called for a advisory opinion under article 96 of the UN Charter and Article IV of the Statute of the Court. He stated that 'The delegation of Colombia, faithful to the principles of law, asked that a request should be made for an advisory opinion of the International Court of Justice.'[5]. Once again, the request was brushed aside and the plan of partition was subsequently approved with the proviso that 'The Security Council determine as a threat to the peace, breach of the peace or act of aggression, in accordance with Article 39 [CHAPTER VII] of the Charter, any attempt to alter by force the settlement envisaged by this resolution.'
In a Speech delivered on 25 March 1948, US President Truman stated that imposing the resolution by force would violate the UN Charter. He recommended a temporary trusteeship and stated that:
This country vigorously supported the plan for partition with economic union recommended by the United Nations Special Committee on Palestine and by the General Assembly. We have explored every possibility consistent with the basic principles of the Charter for giving effect to that solution. Unfortunately, it has become clear that the partition plan cannot be carried out at this time by peaceful means. We could not undertake to impose this solution on the people of Palestine by the use of American troops, both on Charter grounds and as a matter of national policy.
The British government also refused to impose a solution that wasn't acceptable to both sides. The partition plan never entered into force. The UN continues to support its implementation by peaceful means, and has cited it repeatedly in subsequent resolutions.
[edit] Context of the plan
In November of 1917, as General Allenby was preparing to conquer Palestine, the British Foreign office issued the Balfour Declaration of 1917, a letter from the Foreign Secretary, Lord Balfour, to Lord Rothschild, head of the British Zionist movement. The declaration stated:
- "His Majesty's Government view with favour the establishment in Palestine of a national home for the Jewish people, and will use their best endeavours to facilitate the achievement of this object, it being clearly understood that nothing shall be done which may prejudice the civil and religious rights of existing non-Jewish communities in Palestine, or the rights and political status enjoyed by Jews in any other country."
This declaration was a compromise, based on a draft telegram that Lord Balfour had asked Weizmann to submit earlier. It did not contain a formal commitment. It reflected the efforts of the British Zionist movement led by Dr.Chaim Weizmann, longstanding British sentiment for restoration of the Jews and British strategic and imperial considerations on the one hand. On the other hand, it reflected concerns of British Jewish anti-Zionists and foreign office personnel concerned about antagonizing the Arab world.[6][7] These conflicting forces were to be reflected in the vicissitudes of British policy, ultimately causing Britain to renounce the mandate, thereby leading to partition of Palestine.
After the First World War and the collapse of the Ottoman Empire, the victorious Allied Supreme Council met at the San Remo Conference in April 1920 to confirm the allocation of Ottoman lands under the proposed mandate system. Palestine was placed under the British mandate. The League of Nations British Mandate of Palestine made the national home for the Jewish people an article of international law, by incorporating the wording of the Balfour declaration. The mandate was supported by the United States as part of President Woodrow Wilson's support for national self-determination.
Jewish immigration to Palestine in the initial period following World War I was sparse, owing to difficult conditions in Palestine and lack of sufficient commitment to Zionism to face the rigors of pioneering life, as well as lack of funds for development.[8] However, in the 1930s, with increased anti-Semitism and the rise of Adolf Hitler in Germany, the Fifth Aliya brought substantial numbers of European Jews to Palestine.[9]
On 24 July 1922, in London, the terms of the British Mandate over Palestine and Transjordan were approved by the Council of the League of Nations. However, the British government, of its own initiative, decided to remove Transjordan, constituting 78% of the area of the Palestine mandate, from the jurisdiction of that mandate, and to form a separate Arab entity there. That may be viewed as the first partition of Palestine. Accordingly, on 16 September 1922 the League of Nations formally approved a memorandum from Lord Balfour confirming the exemption of Transjordan from the clauses of the mandate concerning the creation of a Jewish national home and from the mandate's responsibility to facilitate Jewish immigration and land settlement.[10]
The Arab uprising of 1936-9 was triggered by rising Jewish immigration, and rising Arab nationalist sentiment. The British Peel Commission proposed a Palestine divided between a small Jewish state (about 15%), a much bigger Arab state and an international zone. After this proposal was rejected by the Arab side, the British changed their position and sought to eliminate Jewish immigration to Palestine. This was seen as a contradiction of the terms of the mandate, and an anti-humanitarian catastrophe, in light of the increasing persecution in Europe. In the prewar period it led to organization of illegal immigration. While the small Lehi group attacked the British, the Jewish Agency, which represented the mainstream Zionist leadership, still hoped to persuade the British to restore Jewish immigration rights and cooperated with the British in the war against Fascism. When the British insisted on preventing immigration of Jewish Holocaust survivors to Palestine following World War II, the Jewish community began to wage an uprising and guerrilla war. This warfare and United States pressure to end the anti-immigration policy were decisive factors that forced the British to renounce the Palestine Mandate and hand the problem of Palestine 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. Thus a Jewish state was voted upon, but would be smaller than the one promised in the League of Nations Resolution. For the first time, an Arab state would be created in Palestine as well[11].
[edit] Proposed division
See also: Land ownership of the British Mandate of Palestine
Palestine's land surface was approximately 26,320,505 dunums (26,320 km²), of which about one third was cultivable. By comparison, the size of modern day Israel (as of 2006) is 20,770,000 dunums (20,770 km²) (Geography of Israel). The land in Jewish possession had risen from 456,000 dunums (456 km²) in 1920 to 1,393,000 dunums (1,393 km²) in 1945[12] and 1,850,000 dunums (1,850 km²) by 1947 (Avneri p. 224).[13] No figures of land ownership by Arabs were available, due to difficulties that were due to the incomplete transition from the unreliable Ottoman Land Code to a modern land registration system.
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 partition defined by the General Assembly resolution differed somewhat from the UNSCOP report partition. Most notably, Jaffa was constituted as an enclave of the Arab State and the boundaries were modified to include Beersheba and a large section of the Negev desert within the Arab State and a section of the Dead Sea shore within the Jewish State.
The land allocated to the Arab state (about 43% of Mandatory Palestine[14]) consisted of all of the highlands, except for Jerusalem, plus one third of the coastline. The highlands contain the major aquifers of Palestine, which supplied water to the coastal cities of central Palestine, including Tel Aviv. The Jewish state was to receive 56% of Mandatory Palestine, a slightly larger area to accommodate the increasing numbers of Jews who would immigrate there.[14] The state included three fertile lowland plains — the Sharon on the coast, the Jezreel Valley and the upper Jordan Valley.
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 land allocated to the Jewish state was largely made up of areas in which there was a significant Jewish population. The land allocated to the Arab state was populated almost solely by Arabs. [15]
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".[16]
The UNSCOP plan would have had the following demographics (data based on 1945). This data does not reflect the actual land ownership by Jews, local Arabs, Ottomans and other land owners. This data also excludes the land designated to Arabs in trans-Jordan (country of Jordan, west of the river Jordan).
| Territory | Arab and other population | % Arab and other | Jewish population | % Jewish | Total population | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Arab State | 725,000 | 99% | 10,000 | 1% | 735,000 | |
| Jewish State | 407,000 | 45% | 498,000 | 55% | 905,000 | |
| International | 105,000 | 51% | 100,000 | 49% | 205,000 | |
| Total | 1,237,000 | 67% | 608,000 | 33% | 1,845,000 | |
| Data from the Report of UNSCOP — 1947 | ||||||
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."[17]
[edit] Reactions to the plan
The majority of the Jews and Jewish groups accepted the proposal, in particular the Jewish Agency, which functioned as the de facto representative group of the nascent Jewish state. The Jewish Agency had been arguing for more land but finally accepted the opposition from representatives of the UN that they could not control the state if they were not in majority.[citation needed] A minority of extreme nationalist Jewish groups like Menachem Begin's Irgun Tsvai Leumi and the Lehi (known as the Stern Gang), which had been fighting the British, rejected it. Begin warned that the partition would not bring peace because the Arabs would also attack the small state and that "in the war ahead we'll have to stand on our own, it will be a war on our existence and future". The war was anyhow thought to be fought to young Israel's advantage with - despite ongoing weapons embargo - the 3000 machine-guns and 6 million bullets as well as 25 fighter planes promised to be supplied by the Jewish Agency[18]
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, and many Israeli cities commemorate the date in their streets' names. However, Jews did criticize the lack of territorial continuity for the Jewish state.
The Arab leadership (in and out of Palestine) opposed the plan.[19]. The Arabs argued 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. Every major Arab leader objected in principle to the right of the Jews to an independent state in Palestine, reflecting the policies of the Arab League.
[edit] The vote
On 29 November 1947, the United Nations General Assembly voted 33 to 13, with 10 abstentions, in favour of the Partition Plan, while making some adjustments to the boundaries between the two states proposed by it. Switching their votes from November 25 to November 29 to provide the two-thirds majority were Liberia, the Philippines, and Haiti. All heavily dependent on the United States, they had been lobbied to change their votes. [20]
The division was to take effect on the date of British withdrawal from the Mandate Territory of Palestine. Both the United States and Soviet Union supported the resolution.
The 33 countries (58%) that voted in favour of the partition were: Australia, Belgium, Bolivia, Brazil, Byelorussian SSR, 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, Ukrainian SSR, United States of America, Union of Soviet Socialist Republics, Uruguay, Venezuela.
The 13 countries (23%) that voted against resolution were: Afghanistan, Cuba, Egypt, Greece, India, Iran, Iraq, Lebanon, Pakistan, Saudi Arabia, Syria, Turkey, Yemen.
The 10 countries (17%) that abstained were: Argentina, Chile, Republic of China, Colombia, El Salvador, Ethiopia, Honduras, Mexico, United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, Yugoslavia.
One state (2%) was absent: Thailand.
[edit] Consequences
On the day after the vote, a spate of Arab attacks left seven Jews dead and scores more wounded. Shooting, stoning, and rioting continued apace in the following days. The consulates of Poland and Sweden, both of whose governments had voted for partition, were attacked. Bombs were thrown into cafes, Molotov cocktails were hurled at shops, a synagogue was set on fire.
The United Kingdom refused to implement the plan, arguing it was unacceptable to both sides. It also refused to share the administration of Palestine with the UN Palestine Commission during the transitional period. It terminated the British mandate of Palestine on May 15, 1948. Declassified documents indicate that the British had wanted to absorb Palestine into a "Greater Syria" that would eventually be ruled by Iraq. Historian Efraim Karsh and others assert that Britain Transjordan planned to annex the Arab state and all or part of the Jewish state to TransJordan, while others claim that the Jews cooperated in a plan to annex the West Bank, intended for the Palestinian state, to TransJordan.[21][22][22][23] In January of 1948, the British allowed the Arab Liberation Army formed by the Arab League to infiltrate into Palestine from Syria.
Meeting in Cairo in November and December of 1947, the Arab League adopted a series of resolutions aimed at a military solution to the conflict.[citation needed] They formed an Arab Liberation Army. The Arab League also planned punitive measures against Jews living in Arab countries, many of which were subsequently implemented by individual states.[24][25]
Fighting began almost as soon as the plan was approved, beginning with the Arab Jerusalem Riots of 1947. On 1 April 1948, the Security Council adopted Resolution 44 to "to consider further the question of the future government of Palestine." [26]
[edit] 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
- United Nations Information System on the Question of Palestine
[edit] See also
- Hussein-McMahon Correspondence
- Sykes-Picot Agreement
- Faisal-Weizmann Agreement
- Churchill White Paper, 1922
- Declaration of the Establishment of the State of Israel, May 14, 1948
- 1949 Armistice Agreements
- Arab-Israeli conflict
- Israeli-Palestinian conflict
- Proposals for a Palestinian state
[edit] References
- ^ The Official Journal of the League of Nations, dated June 1922, contained an interview with Lord Balfour in which he explained that the League's authority was strictly limited. The article related that the 'Mandates were not the creation of the League, and that they could not in substance be altered by the League. The League's duties were confined to seeing that the specific and detailed terms of the mandates were in accordance with the decisions taken by the Allied and Associated Powers, and that in carrying out these mandates the Mandatory Powers should be under the supervision--not under the control--of the League
- ^ Letters to Paula and the Children, David Ben Gurion, translated by Aubry Hodes, University of Pittsburg Press, 1971, page 135.
- ^ A/286, 3 April 1947
- ^ the Mavrommatis Palestine concessions,page 29
- ^ A/AC.14/SR.32, 25 November 1947
- ^ Middle East Documents Balfour Declaration
- ^ British Support for Jewish Restoration
- ^ History of Zionism & Modern Israel
- ^ Fifth Aliya - definition - Zionism and Israel -Encyclopedia / Dictionary/Lexicon of Zionism/Israel/Middle East/Judaism
- ^ Sicker, 1999, p. 164.
- ^ Glick, Caroline (2007-11-26). "Is November 29 a day to celebrate?", Jerusalem Post. Retrieved on 2008-02-03.
- ^ Khalaf, 1991, pp. 26–27.
- ^ "Israel". The World Factbook. United States Central Intelligence Agency (10 August 2006).
- ^ a b UN Partition Plan at Merip.
- ^ Map of population distribution at Passia.
- ^ The Jewish Problem at MidEastWeb.
- ^ Domino.
- ^ Begin, Menachem, The Revolt 1978, p. 412.
- ^ http://www.passia.org/seminars/2000/israel/part3.html
- ^ \
- ^ Britain's treachery, France's revenge - Haaretz - Israel News
- ^ a b British and French Policy in Palestine
- ^ [1]
- ^ Draft Arab League Law Regarding Jews - 1947
- ^ Jewish Refugees from Arab countries - 1948
- ^ United Nations Security Council Resolution 44
[edit] Bibliography
- Bregman, Ahron (2002). Israel's Wars: A History Since 1947. London: Routledge. ISBN
- Arieh L. Avneri (1984). The Claim of Dispossession: Jewish Land Settlement and the Arabs, 1878–1948. Transaction Publishers. ISBN
- Fischbach, Michael R. (2003). Records of Dispossession: Palestinian Refugee Property and the Arab-Israeli Conflict. Columbia University Press. ISBN
- Gelber, Yoav (1997). Jewish-Transjordanian Relations: Alliance of Bars Sinister. London: Routledge. ISBN-X
- Khalaf, Issa (1991). Politics in Palestine: Arab Factionalism and Social Disintegration,. SUNY University Press. ISBN
- Louis, Wm. Roger (1986). The British Empire in the Middle East,: Arab Nationalism, the United States, and Postwar Imperialism. Oxford University Press. ISBN
- "Palestine". Encyclopædia Britannica Online School Edition, 15 May 2006.
- Sicker, Martin (1999). Reshaping Palestine: From Muhammad Ali to the British Mandate, 1831–1922. Praeger/Greenwood. ISBN
[edit] External links
- Legal Status of West Bank, Gaza and East Jerusalem
- Maps of Palestine
- Ivan Rand and the UNSCOP Papers
- Official Map prepared by UNSCOP
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