UN Partition Plan for Palestine: A Jewish and an Arab states in the Holy Land

UN General Assembly, November 29, 1947

On November 29, 1947, the UN General Assembly voted in favor of resolution 181, which adopted the plan for the partition of Palestine, recommended by the majority of the UN Special Committee on Palestine (UNSCOP).
33 states voted in favor of the resolution, 13 against, 10 states abstained and one was absent.
UNSCOP was appointed seven months earlier, after Great Britain, which ruled the country on the basis of a League of Nations Mandate, decided that in light of the growing Jewish resistance and violent opposition to its rule, it was unwilling to continue on the existing basis, and handed the whole issue over to the UN. The UN Committee reached the conclusion that the Mandate for Palestine should be terminated, and most of its members recommended the establishment in the territory of Mandatory Palestine of an Arab state and a Jewish state, while internationalizing Jerusalem.

Map of UN Partition Plan-
for Palestine (click to enlarge)

The partition map proposed by UNSCOP allotted the Jewish state only a small part of Western Palestine. Despite this fact, the Zionist Organization and the institutions of the Jewish community in Eretz Yisrael agreed to accept the plan, since it historically recognized the right of the Jewish people for a state, and not only a "national home" as stated in the 1917 Balfour Declaration and the 1922 British Mandate for Palestine.

The adoption of the partition resolution by the General Assembly was received by the Jewish community with great joy and thousands went out to the streets to celebrate, even though it was clear that the Arab states and the Palestinian Arabs would embark on a relentless war against the realization of the plan to establish a Jewish state. A year later, this resolution led to the establishment of a Jewish state in the Holy Land, for the first time in 2,000 years.





Resolution 181 voting by countries:

33 countries which voted in favor:	13 countries which voted against:
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  South Africa  Soviet Union  Sweden  Ukrainian SSR  United States  Uruguay  Venezuela	Afghanistan  India  Iran  Iraq  Lebanon  Pakistan  Saudi Arabia  Syria  Yemen  Greece  Turkey  Egypt  Cuba
	10 countries which abstained:
	Argentina Chile Colombia El Salvador Honduras Mexico Republic of China Ethiopia United Kingdom Yugoslavia
	1 country which was absent:
	Thailand

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