Nov. 29, 1947 | U.N. Partitions Palestine, Allowing for Creation of Israel

By The Learning Network
U.S. Central Intelligence Agency The U.N. 1947 partition plan for Palestine called for land to be parceled to Arabs and Jews.
Historic Headlines

Learn about key events in history and their connections to today.

On Nov. 29, 1947, the United Nations General Assembly passed a resolution calling for Palestine to be partitioned between Arabs and Jews, allowing for the formation of the Jewish state of Israel.

Since 1917, Palestine had been under the control of Britain, which supported the creation of a Jewish state in the holy land. Sympathy for the Jewish cause grew during the genocide of European Jews during the Holocaust. In 1946, the Palestine issue was brought before the newly created United Nations, which drafted a partition plan.

The plan, which organized Palestine into three Jewish sections, four Arab sections and the internationally-administered city of Jerusalem, had strong support in Western nations as well as the Soviet Union. It was opposed by Arab nations.

The General Assembly voted, 33-13, in favor of partition, with 10 members, including Britain, abstaining. The six Arab nations in the General Assembly staged a walkout in protest. The New York Times reported: “The walkout of the Arab delegates was taken as a clear indication that the Palestinian Arabs would have nothing to do with the Assembly’s decision. The British have emphasized repeatedly that British troops could not be used to impose a settlement not acceptable to both Jews and Arabs, and the partition plan does not provide outside military force to keep order. Instead, it provides for the establishment of armed militia by the two nascent states to keep internal order.”

Six months later, on May 14, 1948, Jewish leaders in the region formed the state of Israel. British troops left, thousands of Palestinian Arabs fled and Arab armies invaded Israel. In the Arab-Israeli War, Israel defeated its enemies. It was the first of several wars fought between Israel and its neighbors.

Connect to Today:

The United Nations is now debating whether to accept Palestine, formally known as the Palestinian Authority, as a full member. While the Arab world and much of Asia and Africa endorse the bid, it is firmly opposed by Israel and the United States, which as a member of the Security Council has the power to veto Palestinian acceptance. On Oct. 31, 2011, Unesco defied a legally mandated cutoff of American funding and approved a Palestinian bid for full membership by a vote of 107 to 14, with 52 abstentions. In November 2011, The New York Times reported that the Palestinian bid for full U.N. membership is likely to fail, however, even before an American veto.

What are other issues and challenges surrounding Palestine’s application to the United Nations? Do you support Palestinian membership in the U.N.? Why or why not?

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For the Record

Originally, this post included a sentence that read, “British troops left, thousands of Palestinian Arabs were expelled or fled and Arab armies soon invaded Israel.” In response to reader comments, the sentence was later edited to read, “British troops left, thousands of Palestinian Arabs fled and Arab armies invaded Israel.” But other readers have challenged that wording as well. There is intense disagreement among historians and activists about events surrounding the establishment of Israel, and journalists and educators alike must take care in describing them or risk appearing to take sides in the historical and political disputes. A more neutral rendering of the sentence might be, “British troops left, thousands of Palestinian Arabs were expelled or fled and Arab armies invaded Israel.”

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Ephraim November 29, 2011 · 5:51 am

The map is incorrect. In 1947, what now is Jordan was known as Transjordan.

Brian Shaposhnik November 29, 2011 · 8:08 am

“British troops left, thousands of Palestinian Arabs were expelled or fled and Arab armies soon invaded Israel.”

What a ridiculous and historically inaccurate claim. The Arab armies invaded Israel immediately, not after Arabs were “expelled”. The Arabs that were expelled or fled did so during the war that was started by the neighbouring Arab countries as a response to the creation of Israel by the UN.

Gabe November 29, 2011 · 9:19 am

I think the Palestinian Authority should accept Israel as the Jewish State and negotiate borders with Israel. The outcome of those negotiations would be the birth of the State of Palestine.
Obstacles to the Palestinian Authority doing this are their refusal to characterize Israel as the Jewish State and their insistence on the return of descendants of Arabs who fleed Israel or were defeated in a war started by Arabs to their previous place of residence. The Arabs who’s descendants are implicated either were defeated in a war started by Arabs or fleed with the intention of returning once Israel was defeated. The Grand Mufti of Jerusalem commanded Arabs to flee and then return when Israel would have been defeated. This is in effect what the Palestinian Arabs are still intending to do. The part that remains for them to realize their plan is the defeat of Israel. As a self respecting Jew, I support the State of Israel and its Jews and I oppose the Arab approach to Israel which is to defeat it.

Randall Scott November 29, 2011 · 10:17 am

In reducing the description of the events surrounding Israel’s declaration of independence as “[…] British troops left, thousands of Palestinian Arabs were expelled or fled and Arab armies soon invaded Israel […]”, this account ignores the Arabs’ response following the General Assembly vote and Israel’s declaration of independence. During the first phase of the war from November 29th, 1947 to April 1, 1948, Palestinian Arabs were on the offensive against the Jews, assisted by volunteers from neighboring Arab states. On May 4, the Arab Legion attacked Kfar Etzion, but were driven back by Jewish settlers. They returned a week later. slaughtering the outnumbered settlers who had surrendered. From the outset, the U.N. Palestine Commission blamed the Arabs for the violence, which Jamal Husseini, Arab Higher Committee spokesman, acknowledged during testimony before the Security Council on April 16, 1948. Azzam Pasha, Secretary-General of the Arab League, would later declare the May 14th invasion by five Arab armies to be “[…] a war of extermination and a momentous massacre, which will be spoken of like the Mongolian Massacres and the Crusades.” In fact, rather than “being expelled,” Egypt’s Nasser broadcast warnings to regional Palestinian Arabs to evacuate so that the invading Arab armies could “drive the Jews into the sea.”

Avi November 29, 2011 · 10:31 am

The map says it all. 55% of Palestine was given to recent European immigrants then…today the emigrants to Israel have taken what 90% of the land? And they treat the Palestenians the same as the Americans treated the Native Americans…as something to be disposed of to be removed.

That the United States of America in 2011 openly supports an ethnocentric state instead of one that affords equal rights to all…is shaemful. This will never last.

nick November 29, 2011 · 11:06 am

i no the jewish people deserve a homeland but partisining isreal is a risky thing it will become war. the UN did help later but still not the best desition.

Ron November 29, 2011 · 5:44 pm

NOOB to the issue. Those are really ugly looking borders. should redraw them with a ruler so not segmented and squiggily. Then all israeli go to one side and all palestine can go to the other side. If necessary, you can draw several lines to divide up jerusalem.

donald December 2, 2011 · 12:38 pm

The original wording was correct. The other Arab countries came into the conflict after May 15 1948–by that time there were already around 300,000 Palestinian refugees. The Deir Yassin massacre had occurred in April.

And many Palestinians were expelled.

It appears that the NYT decided to make its original entry less accurate.

pabelmont December 2, 2011 · 12:54 pm

You write: “Six months later, on May 14, 1948, Jewish leaders in the region formed the state of Israel. British troops left, thousands of Palestinian Arabs fled and Arab armies invaded Israel. In the Arab-Israeli War, Israel defeated its enemies. It was the first of several wars fought between Israel and its neighbors.”

The facts are rather different from this sketch. The thousands of Palestinians who WERE EXPELLED OR WHO FLED left in large measure before the State of Israel was ever declared to be a state and also before any arab armies invaded Israel (which occurred only after Israel was declared as a state). The fact of EXPULSION is well proved by several Israeli historians including Morris and Pappe.

The most important fact of all is missing from this short re-telling: Israel refused readmission to ALL the refugees after the war, and many are still stateless refugees today, still desiring to return to their homes in Israel. The same UNGA which proposed dividing Palestine into two states, one Jewish and one Arab, also demanded that Israel readmit peaceable refugees, something which Israel refuses to do to this day.

annie robbins December 2, 2011 · 1:08 pm

Even wiki says “on 14 May 1948 when, following a period of civil war, Arab armies invaded Palestine,”. the Arab armies never ‘invaded’ any portion of the area of Palestine given to Israel in the partition. IOW, they did not ‘invade’ Israel. for example Nazareth was within the borders proposed an Arab state, as was Latrun.

This is why there are no battles recorded in the area originally proposed for Israel. Israel captured more land as a result. But, technically, the Arab armies did not ‘invade’ Israel. It may very well have been their intention, but it did not happen so we will never know.

Harris December 2, 2011 · 1:15 pm

What a correction – “fled” OK So may I suggest that people that really want to know what happened read the following

1948 – A Soldier’s Tale by Uri Avnery

Khirbet Khizeh by S Yizhar

The Ethnic Cleansing of Palestine by Ilan Pappe

Then check the date of the massacre of Deir Yassin hint April 9, 1948. A month before you say the Arabs “fled”.

I would expect more from the New York Times Lea(r)ning Network!!!!!!

Lyn19 December 3, 2011 · 2:04 am

The real question is why didn’t the UN ask the people of Palestine what they wanted, instead of arbitrarily deciding in favor of the minority who, as someone mentioned, were mostly immigrants from Europe anyway. Why not put the partition recommendation to a vote of the people?

I’ve stopped expecting the New York Times to print anything honest about the Palestine/Israel conflict. Thousands of Palestinians “fled” as Zionists/Israelis shot at them to hurry them out or shelled their villages or towns, some were simply ordered out by the Israel army or bussed out under threat of death if they stayed, some fled because Zionists/Israelis went around with megaphones threatening mass murder. And some were mass murdered, but I guess the NY Times wouldn’t want you to know about it.

Xihuitl December 6, 2011 · 9:38 am

This little re-telling also skips over the important fact that when the General Assembly recommended its “Partition Plan” to the Security Council, the Security Council refused to consider it, dropped the whole idea, and ordered the General Assembly to come up with another plan. The General Assembly was working on a UN trusteeship for Palestine at the time Israel declared itself a state. Among other things, the “Partition Plan” was a violation of the UN charter and the universal declaration of human rights, which recognizes the right of people to determine their own laws in their own land.

ekwas December 6, 2011 · 3:00 pm

“There is intense disagreement among historians and activists about events surrounding the establishment of Israel, and journalists and educators alike must take care in describing them or risk appearing to take sides…

“A more neutral rendering of the sentence might be, ‘British troops left, thousands of Palestinian Arabs were expelled or fled and Arab armies invaded Israel.’ ”

There is no disputing the memoirs, letters, diaries and communiques of Joseph Weitz, Moshe Sharrett, Moshe Dayan, Yizthak Rabin, Mattityahu Peled, to name a few, which testify both to expulsions of Arabs by Jewish forces and to their serendipitous flights out of fear, and certainly before May, 1948.

Rachel February 15, 2012 · 10:40 pm

I just recently finished reading The Chosen by Chaim Potok and have been contemplating the conflict in Israel. I am no expert, but I think it is interesting how the Jews used to be much more separated in their views of the establishment of Israel, but are now more unified when faced with opposition. In my opinion, it’s odd how seemingly all of the Zionist and Anti-Zionist views of Jews have faded away.

John May 10, 2013 · 9:36 am

The UN did not partition Palestine. The UN came up with a plan, a plan contrary to UN charter article 80. The plan had no standing and was void. UN charter article 80 maintains (even to this day) the rights obtained under the League of Nations Palestine Mandate which gave all of Palestine to the Jews alone. Churchills creation of the Kingdom of Jordan was an illegal move, a crime in international law which has never been answered for. Israel has legal title to all the land from the Jordan river to the sea. The Arabs have Jordan for their home land. They should go there and leave the Jewish Sate alone. Even the Koran in 5:20-21 confirms the Jewish state.

Harris Zvi G. February 18, 2014 · 8:31 am

The bottom line is that the real reason why there is no Palestinian State today is because the Arab leadership failed to establish one in violation of the UN resolution of November 29, 1947 which called for the establishment of a Jewish and an Arab state in the former British Mandate area. It should not be forgotten that the Kingdom of Trans Jordan (an Arab entity) was established by the British in 1924 on area which was previously part of the British Mandate. Jordan then proceeded to occupy (and even annexed) the West Bank for the period 1949 – 1967. As I see it, the Arabs have had countless opportunities to create a Palestinian state, however, their prime concern appears to be the existence of the State of Israel. Judging by their discriminatory treatment of Palestinian minorities in their jurisdictions, their true motivations are based on Arab imperialism.

Cory August 6, 2014 · 1:31 pm

You cannot “neuter” history to make it more palatable to both sides. The whole concept of expulsion of Palestinians is laughable and has no historical evidence to back it up. How could a nation of holocaust survivors and farmers, with no heavy arms, which was under attack from every neighbor in every direction possibly organize the expulsion of hundreds of thousands of people, many of whom were armed themselves? How did they expell them from territories not even under their control? Nonsense. After 1948 the bulk of the Arab designated lands were under the control of Jordan and Egypt and we know how that went (Black September 1970/71 after a civil war with Jordan in which Palestinians sought to overthrow the Hashemite Dynasty in that country too). Those Palestinians WERE expelled from the West Bank, only it was BY JORDAN. The expelled Palestinians also then initiated violent clashes within Lebanon against the Maronite Christians in order to supplant the authority of that country. Who is trying to take land here? Really? Just because 1.3 billion people don’t like history doesn’t mean you have to be neutral about it. Truth over appeasement. Let’s not forget what appeasement led to in in 1939.

Mark December 26, 2014 · 12:07 pm

Two Citizenships Solution.
Due UN and EU recognition of a new Arab state west of the Jordan River,
Must hold a referendum on changing citizenship to all Arabs living in Israel.
This is the only chance to prevent the conversion of Israel to non-Jewish state.
Two Nations – Two Citizenships !

Olav Bergo February 9, 2015 · 11:26 am

The 1947 UN vote was a disastrous mistake. The UN had no right, and no jurisdiction in their charter, to create two separate states in the region, and the whole idea of a Jewish state based on race and religion, was abusive and unjust to the native Palestinian population. The USA and the Soviet Union carry most of the blame and shame for the wars, the terror and the hate that still rages in the region. But government of Great Britain made a first step in 1917, promising the Jewish Agency a “home in Palestine”, and for Hitlers Germany, terrorising and killing Jews in great numbers from 1933 till the end of World war II in 1945.