United Nations Partition Plan for Palestine

The 128th plenary meeting

At its 128th plenary meeting on 29 November 1947, the United Nations General Assembly adopted Part A of Resolution 181 (II), "Future government of Palestine," by 33 votes to 13, with 10 abstentions and one member not voting.

The resolution recommended that Britain and UN members adopt and implement a Plan of Partition with Economic Union — an Arab state, a Jewish state, and a special international regime for Jerusalem.

It called for British armed forces to withdraw no later than 1 August 1948, and for the proposed states and the Jerusalem regime to come into existence no later than 1 October 1948.

The populations the plan counted

The proposed Jewish state was estimated to contain 498,000 Jews and 407,000 Arabs and others, plus approximately 90,000 Bedouins. The proposed Arab state was estimated at 10,000 Jews and 725,000 Arabs and others.

The Jerusalem international zone — a corpus separatum that included Bethlehem and surrounding territory, not Jerusalem alone — was estimated at 100,000 Jews and 105,000 Arabs and others.

The familiar territorial shares of roughly 56 percent and 43 percent are calculations from the mapped boundaries rather than figures printed in the resolution itself.

A recommendation, and what followed it

Jewish communities celebrated the vote; the Arab Higher Committee rejected it. On 30 November, attacks on two Jewish buses killed seven passengers, and the committee called a three-day general strike beginning 1 December.

Britain had referred Palestine's future to the UN but would not enforce a settlement unacceptable to both communities. Israel was proclaimed more than five months later, on 14 May 1948, amid an already developing war.