Map – UN Partition & The First Arab-Israeli War (1947-1948)

TIME PERIOD: 1947 – 1948

“On November 29, 1947, the United Nations General Assembly voted 33 to 13 with 10 abstentions [Resolution 181] to partition western Palestine into two states — one for the Jews, which would consist of the Negev Desert, the coastal plain between Tel Aviv and Haifa, and parts of the northern Galilee, and the other for the Palestinian Arabs, which would consist primarily of the West Bank of the Jordan, the Gaza District, Jaffa, and the Arav sectors of the Galilee. Jerusalem, cherished by both Muslims and Jews as a holy city, was to become an international enclave under U.N. trusteeship.”

Thomas L. Friedman, From Beirut to Jerusalem, p. 14, Anchor Books, 1995

“The United Nations made no provision for the execution and enforcement of these decisions. Very soon after, on 17 December, the Council of the Arab League announced that it would prevent the proposed partition of Palestine by force. The U.N. plan was accepted by the Jewish leadership, who…set up a state which they called Israel. It was rejected by both the Palestinian leadership and the Arab states, which went to war to prevent its implementation.”

Bernard Lewis, The Arabs in History, p. 196-197, Oxford University Press, 1993

“In a situation where there were no fixed frontiers or clear divisions of population, fighting took place between the new Israeli army and those of the Arab states [Syria, Lebanon, Jordan, Egypt & Iraq], and in four campaigns interrupted by cease-fires Israel was able to occupy the greater part of the country.”

Albert Hourani, A History of the Arab Peoples, p. 359-360, Warner Books, 1991

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