How countries voted on the partition of Palestine at the UN in 1947

What did the plan propose?

The plan divided Palestine into three parts: an Arab state, a Jewish state and an international zone around Jerusalem and Bethlehem. All three were to be joined in an economic union. By commonly cited estimates (the resolution itself gives no percentages), the Jewish state was to get about 55 to 56 percent of the territory and the Arab state about 42 to 43 percent. Jerusalem, under one percent, would be run by the UN.

At the end of 1946 UNSCOP estimated Palestine's population at about 1,237,000 Arabs and others and about 608,000 Jews. Within the proposed Jewish state there were to be about 500,000 Jews and 400,000 to 500,000 Arabs, depending on whether Bedouin were counted. Counting Bedouin, a UN sub-committee made up mostly of Arab states found that, under the committee's first borders, Arabs would have been a slight majority there. The final plan moved Jaffa to the Arab state, which left about 427,000 Arabs. Opponents said it gave the Jewish minority, roughly a third of the population, more than half the territory. Supporters said it gave each people a state of its own.

How did each side argue its case?

The Jewish Agency's representative, Abba Hillel Silver, said that if "that heavy sacrifice was the inescapable condition of a final solution," and if it "made possible the immediate re-establishment of the Jewish State," the Agency "was prepared to recommend the acceptance of the partition solution." The Arab Higher Committee's representative, Jamal Husseini, said Palestine's future was "a matter for the rightful owners of Palestine to decide" and that the UN "was not legally competent" to impose a constitution.

After the vote, Iraq's delegate called the decision "anti-democratic, illegal, impractical and contrary to the Charter." Arab delegates argued that partition denied self-determination to Palestine's Arab majority.

The United States and the Soviet Union both voted yes. In May 1947 the Soviet delegate Andrei Gromyko had said the Soviet Union preferred a single Arab-Jewish state, but would accept "two independent autonomous states" if that proved impossible. Britain abstained. Colonial Secretary Arthur Creech Jones said Britain would not carry out a plan unless both Jews and Arabs accepted it.

What happened after the vote?

Fighting began within days of the vote. On November 30, 1947 Arab attackers ambushed two buses near Kfar Sirkin, killing seven Jews. The historian Benny Morris says it is unclear whether this was a reaction to the vote or revenge for an earlier raid by the Jewish underground group Lehi. The Arab Higher Committee called a three-day strike beginning December 2, during which Jerusalem's commercial center was burned.

In March 1948 the United States proposed a temporary UN trusteeship and asked that work on partition be suspended. Britain ended the Mandate on May 14, 1948, earlier than the August 1 deadline. Israel declared independence the same day. Israel's declaration proclaims the state "on the strength of the resolution of the United Nations General Assembly." On May 15 the armies of Egypt, Transjordan, Syria, Iraq and Lebanon entered the former Mandate territory. About 700,000 Palestinians fled or were expelled. UN estimates put the number at 711,000 to 726,000. Israeli officials gave about 520,000 and Arab states 900,000 to 1 million (figures collected by the historian Benny Morris). Palestinians call this the Nakba, "the catastrophe." Israelis call the war the War of Independence. The Arab state was never created. When the fighting ended in 1949, Israel held more territory than the plan had given it, Transjordan held the West Bank (annexing it in 1950) and Egypt held the Gaza Strip.

In 1988 the declaration of independence by the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) also cited resolution 181, saying it "continues to attach conditions to international legitimacy" that guarantee Palestinian sovereignty. Since 1978, under a 1977 resolution, the UN has marked November 29 as the International Day of Solidarity with the Palestinian People. Israelis call the date "Kaf-Tet b'November," Hebrew for "the 29th of November."