Why did the Arabs reject the UNGA partition plan which would split Palestine into 2 states?

Why did the Arabs reject the UNGA partition plan which would split Palestine into 2 states? : A Jewish state and an Arabic one:

The 1947 UNGA proposed partition plan of Palestine is often used by Israelis and Zionists to obscure facts from those new to the argument. As demonstrated below, the myth has been concocted to legitimize Israel in the eyes of many Jews and Western people. It should be noted that each of the facts below can be independently verified either from the Zionist archives in Jerusalem, or from the British Mandate books:

1- Palestine’s Jewish population was under 8% of the total population as of 1914 (Righteous Victims, p. 83) and Jewish land owner in 1914 was under 2% (Benny Morris, p. 170). It should be noted that the mass majority of the Jews residing in Palestine were not citizens of the country, but they recently fled anti-Semitic Tsarist Russia .

2- Despite the active British assistance to establish a “Jewish National home” in Palestine(based on the British commitment in the Balfour Declaration), Palestine’s Jewish population in 1947 was increased to 33% of its total population and only less than 1/3 of them got Palestinian citizenships (Righteous Victims, p. 83). Jewish land ownership in Palestine was under 7% as of 1947 (Benny Morris, p. 170). Again, prior to the 1948 war less than one third of the Jews in Palestine were recognized as legal citizens by the Government of Palestine (Survey of Palestine P. 208), however, they mostly maintained citizenship of their respective countries, such as Russian, Polish, Romanian, and Germany citizenships. It’s worth noting that even after five decades of ethnic cleansing, occupation, and dispossession, the demographic ratio between Palestinians (8.5 million) and Israeli Jews (4.5-5 million) is still the same as it was in December 1947, which was (and still is) 2 to 1 in favor of the Palestinian people. However, for Israel to maintain its democratic “Jewish state”, and above all its “Jewish character”, it opted to ETHNICALLY CLEANSE more than 80% of the Palestinian people out of their homes, farms, businesses. It should be noted that as of 1948, Jews made 1/3 of the total population and most importantly only 1/3 of those Jews in Palestine (1/9 of the total population) were citizens of the country and the rest were either illegal immigrants or simply immigrants who were granted entry to Palestine to escape German and European atrocities in Europe.

– Settled population, excluding the nomadic Bedouins, by town and sub-district estimated as of 31st December, 1946. The table below was directly extracted from the Supplement to a Survey of Palestine (p. 12-13) which was prepared by the British Mandate for the United Nations in 1947:

-Note that ALL Jewish towns were all exclusively Jewish populated as a result of the apartheid policies of the Zionist movement. These apartheid policies were approved and encouraged by the British Mandate and affected all sectors of society, such as housing, landownership, schools and higher education, finance, political parties, official languages, … etc. Also it should be noted that Palestinian Christians and Muslims resisted the implementation of apartheid policies tooth and nail in order to preserve a united country, however, that was counter to Zionists ambitions.

-This doesn’t even include the nomadic Bedouins, who were estimated in other studies to number close to 100,000 Palestinians. Many of them were resettled in al-Ramla after the 1948 war.

3-The United States of America arm twisted the arms of dozens of small nations to get their support for the partitioning of Palestine. For example, Greece and France were threatened with a foreign aid cutoff, Liberia was threatened with a rubber embargo plus Firestone Company’s president threatened to revoke his company’s planned expansion in Liberia, bribing several Latin American countries by hinting at the possibility that the U.S. might fund the construction of a Pan-American highway, … etc. (Righteous Victims p. 184 , Jerusalem Post, and America And The Founding Of Israel p. 141-143).

4- Two US Supreme Court justices, Frank Murphy and Felix Frankfurter, contacted the Philippine’s ambassador in Washington D.C. and sent telegrams to the Philippine’s president, Carlos Rojas, warning that a vote against the proposed partition plan would alienate millions of Americans. Ten senators also cabled Rojas (Jerusalem Post).

5- The Jewish Agency budgeted a million dollars for its own bribery campaign.The money allocation appeared in the Jewish Agency’s budget as “irregular politicalactivity.” (One Palestine Complete, p. 496)

6- The Zionist leaders enjoyed a clandestine advantage by BUGGING the rooms of the UN Special Committee On Palestine (UNSCOP), and they knew what every committee member and witness was saying (Righteous Victims, p. 182). 7- In March 1948 the United States, along with China and France, was withdrawing from its earlier commitments to partition Palestine, and was pressing for “trusteeship” – an extension of Great Power rule- in Palestine beyond May 15th, 1948 (Benny Morris, p. 61) And on March 19th, 1948, Ben-Gurion responded to the idea of UN trusteeship in a pressconference in Tel-Aviv with as follows:

“It is we who will decide the fate of Palestine. We cannot agree to any sort of Trusteeship, permanent or temporary. The Jewish State exists because we defend it.” (Israel: A History, p. 165)

It should be noted that since November 1947 the UN GA has failed to reaffirm the 1947 UN GA proposed partition plan.

8-The 20th Zionist Congress, which convened in Zurich in August 1937, almost UNANIMOUSLY REJECTED the British proposed partition plan of Palestine (which became known as the Peel Commission Partition plan) (Israel: A History, p. 88, and One Palestine Complete, p. 414). Although the proposed Peel Commission’s partition plan was rejected because the areas allocated to the “Jewish state” was “too small,” the concept of partitioning the country was adopted by the 20th Zionist Congress. Check both maps below : the Peel Commission which was rejected by the 20th Zionist Congress, and the map proposed by the U.N. GA in 1947 for the partition of Palestine. While inspecting both maps, note the following:

1. The Jewish population in Palestine as of 1937 was under 27% of the total population.
2. The Jewish population in Palestine as of 1947 was under 33% of the total population.
3. The Negev Desert was populated with Zionist Jews only in few isolated colonies.
4. The Peel Commission allocated the most fertile regions of Palestine to the “Jewish state,” which included all of Galilee and a much wider area in the coastal region compared to the areas proposed by the UN GA in 1947.
5. The 1947 UN GA proposed Partition plan did not advocate compulsory population transfer (ethnic cleansing) for Palestinians out of the areas allocated to the “Jewish State”, where Palestinians made up 45% of the total population. On the contrary, compulsory population transfer was a major pillar for the success of the Peel Commission Partition plan.

We call upon your sense of fairness while contemplating the following questions:

1) If the Peel Commission plan had been accepted by the Zionists in 1937, how many Jews might have been saved from the Nazi holocaust? In that respect, it’s worth quoting Ben-Gurion, who wrote twenty years later:

“Had partition [referring to the Peel Commission partition plan] been carried out, the history of our people would have been different and six million Jews in Europe would not have been killed—most of them would be in Israel” (One Palestine Complete, p. 414).

2) Why is the rejection of the 1937 Peel Partition plan justifiable according to many Zionists, but the Arabs’ rejection of the 1947 UN GA Partition plan is not?

To give a different perspective on the issue, it’s worth contemplating what Moshe Sharett, the 1st Israeli Foreign Minister, said in justification of why the Palestinian people would reject any Partition to their country. Sharett stated behind closed doors to the Zionist Actions Committee , the supreme policy making body between the Zionists congresses of the World Zionist Organization on April 22nd, 1937:

“The proposed Jewish state [referring to the proposed 1937 Peel Commission partition plan] territory would not be continuous; its borders would be twisted and broken; the question of defending the frontier line would pose enormous difficulties …. the frontier line would separate villages from their fields …. Moreover the [Palestinian] Arab reaction would be negative because they would lose everything and gain almost nothing ….. in contrast to us they would lose totally that part of Palestine which they consider to be an Arab country and are fighting to keep it such … They would lose the richest part of Palestine; they would lose major Arab assets, the orange plantations, the commercial and industrial centers and the most important sources of revenue for their government which would become impoverished; they would lose most of the coastal area, which would also be loss to the hinterland Arab states….. It would mean that they would be driven back to the desert (‘Zorkim Otam’) …. A Jewish territory [state] with fewer Arab subjects would make it easy for us but it would also mean procrustean bed for us while a plan based on expansion into larger territory would mean more [Palestinian] Arab subjects in the Jewish territory. For the next 10 years the possibility of transferring the Arab population would not be ‘practical’. As for the long-term future: I am prepared to see in this a vision, not a mystical way but in a realistic way, of a population exchange on a much more important scale and including larger territories. As for now, we must not forget who would have to exchange the land? those villages which live more than others on irrigation, on orange and fruit plantations, in houses built near water wells and pumping stations, on livestock and property and easy access to markets. Where would they go? What would they receive in return? … This would be such an uprooting, such a shock, the likes of which had never occurred and could drown the whole thing in rivers of blood. At this stage let us not entertain ourselves with the analogy of population transfer between Turkey and Greece; there were different conditions there. Those Arabs who would remain would revolt; would the Jewish state be able to suppress the revolt without assistance from the British Army?” (Expulsion Of The Palestinians, p. 59-60)

Moreover, Zionists sometimes tend to forget that many Zionists also objected to the partition plan (the Revisionists, for example), or viewed it only as an interim solution (MAPAI), and that during the 1948 war the Zionist forces ignored the partition plan, attacking and capturing territory beyond its boundaries.

9-The Syrian proposal to refer the Palestine issue to the International Court of Justice at The Hague was defeated by a single vote, twenty one votes against twenty. (Simha Flapan, p. 123).

10-The 1947 UN GA proposed partition was outside the competence of the Assembly under the Charter of the United Nations. Nowhere in the UN’s charter was there the power to partition any country, especially based on racial or religious grounds. According to its Charter,the General Assembly of the United Nations can only make recommendations. It is not authorized to pass binding laws or create new states. Article 1 of the U.N. Charter also calls on the members of the United Nations “To develop friendly relations among nations based on respect for the principle of equal rights and self -determination of peoples.”Thus the partition resolution violates fundamental principles of the U.N. Charter. Even if the UN had the power, the resolution to partition Palestine was not binding ,since it was endorsed by the General Assembly rather than the Security Council.

11- Now based on what facts I stated before , are you aware that the 1947 UN GA proposed partition granted the “Jewish state” ABOUT 60% of the total area of Palestine? If any American is reading this , I would direct this at you : would you concede sovereignty and land ownership over 60% of your country to a foreign minority, such as Canadians and Mexicans, who owns under 7% of U.S.’s lands? Here’s the map illustrating such comparative partition of the U.S. in favor of one of its ethnic or religious minorities. If you do not accept such a plan for yourself as an American, then why many Americans ask the Palestinian people to concede 60% of their land in favor of an ALIEN foreign minority?

For a moment, let’s assume that the above arguments and facts are nonsense to the average Israelis/Zionists/prozionists and think about the following questions: Assuming that as of 1947 Israeli Jews constituted a 2/3 majority of the total population, owned and operated 93% of Israel’s lands, and contributed 55%-60% of the Israeli Gross Domestic Product (GDP), would you accept a U.N. IMPOSED partition of Israel in favor of an alien minority? It should be NOTED that currently Palestinian-Israeli citizens make up 20-22% of the total Israeli population, so is it acceptable for the U.N. to partition Israel in a favorable way to its Palestinian-Israeli minority?

As an Israeli Jew or a prozionist would you accept a UN GA imposed partition of your country?

–We cannot help it but to a draw similarity with a famous Old Testament story, when two women disputed the motherhood of a baby. They took their dispute to King Solomon, who decided to settle the dispute by cutting the baby in half. The baby’s mother quickly objected the King’s decision and preferred giving up that baby rather than killing it. That is when the wise King recognized that she must be the mother, and the other woman is an imposter. In a similar fashion, the Palestinian people refused the unjust resolution that called for the division of their country with an alien colonizers perceived at that time , and later on they compromised a lot.

Dr. Walid Khalidi articulated the Palestinians position as follows:

“The native people of Palestine, like the native people of every other country in the Arab world, Asia, Africa and Europe, refused to divide the land with a settler community.”

12- As it will be documented below, the decision by the Zionist leadership to accept the 1947 proposed UN GA Partition plan was nothing but a smoke screen, which was done solely to gain international recognition and support. This deception was a political ploy to gain initial international legitimacy for the existence of the “Jewish state”, and this was well known to the Palestinian people. The reader is urged to contemplate the following Zionist leaders’ quotes in an open mind. Note that most, if not all, of the quotes below are dated before the entry of any single Arab Army into British Mandated Palestine: In a letter Chaim Weizmann sent to the Palestine-British high Commissioner, while the Peel Commission was convening in 1937, he stated:

“We shall spread in the whole country in the course of time ….. this is only an arrangement for the next 25 to 30 years.” (Expulsion Of The Palestinians, p. 66)

–Ben-Gurion emphasized that the acceptance of the Peel Commission would not imply static borders for the future “Jewish state”. In a letter Ben Gurion sent to his son in 1937, he wrote:

“No Zionist can forgo the smallest portion of the Land Of Israel. [A] Jewish state in part [of Palestine] is not an end, but a beginning ….. Our possession is important not only for itself … through this we increase our power, and every increase in power facilitates getting hold of the country in its entirety. Establishing a [small] state …. will serve as a very potent lever in our historical effort to redeem the whole country.” (Righteous Victims, p. 138)

–In 1938, Ben-Gurion made it clear of his support for the “Jewish state” on part of Palestine was only as a stepping ground for a complete conquest. He wrote:

“[I am] satisfied with part of the country, but on the basis of the assumption that after we build up a strong force following the establishment of the state–we will abolish the partition of the country and we will expand to the whole Land Israel.” (Expulsion Of The Palestinians, p. 107 & One Palestine Complete, p. 403)

-One day after the UN vote to partition Palestine, Menachem Begin, the commander of the Irgun terrorist gang and Israel’s future Prime Minister between 1977-1983, proclaimed:

“The Partition of Palestine is illegal. It will never be recognized …. Jerusalem was and will for ever be our capital. Eretz Israel will be restored to the people of Israel. All of it. And for Ever.” (Iron Wall p. 25)

-Ben-Gurion was happy and sad when the U.N. voted to partition Palestine into two states, Palestinian and Jewish. He was happy because “finally” Jews could have a “country” of their own. On the other hand, he was sad because they have “lost” almost half of Palestine,and because they would have to contend with a sizable Palestinian minority, well over 45% of the total population. In the following few quotes, you will see how he also stated that a “Jewish state” cannot survive being 60% Jewish; implying that something ought to be done to remedy the so called “Arab demographic problem”. ( In other words future ethnic cleansing of Palestinians ) He stated on November 30, 1947:

“In my heart, there was joy mixed with sadness: joy that the nations at last acknowledged that we are a nation with a state, and sadness that we lost half of the country, Judea and Samaria, and , in addition, that we[would] have [in our state] 400,000 [Palestinian] Arabs.” (Righteous Victims, p. 190).

-While addressing the Central Committee of the Histadrut on December 30, 1947, Ben-Gurion stated:

“In the area allocated to the Jewish State there are not more than 520,000 Jews and about 350,000 non-Jews, mostly Arabs. Together with the Jews of Jerusalem, the total population of the Jewish State at the time of its establishment, will be about one million, including almost 40% non-Jews. such a [population] composition does not provide a stable basis for a Jewish State. This [demographic] fact must be viewed in all its clarity and acuteness. With such a [population] composition, there cannot even be absolute certainty that control will remain in the hands of the Jewish majority …. There can be no stable and strong Jewish state so long as it has a Jewish majority of only 60%.” (Expulsion Of The Palestinians, p. 176).

Ben-Gurion commented on the proposed Peel Commission Partition plan as follows in 1937:

“We must EXPEL ARABS and take their places …. and, if we have to use force-not to dispossess the Arabs of the Negev and Transjordan, but to l guarantee our own right to settle in those places-then we have force at our disposal.” (Expulsion Of The Palestinians, p. 66).

Note the premeditated plan to ethnically cleanse the Negev and Transjordan which were not allocated to the Jewish State by the Peel Commission.

-Moshe Sharett, director of the Jewish Agency’s Political Department who later became Israel’s first foreign minister, declared:

“[W]hen the Jewish state is established–it is very possible that the result will be [population] transfer of [the Palestinian] Arabs.” (Righteous Victims, p. 254).

-On February 7th, 1948, while addressing the Mapai Counci Ben-Gurion responded to a remark that the “Jews have no land in the Jerusalem corridor” with the following:

“The war will give us the land. The concept of ‘ours’ and ‘not ours’ are only concepts for peacetime, and during war they lose all their meaning.” (Benny Morris, p. 170 & Expulsion of The Palestinians, p. 180)

-And on February 8th, 1948 Ben Gurion also stated to the Mapai Council:

“From your entry into Jerusalem, through Lifta, Romema [East Jerusalem Palestinian neighborhood]. . . there are no [Palestinian] Arabs. One hundred percent Jews. Since Jerusalem was destroyed by the Romans, it has not been Jewish as it is now. In many [Palestinian] Arab neighborhoods in the west one sees not a single [Palestinian] Arab. I do not assume that this will change. . . . What had happened in Jerusalem…is likely to happen in many parts of the country. . . in the six, eight, or ten months of the campaign there will certainly be great changes in the composition of the population in the country.” (Expulsion Of The Palestinians, p. 180-181)

-In a speech addressing the Zionist Action Committee on April 6, 1948, Ben-Gurion clearly stated that war could be used as an instrument to solve the so called “Arab demographic problem”. He stated:

“We will not be able to win the war if we do not, during the war, populate upper and lower, eastern and western Galilee, the Negev and Jerusalem area, even if only in an artificial way, in a military way. . . . I believe that war will also bring in its wake a great change in the distribution of [Palestinian] Arab population.” (Benny Morris, p. 181 & Expulsion Of The Palestinians, p. 181)

Note the premeditated plan to occupy and ethically cleanse areas, such as Galilee and Jerusalem, which were not allotted to the “Jewish State” by the 1947 UN GA Partition plan, the reader is encouraged to check the map in the replied comment above.

For moment, let us assume that the above are pure Arab Palestinian propaganda and and lets contemplate what Ben-Gurion told Nahunm Goldman (a prominent Zionists leader before he died):

“I don’t understand your optimism.,” Ben-Gurion declared. “Why should the Arabs make peace? If I was an Arab leader I would never make terms with Israel. That is natural: we have taken their country. Sure, God promised it to us, but what does that matter to them? Our God is not theirs. We come from Israel, it’s true, but two thousand years ago, and what is that to them? There has been anti-Semitism , the Nazis, Hitler, Auschwitz, but was that their fault? They only see one thing: we have come here and stolen their country Why should they accept that? They may perhaps forget in one or two generations’ time, but for the moment there is no chance. So it’s simple: we have to stay strong and maintain a powerful army. Our whole policy is there. Otherwise the Arabs will wipes us out”.

I was stunned by this pessimism, but he went on:

“I will be seventy years old soon. Well, Nahum, if you asked me whether I shall die and be buried in a Jewish state I would tell you Yes; in ten years, fifteen years, I believe there will still be a Jewish state. But ask me whether my son Amos, who will be fifty at the end of this year, has a chance of dying and being buried in a Jewish state, and I would answer: fifty-fifty.” “But how can you sleep with that prospect in mind,” I broke in, “and be Prime Minister of Israel too?” “Who says I sleep? he answered simply”. (The Jewish Paradox by Nahum Goldman, p. 99)

Finally, it’s hypocritical when on one hand Zionists or pro Zionists use UN GA partition plan as a pretext to legitimize Israel’s existence, while they’ve rejected almost every other UN resolution since Israel’s creation, chief among them UN GA resolution 194 that called for the immediate return to all Palestinian refugees to their homes in Israel.To suit Zionists’ political agenda, they have deliberately chosen to ignore most, if not all, of UN resolutions concerning Palestine and its people, of course with the exception of withdrawing from occupied southern Lebanon in May 2000. Sadly, Israel has accepted that UN resolution not because it was influenced by a UN, a U.S., or even a European diplomatic pressure but because it was compelled to do so by the heroic Lebanese resistance.

Links and References

1. Jerusalem Post: Intensely lobbying the UN behind the scene, half a loaf.
2. Truman Overrode Strong State Department Warning Against Partitioning of Palestine in 1947 By Donald Neff
3. PLands.org: Nakba Anatomy, a Power Point presentation
4. Video: Miko Peled destroys Zionists Myths.