The UN voted to partition Palestine into Arab and Jewish states
On this day · 29 November 1947
A single ballot on November 29, 1947 split a British-ruled territory in two and reshaped the modern Middle East.
On November 29, 1947, at its 128th plenary meeting, the UN General Assembly adopted Resolution 181 (II), recommending that British Mandate Palestine be divided into an independent Arab state and a Jewish state, bound loosely together by an economic union.
The plan carved the small territory into interlocking zones and set aside Jerusalem as a corpus separatum, an internationally governed city under UN Trusteeship Council authority. The new states were meant to come into being two months after British forces withdrew.
“Independent Arab and Jewish States… shall come into existence in Palestine two months after the evacuation of the armed forces of the mandatory Power.”
The vote passed 33 in favor, 13 against, and 10 abstentions. Zionist leaders largely accepted it; Arab states and Palestinian leaders rejected it as unjust, since Jewish residents were roughly a third of the population yet were allotted more than half the land. Within hours, fighting broke out, and the partition itself was never implemented as drafted.
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