November 29: The UN Partition Plan

The United Nations General Assembly approved the division of Palestine into a new Jewish state and a new Arab state on this date in 1947, by a vote of 33-13, with 10 abstentions and one absent. The thirteen opposed nations were Afghanistan, Cuba, Egypt, Greece, India, Iran, Iraq, Lebanon, Pakistan, Saudi Arabia, Syria, Turkey, and Yemen. Jews made up about a third of the population of Palestine by 1947; sixty percent of the land was allocated to the Jewish state of Israel. Jerusalem, Bethlehem, and Beyt Shahour were placed under the jurisdiction of a UN Trusteeship Council to “protect and to preserve the unique spiritual and religious interests located in the city of the three great monotheistic faiths throughout the world, Christian, Jewish and Moslem; to this end to ensure that order and peace, and especially religious peace, reign in Jerusalem.” Six months later, war broke out between the newly independent Israel and five Arab states, and the partition plan was never fully implemented.

“Two children of same cruel parent look at one another and see in each other the image of the cruel parent or the image of their past oppressor. This is very much the case between Jew and Arab: It’s a conflict between two victims.” —Amos Oz