UN Middle East 1947

There are still questions of fairness though: the Jews only owned 7% of the total land available (the Arabs owned 20%). This point largely doesn’t take into account that the remaining land was state-owned land – meaning that 73% of Mandate Palestine’s land was to be inherited to the state that would accept it. It also fails to understand that the issue isn’t private land, but sovereignty – the Arabs in the Jewish state were not having lands taken away from them.

The final point is the Negev. Why would the Jews be given an area where there were practically no Jews in? The simple answer is immigrant absorption, aside from the fact that the Negev was sparsely populated. But is that moral? This question heavily relies on your ideology: Zionists would say yes; the Arabs had been allotted Jordan and had vast areas of other Arab lands and Zionism was worth this price. However, this question becomes largely redundant when we consider the responses.

Responses

The Arabs said no. They even walked out of the General Assembly when they had lost the vote. It wasn’t a matter of the Negev, or even the percentages of land that was going to be given. They wanted all of Palestine. As Tom Segev explains;

In any case, still hostage to the rejectionist position they had adopted in 1917, they opposed partition and continued to demand independence in all of Palestine, promising to respect the rights of the Jewish minority. 

The Arab response was wrong, not only because the partition was arguably fair but because they completely flouted the idea of partition – based on any lies. Indeed, this was expected: they had already turned down 80%. They had also missed a tactical opportunity to regroup.

The Jewish response is much more complex. They officially accepted the plan and rejoiced at it. However, the question remains how sincere it was. Tom Segev maintains that it was a “tactical step” and that everyone knew that the borders that were assigned could not stay the way they were. This was true, considering that the Arab response was expected – Ben-Gurion knew war would ensue. However, Ben-Gurion’s response was more “sincere” and even though he didn’t accept fully the border, he only wanted to make minor defensible changes. It should be noted that Ben-Gurion only wanted changes in war. Meaning that it is unknown whether Ben-Gurion would have taken any steps to expand if the Arabs had accepted.

The question of whether the UN Partition Plan was a missed peace depends on (1) it being a reasonable deal (at the time, without hindsight) and (2) it being accepted by one side. I have tried to argue that it was a reasonable deal. Ben-Gurion wanted more than what was allocated to him in the partition but he could only achieve these in war – a war which he did not initiate. The reason I say that this was a missed peace is because the lack of acceptance in the lines was only implemental as a result of war, i.e. Arab rejection. There is also the point that if the Arabs had accepted the plan, Ben-Gurion might have counted his blessings and left things as they were. Thus, another missed peace – even if only temporary.

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