Explain why the UNO decided to partition Palestine in 1948?

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Israel And Her Neighbours 1945 – c.1994.

Assignment 1.

Explain why the UNO decided to partition Palestine in 1948?

The years of 1947-1948 were a turning point in the Arab-Israeli conflict. Britain, who had had up to this point the area of land, formerly known as Palestine under their mandate due to the San Remo Conference in 1920 after the defeat of the Turkish Empire in World War I, gave the area to the newly formed UNO in1948. In 1948, Palestine was at the brink of war, under British control, Palestine had several proposals for partitions but all were rejected by the Arabs as they refused to accept divisions of their land. Due to these divisions proposed by Britain, and later on final division plan by the UNO (which actually was enforced), fierce fighting broke out, with casualties on both sides. This was because ‘neither side could imagine the thought of their homeland being divided’. Many Jews were also angry at the fact that their holy town (Jerusalem) would not be included in their area in the UNO’s proposed partition. The enforced partition meant that 55% of Palestine would be allocated to the Jews, but this was opposed by the Arabs because the Jews only compromised of about 600,000 while the Arabs compromised of around 1.3 million.

        In the years prior to their departure, the British had faced many problems with the country and its conflict. While Palestine was under British mandate, Britain had made promises to both Jews and Arabs which it could not maintain. One of these promises was to the Jews. They promised them a homeland in Palestine for them, under the Balfour declaration. This promise was because Britain wanted America to join the war, and thought that this declaration would gain support of the American Jews, and pressure the American government to join Britain in the war. They also made the McMahon promise, which was addressed to Sherif Hussein the Arab leader. This gave the Arabs hope that they would be able to settle down, who had up to this point been under control of the Turkish Empire for centuries. The reason that Britain made this promise was because it was at the time of World War I, and they needed the Arabs support against the Turkish Empire which was a threat to the British Empire and influence in the Middle East. Once the war was over, Britain was stuck between two promises that it had made to two opposing groups, which made the situation in Palestine much worse.

        Another problem was that both groups felt they had a rightful claim to the land of Palestine. The Arabs’ argument was that they had been living in Palestine much longer than the Jews, and that land had been passed down from generations of Arabs. Therefore they thought it was unfair that they should give their land over to the Jews. For the Jews, their argument was that they were allowed to live their, because it was once their holy land, and had many religious connections with them. Also they claimed that that land, “had been promised to them by God many years ago.” They were also excluded from Palestine in AD 135 by the Roman Empire, and were left with no land to call theirs for many, many centuries. Due to each group’s strong belief that the land was rightfully theirs, intense fighting began for many years, and still continues today. Also, in the ‘Peel Commission’, it states that “there is no common ground between the Jews and the Arabs.” This was the first basis of partitioning Palestine, and from this came the UNO partition plan. This is important because without it, the UNO might not have come up with their partition plan, and therefore many more people could have been killed, and even worse fighting than we have today could still be claiming the lives of many.

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There were many reasons why the British handed over control of Palestine to the UNO. One of them being that during the 1930’s, both sides had begun turning towards the British troops for all the trouble they had caused. By 1946, British troops were being attacked by both sides, and example of this is in 1946, when the Arabs attacked the British army headquarters in Palestine. Another reason why Britain handed over control was because there was a lot of pressure on the government at home to pull out. This was because there had already been many deaths, and ...

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