Many people have heard the recording of the historic UN vote on Nov. 29, 1947, to replace the British Mandate in Palestine with a Jewish and an Arab state. “The Soviet Union – yes; the United Kingdom – abstain; the United States – yes….” You can find it on YouTube. Altogether, 33 countries voted in favor, 13 against, with 10 abstentions. Thus, the required two-thirds majority necessary to pass UN General Assembly Resolution 181, the Partition Plan, was reached.
A clear majority of the Jews in Palestine supported the resolution, while virtually all of the Palestinians were opposed, and all the Arab states that were members of the United Nations in 1947 voted against it.
The Binational Alternative
If I were voting at the time, I would have supported a binational solution to the end of the mandate, a jointly run Jewish-Arab country. That was the position of the Hashomer Hatzair Workers Party and of the Ichud movement of progressive intellectuals based around the Hebrew University. The Hashomer Hatzair movement presented a booklet called The Case for a Binational Palestine to the members of the Anglo-American Committee of Inquiry that was set up in 1946 to explore options for the end of the British Mandate, and a majority of the committee members actually agreed with the proposal.
When the British decided that they could no longer hold the Mandate over Palestine, they handed the issue over to the United Nations, which established a UN Special Committee on Palestine (UNSCOP). The committee was supposed to be composed of “neutral” countries, excluding the five permanent members of the Security Council: the United States, the Soviet Union, China, France, and the UK, which was the Mandatory power. Thus, its members were Australia, Canada, Czechoslovakia, Guatemala, India, Iran, the Netherlands, Peru, Sweden, Uruguay, and Yugoslavia.
When my father got out of the American army in 1946, he accompanied Mordechai Ben-Tov, one of the leaders of Hashomer Hatzair in Palestine and a future signatory to Israel’s Declaration of Independence, to a meeting with the UNSCOP people, where they presented them with a 112-page booklet entitled The Road to Binational Independence for Palestine: Memorandum of the Hashomer Hatzair Worker’s Party of Palestine.
Rabbi Judah Magnes, the president of the Hebrew University of Jerusalem and one of the leaders of the Ichud group, also met with UNSCOP to advocate for a binational solution to the Mandate. The Ichud group, however, consisted of only a few dozen prominent intellectuals, among them Rabbi Magnes, Prof. Martin Buber, Prof. Gershom Sholem, and Prof. Akiva Ernst Simon. They were also supported by prominent Jewish intellectuals around the world such as Albert Einstein; Hannah Arendt; Henrietta Szold, founder of the Hadassah women’s movement; and also, the young Noam Chomsky. Hebrew University Prof. Hillel Cohen estimates that Hashomer Hatzair represented approximately 10% of the Jewish population in Palestine at the time. Thus, supporters of binationalism were clearly a minority among the Jews, while there was virtually total Arab opposition to the idea of a binational state.
No Palestinians or Arabs agreed to meet with UNSCOP because it was exploring various alternatives for the end of the Mandate, while the Palestinians and their Arab neighbors insisted that the only outcome should be an Arab Palestine in which Jews could have minority rights. This refusal to meet with the members of the committee turned out to be a mistake, as the members of UNSCOP felt they had no alternative but to recommend partition as the only realistic solution to the end of the British Mandate.
The Passage of UNGA Resolution 181: The Partition Plan
That leads us to the passage of The Partition Plan on Nov. 29, 1947. The decision was that about 55% of the land would go to the future Jewish state and 45% to the future Arab state. Since the Arab population in the area at the time was 1,203,000, and the Jewish population was 608,000, the Arabs clearly felt this was an unfair division of the land.
Dr. Hagai Segal, an expert on that period, presents the following explanation for the disparity:
“The Jewish state was larger, but the significant majority of the most populated areas and 'valuable' land - i.e. agricultural (and capable of agriculture) land, water, population, etc. - was in the Arab State: it included the highlands (except Jerusalem), around a third of the coast, including all the major aquifers of Palestine. A large majority of 'populated Palestine' was in the Arab State.”
“By far the largest single section of the Jewish State, however, was the Negev: desert that had never historically been significantly settled (except most notably Be’ersheva) by local Arabs (except for small Bedouin areas) as it has always been considered 'impossible to be cultivated' or suitable for cities due to the lack of water, etc. The Zionists disagreed, of course, but also recognized that UNSCOP would base its decision on where people were and so made a big play as to why this desert should be included in the Jewish State. UNSCOP was taken around Jewish settlements in the Negev, some of which were very new. The Jewish State did also get the Sea of Galilee so that it had 'enough' water.”
When I was 17, I lived for half a year on Kibbutz Shoval, slightly north of Be’ersheva, one of the 11 kibbutzim that was established on the night of Oct. 6, 1946, for the purpose of ensuring that the Negev desert would be included in the Jewish part of the Partition Plan.
Dr. Segal also notes the impact of “the guilt and moral responsibility for Holocaust survivors” that they felt. “The SS Exodus story played out while the UNSCOP committee was in Palestine, and afterwards they dispatched a subcommittee to investigate Jewish refugee camps in Europe.” It was clear to them that the Jewish state would have to absorb hundreds of thousands of Holocaust survivors, while the Palestinians to this day ask why they have to suffer for what the Europeans did to the Jews.
The bottom line was that the Palestinian and Arab side rejected any idea of partition, whatever the dimensions.
In an interview with Israeli TV Channel 2 in English in 2011, PLO Chair and PA President Mahmoud Abbas was asked if the Palestinians had made a mistake by not accepting the Partition Plan in 1947. His response was “It was our mistake. It was an Arab mistake as a whole.” Abbas, however, went on to question whether it was right for the world to punish the Palestinians for their mistake for 64 years. Other PLO leaders and some Palestinian intellectuals have made similar comments over the years.
I would add that if the Palestinians had accepted the Partition Plan, there wouldn’t have been a Nakba. At the same time, I think it’s totally understandable why they felt it was unfair and voted against it. Furthermore, their rejection of partition in no way justifies the fact that the 700,000 Palestinians who were expelled or fled in the course of the 1948 war were not allowed to return to their homes after the war ended, nor does it justify the fact that the remaining 150,000 Palestinians who became Israeli citizens were placed under a military government from 1948 until 1966.
The only Palestinians and Arabs in general who accepted partition were the members of the Palestinian and Arab Communist Parties. They were following the lead of the Soviet Union, which felt that getting rid of the British was an anti-imperialist act. They also hoped that since many of the founders of the Jewish state were socialists, they would side with the Soviet Union in the Cold War against the Americans. The fact is that the head of the Palestinian Communist Party, Meir Vilner (the Soviet Union insisted that the joint Jewish-Arab party in Palestine be led by a Jew), was one of the 37 signatories to the Israeli Declaration of Independence in 1948. My late friend, journalist and peace activist Mohammad Khass from Gaza, told me that he had been arrested by the Egyptians in 1949 because, as a Communist, he had supported the Partition Plan.
Reversal of Positions in 2024
Now we come to today’s situation in 2024. The situations have been reversed. The official PLO position is retroactive acceptance of UNGA Resolution 181, the Partition Plan that was accepted at the 19th Palestinian National Council meeting in Algeria in 1988. That was followed by PLO recognition of the State of Israel in 1993, with the exchange of letters between PLO Chairman Yasir Arafat and Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin. Since then, the PLO position has been a call for the establishment of a Palestinian state based on the 1967 borders, with East Jerusalem as its capital, alongside the State of Israel. That means the acceptance of partition. In addition, the PLO supports the Arab Peace Initiative (API) endorsed at the Arab League Summit in Beirut in 2002, which calls for Arab recognition of Israel and normal relations after the establishment of a Palestinian state in the West Bank and Gaza, with East Jerusalem as its capital, together with a solution to the Palestinian refugee problem to be agreed upon between the Palestinians and the Israeli Government. They also accepted the amended version during the 2013-14 Kerry talks, which includes minimal land swaps at a 1:1 ratio as part of an agreement.
In contrast, the first sentence of the coalition guidelines of the current Netanyahu-led, extreme right-wing Israeli Government states that “the Jewish people have an exclusive and inalienable right to all parts of the Land of Israel.” Furthermore, on July 18, 2024, 68 members of the Knesset (out of 120) voted to support a resolution put forth by MK Gideon Sa’ar, head of the right-wing “New Hope-United Right” opposition faction in the Knesset, which states that “the establishment of a Palestinian state in the heart of the Land of Israel would constitute an existential threat to the State of Israel and its citizens, perpetuate the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, and destabilize the region.” Even presumed centrist National Unity Party leader MK Benny Gantz voted for the resolution, though his partner and fellow former IDF Chief of Staff MK Gadi Eisenkot didn’t participate in the vote. Opposition leader Yesh Atid MK Yair Lapid, who expressed support at the UN for a two-state solution when he was prime minister, along with the four Labor Party Knesset members also didn’t participate in the vote. Thus, it was only the nine Knesset members from the Arab parties Hadash- Ta’al and Ra’am who voted against it. And no Israeli Government has ever accepted the Arab Peace Initiative.
Today we have a total reversal of roles. The Palestinians today accept partition, while the Israelis do not. However, we have to add a caveat to this description. President Abbas and the Palestinian Authority are extremely unpopular with the Palestinian public. And recent public opinion polls say that 70% of the Palestinians in the West Bank support what Hamas did on October 7, which is not an expression of support for partition. Hamas is totally opposed to partition, though the 2017 revised version of its charter suggests the possibility of establishing a sovereign Palestinian state alongside the State of Israel for at least a 50-year period of a hudna (cease-fire) without relinquishing the Palestinian right to all the territory between the river and the sea. Recently there have been some comments from Hamas leaders reiterating that position. At the same time, Netanyahu’s government is extremely unpopular in all Israeli public opinion polls. This was the case even before the war as a result of the opposition to the attempt to undermine the independence of the courts, and now it is because of the public’s perception that Netanyahu’s policy of supporting Hamas while weakening the PA is responsible for what happened on October 7.
Given the mutual sense of national trauma that both Israelis and Palestinians feel toward each other since October 7, and the Gaza war, support for partition and a two-state solution – in fact, the very idea of negotiations for peace – has plummeted in both societies.
On the Israeli side, a May 2024 survey carried out by the International MA Program for Conflict Resolution at Tel Aviv University showed that only 26% of Israelis support a two-state solution today. On the Palestinian side, a survey carried out by the Palestinian Center for Policy and Survey Research (PCPSR) showed that only 32% of the Palestinians in the West Bank, Gaza, and East Jerusalem support a two-state solution. This contrasts with significant majorities in both Israeli and Palestinian societies that supported a two-state solution before the breakdown of the Oslo process, the second intifada, and particularly the current Israel-Gaza war. This demonstrates that those of us who believe that a two-state solution is the only viable solution, and that it is still realistic, have their work cut out for them.
The Return of the Two-Solution and Partition
At the same time, after ignoring the conflict or assuming that it could be “managed” without having to resolve it, support for the two-state solution, for partition, has returned to the international agenda. Israelis also can no longer ignore the fact that there is a conflict with the Palestinians. After being ignored during the five rounds of elections that took place between 2019 and 2022, the issue of the conflict and Israeli-Palestinian relations will definitely return to the agenda of the next Israeli election.
Crises always create the possibility of new opportunities. We shouldn’t ignore the fact that just four years after Egypt attacked Israel in 1973, the Camp David Accords were signed, leading to peace between Israel and Egypt. The Arab Peace Initiative is still on the table. Former Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert, who came the closest to an agreement with the Palestinians on a two-state solution, has said that it should be the basis for a resolution of the conflict. And Saudi Arabia still says that it is interested in normalizing relations with Israel, a goal that both the right and the left in Israel are interested in. And while before October 7 the Saudis said their condition was an improvement in the lives of the Palestinians, today they are clearly saying that an agreement with Israel depends upon the creation of a clear path toward a Palestinians state alongside Israel, as is stated in the API, which was originally a Saudi initiative by Crown Prince Abdullah. That is clearly a lever that Arabs, Israelis, and the international community can use to promote a two-state solution.
Given all of the above, we can only hope, and work for the idea that after October 7, and the devastating Gaza war, the logic of partition and a two-state solution will once again come to the fore and be realized, for the sake of both peoples.
* Hillel Schenker is currently in the process of completing an activist memoir whose working title is From Utopia to Dystopia? Eyewitness in Israel/Palestine.