The revolution and pacts (52) Partition of Palestine(I). In order to comprehensively trace, and fully understand one of the major post-Baghdad Pact developments, namely the Soviet Arms deal and subsequent arms race in the Middle East, I deemed it necessary to take our readers as back as 1947, the year of the Partition of Palestine. On November 29, 1947, the United Nations General Assembly approved a Partition Plan for Palestine in the hope of resolving the Arab-Jewish conflict in the British Mandate of Palestine. The plan partitioned the territory into Jewish and Arab states, with the Greater Jerusalem area (encompassing Bethlehem) coming under international control. The failure of this plan led to the 1948 Arab-Israeli War, the first major round in a protracted conflict that has not yet been resolved. The United Nations, the successor to the League of Nations, attempted to solve the dispute between the Jews and Arabs in Palestine. The UN appointed a committee, the United Nations Special Committee on Palestine (UNSCOP), composed of representatives from several states. To make the committee more neutral, none of the Great Powers were represented. UNSCOP considered two main proposals. The first called for the creation of independent Arab and Jewish states, with Jerusalem to be placed under international administration. The second called for the creation of a single federal state containing both Jewish and Arab constituent states. A majority of UNSCOP adopted the first option, although several members supported the second option instead and one member (Australia) said it was unable to decide between them. The UN General Assembly largely accepted UNSCOP's proposals, though they made some adjustments to the boundaries between the two states proposed by it. The division was to take effect on the date of British withdrawal. The UN made the recommendation for a three-way partition of Palestine into a Jewish state, an Arab state and a small internationally administered zone including the religiously significant towns Jerusalem and Bethlehem. The two states envisioned in the plan were each composed of three major sections, linked by extraterritorial crossroads. The Jewish state would receive the Coastal Plain, stretching from Haifa to Rehovot, the Eastern Galilee (surrounding the Sea of Galilee and including the Galilee panhandle) and the Negev, including the southern outpost of Umm Rashrash (now Eilat). The Arab state would receive the Western Galilee, with the town of Acre, the Samarian highlands and the Judean highlands, and the southern coast stretching from north of Majdal (now Ashkelon) and encompassing what is now the Gaza Strip, with a section of desert along the Egyptian border. The UNSCOP report placed the mostly-Arab town of Jaffa, just south of Tel Aviv, in the Jewish state, but it was moved to form an enclave part of the Arab state before the proposal went before the UN. [email protected]
