United Nations’ General Assembly Resolution 181

United Nations’ General Assembly Resolution 181
(Palestine 1947)

· In November 1947 the UN took a decision that would turn out to be very very controversial and is even counted as one of the most controversial decisions of the UN, probably because its consequences.

· The decision involved the division of Palestine. This would give even Israel a part.

· The opinion of the decision of Palestine was divided;

a) There were some Jewish minorities of extreme nationalist groups that did not agree with the divided Palestine. They claimed and understood the fact that the Palestines would not give up their territory just like that and that in the future the Jews had to face them by themselves.

b) The big part of Israel accepted the decision; one part was the Jewish Agency (a kind of Jewish government before the establishment of Israel, which was in charge of the immigration and absorption of Jews from Diasporas.)

c) The Arab leadership opposed the plan, arguing that it violated the rights of the people.

· Anyhow, the most interesting thing was The British Mandate of Palestine, which was created 1919. This mandate was actually built up by the League and its function was given to Britain that would oversee the administration and some of the territories of the former Ottoman Empire, until these peoples could take care of themselves.

Britain came first with the proposal of the Palestine division, something that has been researched a lot about. One of the theories that may be true is that the English wanted to reduce the Jewish immigration to Europe to a minimum.

When this fact came to the ears’ of the Jewish population, popular uprisings and guerilla war arose. This and other several factors made Britain to hand over the problem to the United Nations.
The UN took over the issue and after 3 months of negotiations UN released its final rapport that would divide the Palestine country in two parts.



Consequences

Because of this decision, several territorial wars between these two nations took place and again the UN was unable to prevent these later conflicts.















United Nations’ General Assembly Resolution 181
(Palestine 1947)


Why and who?

· The Jews vs. the Palestines because of the controversial decision of the United Nations.

· UN had to interfere because of the partition of the British Mandate of Palestine, which would take care of some of the former territories of the Ottoman Empire.

Consequences. Why is this counted as a failure?

· This resolution caused in the future many territorial wars between Israel and Palestine and showed some weaknesses of the United Nations.[1][2][3][4]
· The division of Palestine is counted as one of UN’s most controversial decisions.
Where?[5]


[1] http://www.palestineremembered.com
[2] http://www.un.org/
[3] Lowe, chapter 9.
[4] Britannica
[5] http://www.palestineremembered.com/Acre/Maps/Story583.html (map)