Israeli and Western historical studies of the 1947 partition plan
overwhelmingly demonstrate that it was accepted by the Zionist
movement and was rejected by the Palestinians and the Arab
countries. But is this the real story? Aren't there other
narratives? What does a re-examination of the historical reality
reveal in this regard?
Was Palestinian and Arab rejection of the plan really the primary
reason for its failure to be implemented or were there other
critical factors? For example, was the plan itself created only to
legitimize Israeli goals, despite the fact it was never applied on
the Palestinian side?
A general problem with the dominant historical narratives is that
they either place the events and arguments of 1947 outside their
historical context, and outside their relationship to previous
events, or they connect them only to whatever complies with the
writers' biases and inclinations. This paper aims to show the
reasons underlying Zionist acceptance of the partition plan, to
examine whether the Palestinians and the Arabs really rejected it
and, finally, to investigate whether international, Zionist and
some Arab statements aided the implementation of a partition quite
different from that set forth in the official document promulgated
by the UN on November 29, 1947.
The Zionist Movement's Attitude Towards the Partition
Plan
Historical evidence shows the Zionist movement's position
vis-à-vis the partition plan at that time was two-sided. On
the one hand, it accepted the plan because it purported to
legitimize the Zionist goal of establishing a Jewish state in
Palestine but, at the same time, leading Zionists wished to use
this legitimization as a basis to acquire more land and to expel
the Palestinians from the Jewish state. In addition to
international legitimization, it awarded the Jewish state 15
million dunams of land, while Jewish land ownership at that time
did not exceed 1,678,000 dunams (11.8 percent). "Thus, the
partition plan was effectively a declaration of war against the
Arabs of Palestine and a permit to the Hebrew state to occupy 88.82
percent of the area of the Palestine."1
But, on the other hand, the Zionists sought more than was awarded
to the Jewish state by the partition plan, and this meant the
announcement of the partition plan, "gave the Zionists the judicial
and materialistic basis which will enable them to cancel both
states and to establish a third one".2
This quotation shows how the Zionist movement "accepted" the
partition plan and also clarifies what happened later, especially
the implementation of Plan Dalet from the beginning of February,
1948, resulting in the expulsion of the majority of the
Palestinians from their homeland. The aim of the Zionist Plan Dalet
was to obtain control of the area of the Jewish state as set forth
in the partition plan, in addition to the occupation of other areas
outside those allocated, including a corridor from the coastal
plain to Jerusalem, as well as Tulkarem, Qalqilia, Acre, Hebron,
Bethlehem, Beit Jala, Jaffa and other areas.3
In other words, although the Zionist movement formally accepted the
UN partition plan, it had no intention of accepting its limits.
Acceptance was the formal cosmetic position, while the real
intention was to try to take over most of Palestine. There were
three main aspects to Zionist violations of the partition
plan:
1) The plan, in its written version, set up a Jewish state that
would be bi-national in structure, in which Palestinians would
represent 46 percent of its population4 (498,000 Jews and 407,000
Palestinians).5 In reality, however, Plan Dalet contemplated
removing Palestinians from that state.
2) While the plan talked about two states, the Zionist leadership
worked (with British support) to divide Palestine between Israel
and Jordan and to prevent the establishment of a Palestinian state
(see later).
3) Jerusalem, according to the plan, was to be governed as an
international city (Corpus Separatum), while Plan Dalet set out a
strategy for occupying half of it by Zionist forces. External
evidence confirms this. In December, 1947, a few days after the UN
approved the partition plan, David Ben Gurion told a meeting of the
executive committee of the Histadrut (the General Federation of
Jewish Labor in Palestine), that even though Jerusalem, under the
partition plan, was not designated, "as the capital of the Jewish
Nation ... it must be, not only a great and expanding center of the
Jewish settlement, but also the center of all Jewish national and
international institutions, the center of the Zionist movement, the
center of Knesset Israel, which will embrace every Jew in the land
of Israel, as well as those residing outside the Jewish state, the
center of world Jewry." He added, "We know there are no final
settlements in history, there are no eternal boundaries, and there
are no final political claims and undoubtedly many changes and
revisions will yet occur in the world."6
The Zionist position towards the partition plan can thus be seen as
a step toward judaizing Palestine in order to deprive the
Palestinians (in coordination with Britain and some of the Arab
regimes) of their right to self determination.
The Palestinian and Arab Positions
Most Western and Israeli historians have interpreted the
Palestinian leadership's official rejection of the partition plan
as a political and cultural rejection of any Jewish rights in
Palestine, based on the undemocratic structure of the Palestinian
leadership, which considered only its own interests and not those
of its people as a whole. In fact, with the exception of the
Palestinian Communists, who officially accepted the partition plan,
there was a clear gap between the official and private positions of
all other Palestinian groups. There is reason to believe there was
much more willingness than official statements would show to deal
with Israel's existence, and try to salvage a Palestinian state in
the areas that remained.
Contrary to what is generally believed, the Palestinians asked the
Arab League to establish a Palestinian government on July 10, 1947,
but the Arab League refused. The request was repeated in February,
1948, and was again refused.7
It might be argued that both requests to establish a Palestinian
state in all of historical Palestine were made before the
establishment of Israel. However, the Palestinians repeated their
request for the creation of a Palestinian government even after
Israel came into being. This third request was made in June, 1948.
Again, the Arab League refused and decided instead to establish a
temporary civil administration in Palestine.8 This third request
means the Palestinians were ready to have their state beside that
of Israel, which had already been in existence for a month.
The Palestinians were later able to convince the Arab League to
establish a Palestinian government, and a Palestinian National
Council meeting was held in Gaza on September 30, 1948. A
government was elected, but was unable to extend its authority to
the West Bank, which was then in the hands of the Iraqi and
Jordanian military. The Egyptian government was unhappy with the
idea of a Palestinian government in Gaza, and on July 10, 1948,
decided to deport Hajj Amin al-Husseini, head of the Palestinian
National Council, from Gaza to Cairo.9
While Gaza was put under Egyptian administration, the West Bank was
annexed to Jordan as part of a British agreement made with Jordan's
Prime Minister, Tawfiq Abu-alHuda. This agreement had been
concluded at the end of January, 1948, during Prime Minister
Abu-alHuda's visit to Britain, when he met with British Foreign
Minister Ernest Bevin.10
These events demonstrate that the Palestinians were ready to deal
pragmatically with the results of partition. However, many
historians still concentrate on the verbal Palestinian rejection,
denying at the same time the version of history which is built on
actions, not on words.
Likewise, the Arab governments were also ready to deal
pragmatically with the partition plan, and although they denounced
it harshly, they had essentially accepted the plan and were ready
to deal with it. Arab League General Secretary Abd Al-Rahman Azzam,
in a meeting with Eliyahu Sasson held on September 8, 1946, more
than a year before the partition plan was promulgated, showed
interest in dividing Palestine into two states.11
King Abdallah of Jordan expressed an interest in the same idea
during his meetings with Sasson in August, 1946, when he presented
a plan to annex the Arab sector of Palestine to Jordan and Syria.
He proposed that this entity would establish a federation with the
Iraqi Hashemite monarchy, with Lebanon given the option of
joining.12 One of the documents published by Majdi Abdel Hadi
showed the Egyptians were pro-partition and they even asked that
the future Jewish state join the Arab League.13 This Egyptian
position was given to the Jewish Agency Political Department during
negotiations on August 29, 1946.
Conclusion: A Plan to Legitimize the Establishment of Israel
Only
As illustrated above, there was a written partition plan approved
by the UN but, in practice, there were also other plans. These were
partly contradictory but, in the end, effectively complementary.
For example, the Zionist movement's real partition plan, as
implemented in 1948, dovetailed with the Jordanian partition plan
to divide Palestine between the Jordanians and the Jewish state.
Jordan began discussions with the Zionist movement on that subject
in 193514, and this Zionist-Jordanian coordination effectively
buried any possibility of a Palestinian state, and the right of the
Palestinian people to self-determination. In the final analysis,
the function of the partition plan was to legitimize the
establishment of a Jewish state and not to fulfill Palestinian
aspirations.
At this point, it might reasonably be asked: why did the UN accept
the partition plan in the first place? We do not know if the UN
realized in advance that the plan would not be implemented on the
Palestinian side, but we can be certain of two things:
1) The US was pressing strongly for this plan to be passed to
provide international support and legitimacy for the establishment
of a Jewish state in Palestine. The fate of the Palestinian people
was not an American interest at that time. Although the Americans
changed their position in February-March, 1948, from supporting the
partition plan to calls to put Palestine under trusteeship15, the
Americans were completely supportive of the plan when it was
approved and played a crucial role in deciding which states would
sit on the UNSCOP committee that implemented the plan.
2) We also know that Great Britain abstained from the UN vote on
the partition plan. However, the British Peel Commission had
devised the first partition plan in the 1930's, which divided
Palestine between the Zionists and the Jordanians. We also know
that the British used all their resources to damage the Palestinian
leadership during the 1936-1939 revolt, to prevent the
establishment of a Palestinian state.
Thus, in a practical sense, Britain supported the establishment of
a Jewish state but not a Palestinian one. This clarifies Britain's
abstention during the UN vote.16
In 1948, the British began to move their troops to the north to
assist the creation of the Jewish state. Moreover, the British did
not respond to attacks against them by Zionist revisionists (Etzel
[Irgun] and Lehi [Stern Gang]), because they were only interested
in withdrawal. This clarifies how supportive Britain was, even at
that point, to the establishment of the Jewish state.17
The partition plan was scheduled to be implemented by August 1,
1948, according to its terms, but the Zionist movement began its
attacks in February, 1948, under Plan Dalet and the A, B and C
plans.18 It is now clear that the actors on the ground (British,
Jordanian and Zionist) were all against the part of the UN
partition plan that would create a Palestinian state. However, all
accepted the establishment of the Jewish state while simultaneously
working toward their own private partition plans.
The US decision in March, 1948, to oppose partition effectively
killed the plan, while the May, 1948, UN General Assembly
resolution to freeze the partition plan, and to appoint a mediator,
was the final blow. The text of the resolution states that the
General Assembly of the UN, "relieve the Palestine commission from
the further exercise or responsibility under Resolution 181 of 28
November 1947." (Abdel Hadi, 1997, p:187)
This resolution was the official death certificate of the partition
plan (from the point of view of the major powers). While
officially, the partition plan was scheduled to be implemented (and
thus expire) on August 1, 1948, developments on the ground led it
to an earlier demise after it had been only partially
implemented.
The Jewish state, legitimized by the partition plan and declared on
May 14, was invited to join the Arab league. The next year, at the
Lausanne negotiations (April, 1949), the Arab states negotiated
directly with Israel, thus giving it their own legitimization,
while also calling for the implementation of the partition
plan.
The conclusion of this process resulted in a Jewish state being
established and, in effect, accepted by the Arabs, while Israel
rejected Arab initiatives for peace and the Palestinians became
refugees in their own homeland. Our duty today is to continue
calling for full implementation of the partition plan, through the
implementation of the unfulfilled and neglected aspect of the plan,
namely, the creation of a Palestinian state.
1 (Khalidi, 1999, p.90)
2 (Sanbar 1987, P.140)
3 (Khalidi 1999, p.9)
4 (Pappe 2002, p.6)
5 (Sanbar 1987, p.135)
6 (Abdel Hadi 1996, p.77)
7 (Sakhnini, 1986. p. 217)
8 (Ibid, p. 218)
9 (Ibid, p.226)
10 (Sanbar 1987, p.150)
11 (Abdel Hadi 1997. p. 138)
12 (Ibid, p.139).
13 (Ibid, p. 141-142)
14 (see Abdel Hadi 1997)
15 (Sanber 1987, p.152-154)
16 (Sakhnini 1986, p. 120)
17 (Khalidi 1999, p. 91)
18 (see Elias Sanbar for the details of these plans)
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