On November 29, 1947, the United Nations voted to fulfill part of the promise made by the League of Nations: to authorize the creation of a Jewish homeland in the ancestral home of the Jewish people.
As U.N. Resolution 181, the U.N. accepted the majority plan to partition the land. AS part of the Partition Plan, the U.N. also authorized an Arab state in Palestine, in addition to a Jewish state in Palestine, both states within the boundaries of the truncated territory, from the Mediterranean Sea to the Dead Sea. ( The territory now known as Jordan was severed off unilaterally by Britain from what was originally the entirety of Mandatory Palestine. No Jewish settlement was permitted in Jordan. But Jewish settlement anywhere within the truncated Palestine -- including the West Bank -- was authorized by the League of Nations.)
U.N. Resolution 181, which used the term "Jewish state" about 30 times in the text, was passed. The Jews accepted the Partition Plan. The Arabs rejected the Partition Plan and immediately set out to prevent the Jewish state from coming into existence. Had the Arabs of Palestine accepted the plan, or had accepted plans offered them since, there would already be a State of Palestine next to the State of Israel. Had the Arabs of Palestine accepted U.N. Resolution 181, there would have been either no Palestinian refugee problem or a far less severe refugee problem, for all concerned. But the Palestinian Arabs, because they were unable to accept anything less than total sovereignty over all of Mandatory Palestine, because they refused -- and still refuse -- to accept the reality of a Jewish state in Palestine, have perpetuated the suffering of their own people. // Mark Finkelstein jcrc@dmjfed.org
Here, now, is a brief video that provides insight into the U.N. vote on November 29, 1947... the vote that paved the way for the proclamation of Israel's independence on May 14, 1948.
Source: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QrIjzUK0FKg&feature=player_embedded#!
