Palestine became an international issue towards the end of the First
World War with the disintegration of the Turkish Ottoman Empire.
Palestine was among the several former Ottoman Arab territories placed
under the administration of Great Britain under the Mandates System
adopted by the League of Nations.
All the Mandated States became independent except Palestine, which was
designated by Great Britain for "the establishment in Palestine of a
national home for the Jewish people".
From 1922 on, there was large scale Jewish immigration to Palestine
that steadily increased with Nazi persecution of Jews in Europe. This
was a major factor in the Palestinian rebellion in 1937. Armed
resistance, terrorism and violence continued from both sides through
and well after WWII.
Unable to solve the problem, 1in 1947 Great Britain turned Palestine
over to the United Nations which proposed to partition the area into
independent Palestinian Arab and Jewish states.
Jews then owned 1,491 square kilometers (exclusive of urban property)
out of a total of 26,323 square kilometers in Palestine (Appendix IV,
to the Report of Sub-Committee 2, UN Doc. A/AC 14/32, 11 November
1947, p. 270.). Thus, Jewish land ownership amounted to 5.6 percent
(often rounded to 6 percent) of the total area of the country. In
contrast, the Palestinians owned the rest of Palestine, including all
the areas that were categorised as public domain.
Israel proclaimed its independence in 1948 and in the ensuing war
expanded to occupy 77 per cent of the territory of Palestine. Israel
also occupied the larger part of Jerusalem. Over half the indigenous
Palestinian population fled or were expelled. Jordan and Egypt
occupied the other parts of the territory assigned by the partition
resolution to the Palestinian Arab State which did not come into
being.
In the 1967 war, Israel occupied the remaining territory of Palestine,
until then under Jordanian and Egyptian control (the West Bank and
Gaza Strip). This included the remaining part of Jerusalem, which was
subsequently annexed by Israel. The war brought about a second
exodus of Palestinians, estimated at half a million.
Additional documentation:
Arab rejection was...based on the fact that, while the population of
the Jewish state was to be [only half] Jewish with the Jews owning
less than 10% of the Jewish state land area,
Sami Hadawi, "Bitter Harvest."
http://www.cactus48.com/partition.html
Before the end of the mandate and, therefore before any possible
intervention by Arab states, the Jews, taking advantage of their
superior military preparation and organization, had occupied...most of
the Arab cities in Palestine before May 15, 1948. Tiberias was
occupied on April 19, 1948, Haifa on April 22, Jaffa on April 28, the
Arab quarters in the New City of Jerusalem on April 30, Beisan on May
8, Safad on May 10 and Acre on May 14, 1948...In contrast, the
Palestine Arabs did not seize any of the territories reserved for the
Jewish state under the partition resolution." British author, Henry
Cattan, "Palestine, The Arabs and Israel."
http://www.cactus48.com/partition.html
"In 1948, at the moment that Israel declared itself a state, it
legally owned a little more than 6 percent of the land of
Palestine...After 1940, when the mandatory authority restricted Jewish
land ownership to specific zones inside Palestine, there continued to
be illegal buying (and selling) within the 65 percent of the total
area restricted to Arabs.
Thus when the partition plan was announced in 1947 it included land
held illegally by Jews, which was incorporated as a fait accompli
inside the borders of the Jewish state. And after Israel announced its
statehood, an impressive series of laws legally assimilated huge
tracts of Arab land (whose proprietors had become refugees, and were
pronounced 'absentee landlords' in order to expropriate their lands
and prevent their return under any circumstances)." Edward Said, "The
Question of Palestine."
http://www.cactus48.com/mandate.html
"The Partition Plan granted 55 percent of Palestine to the Jews, who
at that time comprised only 30 percent of the population, and who
owned a mere 6 percent of the land. Within this Jewish state were to
have been 407,000 Palestinian Arabs. The Arab state was to comprise
only the remaining 34 percent of the land."
"In 1946, the total population of Palestine was 1,972,0000
inhabitants, comprising 1,247,000 Palestinians and 608,000 Jews, as
well as 16,000 others (see UN Doc. A/AC 14/32, 11 November 1947, p.
304)."
"With respect to land ownership, it appears from the government of
Palestine's Village Statistics that the Jews then owned 1,491 square
kilometers (exclusive of urban property) out of a total of 26,323
square kilometers in Palestine (Appendix IV, to the Report of
Sub-Committee 2, UN Doc. A/AC 14/32, 11 November 1947, p. 270.). Thus,
Jewish land ownership amounted to 5.6 percent of the total area of the
country. In contrast, the Palestinians owned the rest of Palestine,
including all the areas that were categorised as public domain."
http://www.iap.org/partition.htm
Map of UN parition plan
http://www.mideastweb.org/unpartition.htm
BBC site on history of Palestinian conflict
http://news.bbc.co.uk/hi/english/static/in_depth/world/2001/israel_and_palestinians/timeline/1947.stm
A detailed description of the geography of the partition
http://www.palestine-un.org/info/geo2.html
Links to other UN maps on Palestine/Israel
http://www.palestine-un.org/info/geo2.html
The text of the UN partition resolution
United Nations General Assembly Resolution 181
http://www.yale.edu/lawweb/avalon/un/res181.htm
Search strategy: UN partition Palestine
Nellie Bly
Google Answers Researcher |
Clarification of Answer by
nellie_bly-ga
on
04 Sep 2003 13:11 PDT
Jews owned 1,491 square kilometers (exclusive of urban property)
out of a total of 26,323 square kilometers in Palestine According to
Appendix IV,to the Report of Sub-Committee 2, UN Doc. A/AC 14/32, 11
November 1947, p. 270, at the time of partition, Jews owned 1,491
square kilometers (exclusive of urban property)out of a total of
26,323 square kilometers in Palestine or 5.6 percent of the total area
of the country.
The reference to "land illegally held by Jews" is not mine but part of
a larger quote from http://www.cactus48.com/mandate.html
which admittedly has a Palestinian slant but nonetheless cites
legitimate statistics.
The partition was a matter of sovereignty not land ownership per se.
In 1947 Britain declared its mandate unworkable and handed the
situation over to the United Nations.
"The UN recommendation was partition - the division of Palestine into
two independent States, one Palestinian Arab (43% of the territory)
and the other Jewish (56.5% of the territory), with Jerusalem
internationalised."
In 1948, British forces withdrew from Palestine and in May, the
independent state of Israel was declared.
"In the 1948 War which followed - the first Arab-Israel war, Israel
expanded to occupy 77 per cent of the territory of Palestine and the
larger part of Jerusalem. It is estimated that 780,00 Palestinians
became refugees and over half the indigenous Palestinian population
fled or were expelled from the country. Jordan and Egypt occupied the
other parts of the territory assigned by the partition resolution to
the Palestinian Arab State, which never came into being."
http://journalism.uts.edu.au/studentwork/middleast/History/timeline/#1930
"During the thirty years of British occupation and rule, the Zionists
were able to purchase only 3.5% of the land of Palestine, in spite of
the encouragement of the British Government. Much of this land was
transferred to Zionist bodies by the British Government directly, and
was not sold by Arab owners."
" In 1948, 13 towns, 419 villages, and 99 tribal lands were
depopulated in order to declare the State of Israel, occupying 78% of
Palestine."
http://www.aqsa.org.uk/factsonpalestine.html
By UN resolution Palestinians displaced during the 1948 war were
either to be permitted to "return" to their land or be compensated for
it. That plan has never been fully carried out and is still a matter
of negotiation.
While some Palestinians have been compensated, many have not been.
For a full discussion see the UN site
http://domino.un.org/UNISPAL.NSF/9a798adbf322aff38525617b006d88d7/3b58e8d0adf62b5f852561230077c62d!OpenDocument
From the Library of Congress
"Events immediately before and during the War of Independence and
during the first years of independence remain, so far as those events
involved the Arab residents of Palestine, matters of bitter and
emotional dispute. Palestinian Arab refugees insist that they were
driven out of their homeland by Jewish terrorists and regular Jewish
military forces; the government of Israel asserts that the invading
Arab forces urged the Palestinian Arabs to leave their houses
temporarily to avoid the perils of the war that would end the Jewish
intrusion into Arab lands. Forty years after the event, advocates of
Arabs or Jews continue to present and believe diametrically opposed
descriptions of those events."
"According to British Mandate Authority population figures in 1947,
there were about 1.3 million Arabs in all of Palestine. Between
700,000 and 900,000 of the Arabs lived in the region eventually
bounded by the 1949 Armistice line, the so-called Green Line. By the
time the fighting stopped, there were only about 170,000 Arabs left in
the new State of Israel."
See http://lcweb2.loc.gov/frd/cs/iltoc.html Country Studies sub-topic
"Israeli Arabs,Arab land, and Arab refugees"
Another compilation of land issues is available at
http://www.ap-agenda.org/nasser/nasser3.htm
While a pro-palestinian site the data in the section "Jewish Land
Ownership in Palestine" is based on legitimate research also cited by
the Library of Congress.
You might also be interested in "An Atlas of Palestine" at
http://www.arij.org/atlas/table.htm
So, the answer to your original question is that the UN partition
itself did not take land ownership away from anyone but did change the
sovereign state in which land was held.
In the years before partition and the years since, Israel has taken
over land once owned by Palestinians in a variety of ways. In some
cases, Palestinians were compensated for that land, in others they
were not.
Nellie Bly
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