On November 29, 1947, the General Assembly of the United Nations voted with a 2/3 majority to partition western Palestine into a Jewish and an Arab state.(1) The Jews were to be granted what appears on the map in blue. Over 75% of the land allocated to the Jews was desert. Desperate to find a haven for the remnants of European Jewry after the Holocaust, the Jewish population accepted the plan which accorded them a diminished state. The Arabs, intent on preventing any Jewish entity in Palestine, rejected it.(2)

1. For the full text of the UN Partition resolution, see Walter Laqueur (ed.), The Arab-Israeli Reader; A Documentary History of the Middle east Conflict (New York: Bantam Books, 1969), pp.113-122

2. While the Jewish leadership and population in Palestine accepted partition, all of the Arab members states of the UN - Egypt, Iraq, Lebanon, Saudi Arabia, Syria, and Yemen- voted against it. Upon the resolution's adoption, the Arab delegates declared partition invalid: The New York Times, Nov. 30, 1947. Within two days, the Arab governments declared their opposition to partition: The New York Times, Dec. 1, 2, 1947.