Oudeh Basharat in Haaretz writes with reference to the U.N. proposal to partition Palestine into two states, one Jewish and one Arab:
In 1948 the United Nations decided to establish two states. The decision was based on the right to self-determination of both peoples…
Both statements are false.
The U.N. did not decide to establish two states in 1948. It’s true that in 1947, the U.N. General Assembly passed a resolution (181) proposing to partition Palestine, but that plan was never implemented because the U.N. had no authority to implement it.
Nor was the partition resolution based on the right to self-determination of both Arabs and Jews. On the contrary, the proposal to take away land from the majority Arabs who owned most of it and give it to the minority Jews who owned only about 6%, such that the Arab state would be made up of 45% of the territory of Palestine and the Jewish state 55%, was founded on the explicit rejection of the right of the Arab Palestinians to self-determination.
See my paper, “The Myth of the U.N. Creation of Israel” for more. Also pick up a copy of the August issue of The Washington Report on Middle East Affairs for my related article, “The Role of the U.N. in Creating the Israeli-Palestinian Conflict“
