Drafted by the U.N. Special Committee on Palestine (UNSCOP) on 3 September 1947, the Plan was adopted by the UN General Assembly on 29 November 1947 as Resolution 181 (II).

[1][2] The resolution recommended the creation of independent but economically linked Arab and Jewish States and an extraterritorial "Special International Regime" for the city of Jerusalem and its surroundings.

[10][15] Zionist leaders, in particular David Ben-Gurion, viewed the acceptance of the plan as a tactical step and a steppingstone to future territorial expansion.

[20][21] They also indicated an unwillingness to accept any form of territorial division,[22] arguing that it violated the principles of national self-determination in the UN Charter that granted people the right to decide their own destiny.

[30] The British administration was formalized by the League of Nations under the Palestine Mandate in 1923, as part of the Partitioning of the Ottoman Empire following World War I.

The Mandate reaffirmed the 1917 British commitment to the Balfour Declaration, for the establishment in Palestine of a "National Home" for the Jewish people, with the prerogative to carry it out.

[31] In 1937, following a six-month-long Arab General Strike and armed insurrection which aimed to pursue national independence and secure the country from foreign control, the British established the Peel Commission.

[34][35][37] The Palestinian Arab leadership rejected partition as unacceptable, given the inequality in the proposed population exchange and the transfer of one-third of Palestine, including most of its best agricultural land, to recent immigrants.

[36] The Jewish leaders, Chaim Weizmann and David Ben-Gurion, persuaded the Zionist Congress to lend provisional approval to the Peel recommendations as a basis for further negotiations.

[42][43][44] The same sentiment, that acceptance of partition was a temporary measure beyond which the Palestine would be "redeemed ... in its entirety,"[45] was recorded by Ben-Gurion on other occasions, such as at a meeting of the Jewish Agency executive in June 1938,[46] as well as by Chaim Weizmann.

In 1938, the British government issued a policy statement declaring that "the political, administrative and financial difficulties involved in the proposal to create independent Arab and Jewish States inside Palestine are so great that this solution of the problem is impracticable".

After World War II, in August 1945 President Truman asked for the admission of 100,000 Holocaust survivors into Palestine[52] but the British maintained limits on Jewish immigration in line with the 1939 White Paper.

The U.S. endorsed the Commission's findings concerning Jewish immigration and land purchase restrictions,[53] while the British made their agreement to implementation conditional on U.S. assistance in case of another Arab revolt.

By the end of World War II, this occurred with all such mandates except Palestine; however, the League of Nations itself lapsed in 1946, leading to a legal quandary.

[60][61] According to William Roger Louis, British Foreign Secretary Ernest Bevin's policy was premised on the idea that an Arab majority would carry the day, which met difficulties with Harry S. Truman who, sensitive to Zionist electoral pressures in the United States, pressed for a British-Zionist compromise.

During their visit, UNSCOP members were shocked by the extent of Lehi and Irgun violence, then at its apogee, and by the elaborate military presence attested by endemic barb-wire, searchlights, and armoured-car patrols.

CHAPTER VI: PROPOSED RECOMMENDATIONS (II) contained a Plan of Partition with Economic Union to which seven members of the Committee (Canada, Czechoslovakia, Guatemala, the Netherlands, Peru, Sweden and Uruguay), expressed themselves in favour.

CHAPTER VII RECOMMENDATIONS (III) contained a comprehensive proposal that was voted upon and supported by three members (India, Iran, and Yugoslavia) for a Federal State of Palestine.

The proposed Arab State would include the central and part of western Galilee, with the town of Acre, the hill country of Samaria and Judea, an enclave at Jaffa, and the southern coast stretching from north of Isdud (now Ashdod) and encompassing what is now the Gaza Strip, with a section of desert along the Egyptian border.

[71] The land allocated to the Arab State in the final plan included about 43% of Mandatory Palestine[72][73][74] and consisted of all of the highlands, except for Jerusalem, plus one-third of the coastline.

The British report, dated 1 November 1947, used the results of a new census in Beersheba in 1946 with additional use of aerial photographs, and an estimate of the population in other districts.

[94] When the UNSCOP plan failed to achieve the necessary majority on 25 November, the lobby 'moved into high gear' and induced the President to overrule the State Department, and let wavering governments know that the U.S. strongly desired partition.

[107] According to Benny Morris, Wasif Kamal, an Arab Higher Committee official, tried to bribe a delegate to the United Nations, perhaps a Russian.

[118] The Irgun Tsvai Leumi, led by Menachem Begin, and the Lehi (also known as the Stern Group or Gang), the two Revisionist-affiliated underground organisations which had been fighting against both the British and Arabs, stated their opposition.

"[121] Some Post-Zionist scholars endorse Simha Flapan's view that it is a myth that Zionists accepted the partition as a compromise by which the Jewish community abandoned ambitions for the whole of Palestine and recognized the rights of the Arab Palestinians to their own state.

[17][122][123][124][125] Baruch Kimmerling has said that Zionists "officially accepted the partition plan, but invested all their efforts towards improving its terms and maximally expanding their boundaries while reducing the number of Arabs in them.

[140] Haj Amin al-Husseini said in March 1948 to an interviewer from the Jaffa daily Al Sarih that the Arabs did not intend merely to prevent partition but "would continue fighting until the Zionists were annihilated.

In a British cabinet meeting at 4 December 1947, it was decided that the Mandate would end at midnight 14 May 1948, the complete withdrawal by 1 August 1948, and Britain would not enforce the UN partition plan.

"[173] In response, Prof. Paul De Waart said that the Court put the legality of the 1922 League of Nations Palestine Mandate and the 1947 UN Plan of Partition beyond doubt once and for all.

On 29 November 2022, a monument designed and executed by sculptor Sam Philipe was unveiled on a hilltop in Netanya to mark the 75th anniversary of the UN Partition Plan for Palestine.