Page 37 - Why Israel?
P. 37
WHY ISRAEL 31
state called Transjordan, and 23% for the Jewish people.10
However, the Arab riots of the 1920s and 1930s prompted Britain in 1937 to once again partition the land with 80% going to an Arab state and 20% to a Jewish state. Palestinian Arab leaders refused to accept this partition, and neither materialized.11
Weary of the problem posed by Arab rejectionism, and in the shadow of the horrors committed against the Jews during the Holocaust, Britain handed over responsibility for deter- mining what to do with Palestine to the newly-formed United Nations. On November 29, 1947, the United Nations voted in favor of Resolution 181 and adopted a partition plan for Palestine that divided the land west of the Jordan River into two states roughly equal in size but distinctly unequal in value.
The disjointed pieces of land reserved for the Jewish people consisted of mostly arid desert without defensible borders, and did not include Jerusalem, which was designated an interna- tional zone. Jewish leaders, desperate to build a national home
“British Palestine Mandate: History and Overview (1922-1948),” Jewish Virtual Library, https://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/the-peel-commission.
“British Palestine Mandate: The Peel Commission (July 1937),” Jewish Virtual Library, https://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/the-peel-commission.
1956 Map of UN Partition Plan for Palestine, adopted in 1947.
10 11
(Photo credit: Wikimedia Commons)
