On November 29, 1947, the UN General Assembly passed a resolution stipulating that Palestine should be divided between Jewish and Arab Palestinian inhabitants. This resolution was ratified by a majority of 33 members, while 13 members objected and 10 abstained. It stated that Palestine should be divided into two states (Arab and Jewish), provided that they form some kind of economic federation. Moreover, the resolution stated that the Jerusalem district should be internationally administered. The Jewish state was to cover 56 percent of the area of Mandate Palestine, with 498,000 Jewish and approximately 494,000 Arab Palestinians residents (51 percent Jews and 49 percent Arab Palestinians). At that time, Jews owned just 10 percent of the land of the proposed Jewish state. The proposed Arab state was to occupy 43 percent of mandate Palestine with a population of 725,000 Arab Palestinians and around 11,000 Jews. Jews constituted no more than one and a half percent of the population, and owned no more than 100 km2, a tiny fraction of the whole area. The population of the Jerusalem district consisted of 105,000 Arab Palestinians and around 100,000 Jews.
The Arab Palestinians rejected the project, while it was adopted by the majority of Jewish organizations and movements inside and outside Palestine. The more significant fact, however, is that Britain, as the mandate power and supposedly the country most concerned with the situation, abstained from voting on the proposal. The Arab and Islamic states, including Turkey (which later established diplomatic and economic relations with Israel) opposed the proposal. The US, most European countries and the USSR adopted it. US support was conspicuous in terms of its absolute backing of the proposal, using effective pressure on Haiti, Liberia and the Philippines to change their opposition and ensure ratification of the proposal.
