UN Partition Plan

On November 29, 1947, the United Nations General Assembly adopted Resolution 181 by 33 votes to 13, with 10 abstentions, recommending the division of the British Mandate territory into separate Jewish and Arab states joined in an economic union, with Jerusalem and its surroundings placed under international administration. Jewish leadership accepted the plan, and crowds danced in the streets of Tel Aviv and Jerusalem, while Arab leaders and neighboring states rejected it. The vote was followed almost immediately by civil war between the Jewish and Arab communities of the land, setting the stage for the declaration of the State of Israel and the war that followed in 1948.