Why is the former British Mandate of Palestine divided between a Jewish State and an Arab State?

Answer 1

By international law, the Ottoman Empire took the territory from the Seljuks and Abbassids by internationally recognized conquest. The territory was ceded to the British as a Mandate by the Ottomans as a term of surrender in World War I. (Even though the British had promised the territory to both the Arabs and Jews during the War, neither promise is legally binding.) According to the terms of the Mandate, even though the British were in control, the League of Nations had official jurisdiction. In the League of Nations Mandate, specifically in Article 6, the British Mandate for Palestine spoke clearly in saying that Palestine should be a "Jewish National Homeland".

In keeping with this requirement, the British allowed for increased Jewish migration to Palestine. As a result, the Jewish Settlers or Zionists or Halutzim began to create settlements called the Yishuv and mixed with the indigenous Palestinian Jews to form a singular Jewish community. The Halutzim began build an economy in what had previously been an Ottoman backwater. The Zionists consistently reached out to Arabs during the Mandatory Period to create collective society. The Bedouins responded well, especially in the Galilee, as did the Druze. The Settled Arabs or Fellahin (who would become the Palestinians) did not wish to mix with the Zionists.

The Fellahin were quite adamant about not giving the Yishuv any land or space as soon as it became clear in the late 1920s that the Jews intended and would soon realize their own state apparatus. They attacked the Yishuv in Hebron in 1929, scalping and beating many Jewish inhabitants. The Yishuv retaliated and the fights between the Fellahin and the Yishuv continued throughout the 1930s and 1940s relatively sporadically. The Fellahin organized militias to attack other Jewish settlements, they petitioned the British government to prevent Jewish Immigration (resulting in the White Papers of 1939 which banned Jewish immigration during the entire Holocaust when a place of refuge was most necessary), and consistently fought against Jewish Militias who were targeting the British colonizers instead of uniting to overthrow the British before trying to decide a resolution.

As a result of being unable to impose authority and power on the fighting Yishuv and Fellahin, in 1947, the British gave direct authority to the League of Nations' successor, the United Nations, in accordance with the terms of their Mandate, to determine a resolution. The UN passed the 1947 Partition Plan (UNGA Resolution 181 (II)) that gave both a Jewish State and an Arab State the Right to Declare Statehood. The fact that the Arabs decided not to immediately declare such a state does not make the Israeli declaration any less valid. (It is important to note that Palestine did declare statehood on these grounds in 1988, which further cements the legality of this view.)

While the USA and USSR did push for many countries to support the Partition Plan in 1947, the Arabs "helped" by being completely intransigent to any Jewish rights to self-rule or even autonomy. As a result, the UN Special Committee on Palestine, the UN commission sent to evaluate the Palestinian Mandate Controversy, left the Mandate of Palestine voting 9 to 3 in favor of a partition (which is why UNGA Resolution 181 (II) was proposed in the first place).

ABBA Eban, one of the leading Zionist envoys and future Israeli Representative to the United Nations, noted in his biography that Arab intransigence helped to make the Zionist case to the United Nations in three critical ways.

(1) They showed that it would be impossible to negotiate with the Arabs. If the Arabs were not willing to reach a moderated solution on this issue, then it was not likely that they would be willing to negotiate with the Yishuv in a singular state. This would eventually lead to the Yishuv being discriminated against more openly by a dominant Arab State. The Israelis pointed this out to show a need for a Jewish State. Many UN States agreed with this analysis.

(2) It made the Zionists look better because they were willing to compromise, whereas the Arabs were not.

(3) The Arabs rejected any possibility of a divided Palestine and therefore did not send representatives to UN meetings on Partition and even the international group set to go to Mandatory Palestine to determine conditions on the ground. This allowed Eban, the Zionist representative, to show the representatives what he wanted to show them and help color their opinions.