This Saturday, November 29, 2025, marks the 78th anniversary of United Nations General Assembly Resolution 181(II), embodying the original international two-state solution for Palestine. The anniversary commemorates one of the most important events in Israel's history.

Following World War I, the League of Nations appointed Great Britain to occupy and administer Palestine pursuant to a formal Mandate. The Preamble to the Mandate recognized the historical connection between the Jewish people and Palestine, and required Britain to facilitate Jewish immigration and land acquisition, leading to the establishment of a National Home for the Jewish people in Palestine. Britain, however, breached these obligations when it issued the May 17, 1939 White Paper, largely ending Jewish immigration and land acquisition and abandoning millions of European Jews to the Holocaust.

Following World War II, an exhausted and severely depleted Britain had run out of options in Palestine. After one last, failed attempt at negotiations with the Jews and Arabs, Britain decided to turn the Palestine file over to the newly-created United Nations. The UN moved quickly to fill the vacuum, appointing the Special Committee on Palestine (UNSCOP), chaired by a Swedish Judge, Emil Sandstrom, to investigate and report back to the General Assembly.

UNSCOP heard extensive testimony from a broad range of witnesses in Jerusalem and Beirut, except the Palestinian Arabs, who boycotted the proceedings. Following several weeks of hearings, the UNSCOP members traveled to Geneva to deliberate their verdict. Unanimity proved impossible given the diverse composition of the Special Committee, but the majority favored partitioning Palestine into separate Jewish and Arab states.

 The Secretary General responded to the UNSCOP recommendation in favor of the two-state solution by appointing an Ad Hoc Committee, chaired by the Australian diplomat and former High Court Judge Herbert Evatt, to conduct further hearings regarding the details of the partition proposal.

The Ad Hoc Committee eventually split into three subcommittees, one focused on partition, the second focused on conciliation, and the third focused on an Arab counterproposal that would have allocated the entirety of Palestine for Arab rule. Ultimately the Ad Hoc Committee reiterated support for the two-state solution and rejected the Arab counterproposal, paving the way for the full General Assembly to consider whether to offer the two-state solution to the Arabs and Jews on behalf of the international community.

The UNSCOP and Ad Hoc Committee’s recommendation to adopt the two-state solution for Palestine were presented to the United Nations General Assembly in the form of Resolution 181(II) as the “Plan of Partition with Economic Union” for the proposed Palestinian Jewish and Palestinian Arab States. The following map shows the proposed borders of the two states, with the green area allocated for the Jewish State, the Orange Area allocated for the Arab State, and the area around Jerusalem in white designated as a corpus separatum remaining under international control:

Following a lengthy and extraordinarily tense debate, the General Assembly on 29 November 1947 approved, by the required two-thirds majority, the two-state solution for Palestine embodied in General Assembly Resolution 181(II).

Thirty-three nations (including both the United States and the Soviet Union) voted in favor, thirteen voted against, and eleven (including Great Britain) abstained.

The New York Times front page carried the story the next day, November 30, 1947:

The Palestinian Arabs and their supporters renounced the General Assembly vote as illegal and unjust. The Mufti (and British-designated war criminal) Haj Amin al-Husseini directed his followers to launch a civil war in Palestine. Bloody fighting raged in Palestine throughout the early months of 1948.

On May 14, 1948, hours prior to Britain’s departure from Palestine, Jewish leaders declared the establishment of the State of Israel. The surrounding Arab States reacted by launching war against the fledgling Jewish state.

Meanwhile, the Palestinian Arabs had taken no steps of their own to create a state in the portion of Palestine the United Nations had allocated to them. The Mufti formed an “All-Palestine Government” in October 1948, based in Gaza. The Mufti’s “government” existed on paper only, and vanished soon afterward.

In December 1948 a large gathering of Palestinians in Jericho passed a series of resolutions asking King Abdullah of Jordan to annex the West Bank and East Jerusalem. As of that time Egypt had occupied the Gaza Strip. The Jordanian and Egyptian occupations continued until the June 1967 Six-Day War.

Resolution 181(II) should be viewed as the founding document of the State of Israel. Its historical importance cannot be overstated. It could also been the founding document of the adjacent State of Palestine, but events took a different turn. Today, 78 years later, the two-state solution that the Jews accepted and the Arabs rejected in November 1947 remains as elusive as ever.

–Article by Professor Steven E. Zipperstein, UCLA Y&S Nazarian Center Director

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Suggested Further Readings:

Ben-Dror, E. (2007). "The Arab Struggle Against Partition: The International Arena of Summer 1947." Middle Eastern Studies 43:2, 259-93.

Ben-Dror, E. (2014). "The Success of the Zionist Strategy vis-a-vis UNSCOP." Israel Affairs 20:1, 19-39.

Granados, J.G. (1948). The Birth of Israel: The Drama as I Saw It. New York: Alfred A. Knopf.

Horowitz, D. (1953). State in the Making. New York: Alfred A. Knopf.

Mandel, D. (2004). H.G. Evatt and the Establishment of Israel: The Undercover Zionist. London: Frank Cass.

Pearl, J. (2009). "The Miracles of November," Jewish Journal of Los Angeles,

 https://jewishjournal.com/commentary/opinion/judea_pearl/74489/the-miracles-of-november/