on the future status of the country.32 The majority opinion supported the partition of Palestine into two states, one Arab and the other Jewish. The minority proposal called for one federal state for Arabs and Jews. Committee members of the minority were clear in their warnings of the consequences of partition: Future peace and order in Palestine and the Near East generally will be vitally affected by the nature of the solution decided upon for the Palestine question. In this regard, it is important to avoid an acceleration of the separatism which now characterizes the relations of Arabs and Jews in the Near East, and to avoid laying the foundations of a dangerous irredentism there, which would be the inevitable consequences of partition in whatever form. […] Partition both in principle and in substance can only be regarded as an antiArab solution. The Federal State, however, cannot be described as an anti-Jewish solution. To the contrary, it will best serve the interests of both Arabs and Jews.33 Despite the warnings, on 29 November 1947, the UN General Assembly passed Resolution 181(II) recommending the partition of Palestine.34 This Resolution proposed two states, one Arab and one Jewish, in which all persons were to be guaranteed equal rights.35 The proposed Jewish state was allotted 56 percent of the land, even though the Jewish community comprised less than one-third of the population of Palestine at the time and owned no more than 7 percent of the land, including 714 km2 acquired by Zionist colonization associations mostly from large landowners who did not live in Palestine.36 The dispersal of the Arab and Jewish populations in the country also meant that nearly half the population of the proposed Jewish state consisted of Palestinian Arabs, who owned nearly 90 percent of the land.37 32 Report of the UN Special Committee on Palestine, The Question of Palestine. UN Doc. A/364, 3 September, 1947. Committee members unanimously approved 11 general recommendations, including a UN-supervised transition period, protection of religious and minority rights, and citizenship and property rights. 33 Ibid., Chapter VII Recommendations (III), paragraphs 10 and 11. Incidentally, the United States State Department, the Department of Defense, the Joint Chiefs of Staff, staff of the National Security Council and the newly established Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) were united in warning of the dangers partition might inflict to strategic US interests. In public and private statements they also explained that the UN partition proposals were not workable and in contravention to international law and the UN Charter: in Loy Henderson, State Department Office of Near Eastern and African Affairs, 22 September, 1947, quoted by Donald Neff, “Truman Overrode Strong State Department Warning Against Partitioning of Palestine in 1947” Washington Report, Sept./Oct. 1994. 34 GA Resolution 181(II), 11 November 1947, UN GAOR, 1st Sess., UN Doc. A/64 (1947). 35 Ibid., para. 10(d). 36 McCarthy, Justin, The Population of Palestine: Population Statistics of the Late Ottoman Period, New York: Columbia University Press, 1990, p. 37. For Jewish landownership, see Lehn, Walter, The Jewish National Fund, London: Kegan Paul International, 1988, p. 74. 37 Report of the UN Special Committee on Palestine, The Question of Palestine. UN Doc. A/364, 31 August, 1947. State land comprised less than 3% of the proposed Jewish state. 17