Partition, the Nakba, and the First Arab-Israeli War (1947-1949)

The UN General Assembly approved Resolution 181 on November 29, 1947, proposing the partition of Palestine into a Jewish state, an Arab state, and a special international regime for Jerusalem and its surroundings. The Jewish-Zionist leadership formally accepted the plan despite reservations about the proposed territorial boundaries, while Palestinian Arab leaders and the neighboring Arab states rejected it as an unjust imposition on the existing Arab majority. Immediately after the resolution's approval, a civil war broke out between the Jewish and Arab communities of Palestine, with fighting, attacks, and reprisals occurring between militias in the months preceding the British withdrawal.