WI: United Nations Partition of Israel Adapted

Palestinians demand that the rest of Israel is surrendered to them. I'm using modern day as proof. The Palestinians have rejected the two state solution repeatedly, and stated that their goal is to push Israel into the Sea. This just gives Palestine a head start.
 
He means the partition of Israel/Palestine where both factions had roughly half the region, though Israel enjoyed all their territory being interconnected.

Palestine balked at the resolution, demanding everything so the UN just gave Israel everything since they were playing ball.
 
What's mine is mine, what's yours is mine

The partition did give the basis for a two-state solution. However - Egypt grabbed Gaza and kept it - Jordan grabbed the West bank and annexed it. Israel captured the rest during the war and held it. It was a mess then and it's a mess now.
 

MacCaulay

Banned
Okay...let's see a map, then:



There's the Partition, according to Wiki. The sources cited in the article make me willing to trust it. As we can see: Yes, the Palestinian sections were divided, but they were divided by less than a mile and free passage was written into the plan and guaranteed by the UN.

The Irgun, run by Menachim Begin, and the Lehi (also known as the Stern Gang to those of us who may think of them that way) were against it, as were a fair amount of the Palestinians.
 
What if, in 1948, the Untied Nations Partition Plan is adapted. Now, we have a Palestinian State and a Jewish State. Now what?


Yeah...as said, this was officially adopted. There were two states occupying these borders for, oh, about an hour.

Then, the Arab nations invaded (and when I say Arab nations, I mean damned near all of them, even the far away-ish ones), and everything went to hell. Almost all of the Palestinian Arabs were dislocated (by both sides, as it happens), Israel seized some territory, and Egypt and Jordan annexed the rest. Egypt kept a puppet Palestinian government ruling Gaza until the UAR, when they annexed it. Jordan didn't bother with that fiction.
 

MacCaulay

Banned
Yeah...as said, this was officially adopted. There were two states occupying these borders for, oh, about an hour.

Then, the Arab nations invaded (and when I say Arab nations, I mean damned near all of them, even the far away-ish ones), and everything went to hell. Almost all of the Palestinian Arabs were dislocated (by both sides, as it happens), Israel seized some territory, and Egypt and Jordan annexed the rest. Egypt kept a puppet Palestinian government ruling Gaza until the UAR, when they annexed it. Jordan didn't bother with that fiction.

I think we're making the assumption that somehow that was avoided. Me personally, I believe that if some forward thinking individual such as Les Pearson was in a position to whisper in the right ear, you could see the idea of peacekeeping basically sped up by 8 years.
Remember that Peacekeeping as we know it today was more or less spearheaded in the 1956 after that Arab-Israeli conflict to put a UN force in the Suez.
It could easily have come across someone's mind to mobilize troops in this situation. The British probably wouldn't have wanted to, since they were already busy getting shot at by the Irgun and the Palestinians, but the French, Yugoslavs, Poles, and Canadians all presented logical options.

That, actually, would be a good mix. The French and the Canadians from the Western camp, the Poles and the Yugoslavs (nominally) from the East Bloc. The Soviets and Americans both voted for the Partition.

The forces could've been on a stand-by, then during the lull in the fighting and "truce" that lasted for a few weeks in the early part of '49, the forces would've basically invaded the area with a view to demilitarizing it and getting the two groups back to their borders.
 
I've always maintained that the fact that a Palestinian state didn't come about in 1948 means that all non Palestinian Arabs have no legitimate beef now, when demanding an independant Palestine. Lets face it, there was nothing, absolutely nothing, that the Israelis could have done to prevent this from happening in the territory that they didn't control. I don't know if BG's government would have even objected to it happening, never mind Irgun and Lehi hating the thought. And this state of affairs lasted for 19 whole years! So the fault lies squarely with the Jordanians and the Egyptians, and possibly other Arabs [the Saudis?] who did not put their money where their mouths were, and support an independant state for their 'beloved Arab brothers'. Now, the world in general has a serious case of amnesia; thinking that history began on June 5, 1967, at 8:15 am, and blames the whole mess on Israel.
If truth be told, I think that many power brokers in the Arab world don't wnant to see a Palestinian state even now, but good luck getting any to admit it. I wonder what nightmares plague the sleep of Jordan's King Abdullah?
 

MacCaulay

Banned

Okay. Then this PoD makes '67 a moot point.


A Yugoslavian/Polish/French/Canadian peacekeeping force in the Partition area would be able to project enough power. Yes, the argument can be made the British were already there and the Jews and Palestinians were fighting them, but by moving a force in when the initial spasm of violence results in the initial truce in '49, then the two forces are already at a certain lowpoint.

The introduction of C-47s carrying troops from the world's two main powerblocks deploying through the country might make the necessary point.
 
Adapted how?

Codae,

Yes, the OP used the wrong word but it's obvious from the rest of his post just what word he actually meant to use.

So, he isn't asking about how the UN partition plan could have been adapted as in changed. He's asking what would have happened if the partition plan was adopted as in accepted without change.


Bill
 
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