The Road to Partition:
UNSCOP’s report included a partition plan which divided Palestine into two independent states: a Jewish one to include Eastern Galilee, the coastal strip along the Mediterranean (excluding Jaffa and the coastal strip down to Gaza) and the Negev. The Palestinian State included Upper and Western Galilee, the West Bank and the Gaza Strip. The City of Jerusalem and its environs was to be an international enclave with autonomous rights for both communities.
The Palestinians were allocated 38% of Mandatory Palestine when they made up 63% of the total population. The Jewish state was to include 498,000 Jews and 407,000 Palestinians. This demographic imbalance was to be solved by settling the displaced Jews from Europe in the Jewish part of partitioned Palestine.
The two states were required to eventually conclude a 10-year treaty of economic union as a condition for their promised independence.
Whilst the Jewish Agency decided to exert all its diplomatic energy to assure the acceptance of the partition of Palestine, the Arabs expressed a total rejection. For Britain, a neutral position was the only choice left.