Editing Israeli–Palestinian conflict (section)

=== 1947 United Nations partition plan ===
{{Main|United Nations Partition Plan for Palestine}}
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On 29 November 1947, the [[General Assembly of the United Nations]] adopted [[United Nations Partition Plan for Palestine|Resolution 181(II)]]<ref>{{cite web |title=A/RES/181(II) of 29 November 1947 |publisher=United Nations |url=http://domino.un.org/unispal.nsf/0/7f0af2bd897689b785256c330061d253 |access-date=28 May 2013 |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20120524094913/http://domino.un.org/unispal.nsf/0/7f0af2bd897689b785256c330061d253 |archive-date=24 May 2012}}</ref> recommending the adoption and implementation of a plan to partition Palestine into an Arab state, a Jewish state and the City of Jerusalem.<ref name="Baum">Baum, Noa. [http://www.umass.edu/jewish/programs/land_05/timeline/ "Historical Time Line for Israel/Palestine."] {{webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20131219033249/http://www.umass.edu/jewish/programs/land_05/timeline/ |date=19 December 2013 }} UMass Amherst. 5 April 2005. 14 March 2013.</ref> Palestinian Arabs were opposed to the partition.<ref>
{{harvnb|Morris|2008|pp=63–64|ps=, "The Zionists and their supporters rejoiced; the Arab delegations walked out of the plenum after declaring the resolution invalid. The Arabs failed to understand why the international community was awarding the Jews any part of Palestine. Further, as one Palestinian historian later put it, they could not fathom why 37 percent of the population had been given 55 percent of the land (of which they owned only 7 percent). Moreover, the Jews had been given the best agricultural lands (the Coastal Plain and Jezreel and Jordan Valleys) while the Arabs had received the 'bare and hilly' parts, as one Palestinian politician, 'Awni 'Abd al-Hadi, told a Zionist agent. 162 More generally, 'the Palestinians failed to see why they should be made to pay for the Holocaust. ... [And] they failed to see why it was ''not'' fair for the Jews to be a minority in a unitary Palestinian state, while it ''was'' fair for almost half of the Palestinian population—the indigenous majority on its own ancestral soil—to be converted overnight into a minority under alien rule.'"}}</ref> Zionists accepted the partition but planned to expand Israel's borders beyond what was allocated to it by the UN.<ref>
{{harvnb|Morris|2008|p=101|ps=, "... mainstream Zionist leaders, from the first, began to think of expanding the Jewish state beyond the 29 November partition resolution borders."}}</ref> On the next day, [[1947–1948 civil war in Mandatory Palestine|Palestine was swept by violence]], igniting the first phase of the [[1948 Palestine war|Palestine War]]. For four months, under continuous Arab provocation and attack, the Yishuv was usually on the defensive while occasionally retaliating.<ref>{{harvnb|Morris|2008|p=79}}</ref> The [[Arab League]] supported the Arab struggle by forming the volunteer-based [[Arab Liberation Army]], supporting the Palestinian Arab [[Army of the Holy War]], under the leadership of [[Abd al-Qadir al-Husayni]] and [[Hasan Salama]]. On the Jewish side, the civil war was managed by the major underground militias – the [[Haganah]], [[Irgun]] and [[Lehi (group)|Lehi]] – strengthened by numerous Jewish veterans of World War II and foreign volunteers. By spring 1948, it was already clear that the Arab forces were nearing a total collapse, while Yishuv forces gained more and more territory, creating a large scale [[1948 Palestinian exodus|refugee problem]] of Palestinian Arabs.<ref name="SelaConflict" />