The document summarizes the UN's responses to several events in the Middle East from 1947-1987: 1) In 1947, the UN voted to partition Palestine into Jewish and Arab states, which the Jews accepted but Palestinians rejected, feeling their homeland was being divided. 2) After the 1948 war that followed partition, the UN aided Palestinian refugees but Arab states refused to settle them. 3) In the 1956 Suez Crisis, the UN condemned an invasion by Britain, France and Israel and forced their withdrawal with peacekeepers. 4) After the 1967 war, the UN called for Israeli withdrawal and a refugee solution but did not enforce these. 5) The UN considered the 1987 Palestinian uprising an

1. U.N. Responses to Events in
the Middle East
Events A-F

2. Event A: The U.N.’s Plan for Palestine
• The U.N Chose option C.
• On Nov. 29, 1947, the U.N. General
Assembly voted 33-10 to approve the
partition of Palestine into three
separate pieces. In the Jewish state,
Jews were only a 6-5 majority, and a
much smaller Jewish minority had
settled in the proposed Arab state.
• The plan made Jerusalem an
international zone administered by the
U.N. Both Jews and Arabs disagreed
with the Jerusalem Plan. Most Jews
agreed with the overall partition plan,
while the vast majority of Palestinian
groups disagreed. They felt that the
U.N. had no right to divide their
ancestral homeland.

3. Event B: The 1948 War
• The U.N. chose option C
• The U.N. did not officially respond to the outcome of the 1948 War, but the General Assembly was
concerned about the plight of the over 700,000 Palestinian refugees created by the war. 500,000
refugees in Transjordan were offered citizenship and accepted it. Other Arab states refused to
allow refugees to settle in their countries. Many Palestinians remained in refugee camps waiting to
return home. In 1950, the U.N. created the United Nations Relief and Works Agency, which
provided refugees with a minimum level of services.

4. Event C: The Suez Canal Crisis
• The United Nations chose
option A
• The General Assembly voted
overwhelmingly to censure the
British, French, and Israeli
invasion. U.N. pressure forced
the British and the French to
remove their forces by late
December. Israel withdrew its
forces only when the U.N.
agreed to monitor Egyptian
activity in the southern Sinai. A
U.N. Emergency Force
ensured that the Straits of
Tiran remained open.

5. Event D: The 1967 War
• The U.N. chose option B
• On November 22, 1967 the
U.N. General Assembly passed
Resolution 242 which
condemned the Israeli invasion
and occupation, and refused to
acknowledge Jerusalem as the
Israeli capital.. It also called for
the Israeli withdrawal from
territories occupied in the war
and for a “just settlement of the
refugee problem”.

6. Event E: The Intifada
• The U.N. chose option C
• They took no official steps to end the Intifada. Because the uprising did not involve a
conflict between sovereign states-Palestinians did not have a recognized state of
their own- the United Nations considered the Intifada to be an important but internal
Israeli affair.

7. Event E: The Intifada
• The U.N. chose option C
• They took no official steps to end the Intifada. Because the uprising did not involve a
conflict between sovereign states-Palestinians did not have a recognized state of
their own- the United Nations considered the Intifada to be an important but internal
Israeli affair.