Actual Outcomes

Actual Decision: Option 3 - Divide Palestine into two states, an Arab state and a Jewish state.

On November 29, 1947, after a flurry of intense diplomatic activity, the General Assembly voted 33 to 13. with 10 abstentions, to approve partition of Palestine into three separate pieces, forming an awkward puzzle. In the “Jewish state, Jews were only a 6-to-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 United Nations. Both Jews and Arabs disagreed with the Jerusalem plan because both claimed it as their capital. Jews accepted the partition plan, though some Zionists felt it did not give enough to the Jewish state. With the exception of a small minority, Palestinian groups rejected the plan on the grounds that the United Nations had no right to divide their ancestral homeland.

Actual Decision: Option 3 - Set up a fund to support Palestinian refugees with food and shelter.

The United Nations 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 wan The 500,000 refugees in Trans-jordan were offered citizenship, which many accepted, resulting in the renaming of the state as Jordan. Other Arab states, however, refused to allow refugees to settle in their countries. Many Palestinians remained in refugee camps in hopes that they would be allowed to return to their land. Refugees in Gaza Strip, West Bank, Egypt, Syria, and Lebanon became people without countries, and people without health care, employment, housing, or education. In 1950. the United Nations created the United Nations Relief and Works Agency, which provided refugees with a minimum level of services.

Actual Decision: Option 1 - Condemn the attack, and demand that British, French, and Israeli forces withdraw from the Sinai, returning control of the Suez Canal to Egypt.

The United Nations General Assembly voted overwhelmingly to censure the British, French, and Israeli invasion. United Nations pressure forced the British and French to remove their forces by late December. Israel withdrew its forces only after the United Nations agreed to monitor Egyptian activity in the southern Sinai. From the port of Sharm al-Shaykh, Nasser had periodically closed the strategic Straits of Tiran, which cut off the Israeli port of Eilat from the Red Sea. As part of the cease-fire agreement, a United Nations Emergency Force occupied Sharm al-Shaykh to ensure that the Straits of Tiran remained open.

Actual Decision: Option 2 - Pass a resolution condemning the acquisition of land through military conquest, refuse to acknowledge Jerusalem as the capital of Israel, and demand the return of the Occupied Territories.

On November 22, 1967, the General Assembly passed Resolution 242 which condemned the Israeli invasion and occupation and refused to acknowledge Jerusalem as the Israeli capital. Resolution 242 stressed the “inadmissibility of the acquisition of territory by war and the need to work for a just and lasting peace in which every state in the area can live in security.” It also called for the Israeli withdrawal from territories occupied in the war and for a “just settlement of the refugee problem." Syria and the Palestinians denounced Resolution 242 because it made no mention of a Palestinian state. Israel accepted Resolution 242 but interpreted the open-ended language to mean they could retain nearly all the Occupied Territories as essential to maintaining secure borders.

Actual Decision: Option 3 - Encourage Israeli and Palestinian leaders to meet and attempt to negotiate a diplomatic end to the Intifada.

The United Nations 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.

In 1991. the United States brought Israel and Arab states—but not the Palestinian leadership, who were almost powerless in their official role as part of the Jordanian delegation—into negotiations for peace. Because of this framework, negotiations between Israel and the Palestinians remained stalled for over a year. New Israeli leadership elected in 1992 more seriously pursued negotiations with the Palestinians in secret meetings in Norway. In 1993, these negotiations resulted in an agreement, known as the Declaration of Principles, between the Palestinian Liberation Organization and the Israeli government. The general agreement was followed by specific negotiations in 1995. which called for gradual Israeli withdrawal from parts of the Occupied Territories and Palestinian limited self-rule over the evacuated regions for a five-year interim period. The final status of the Occupied Territories was left unresolved at that time.