AP’s Warped Rendition of History

By Published On: August 19, 2005

The media all too often fail to explain why no Palestinian state was established alongside Israel in 1948. An Aug. 15 AP story took a step towards relaying this context… and failed miserably.

AP’s Edith Lederer wrote:

The United Nations was created in the wake of the Holocaust. It voted soon after, in 1947, to carve out two countries in Palestine, one Jewish, the other Arab, but the Palestinians’ share was lost in the 1948 Mideast war with parts divvied up among Israel, Jordan and Egypt.

What really happened in 1947/48? In the words of a 1949 United Nations working brief:

The next proposal for the solution of the Palestine problem … was the Partition Plan adopted by the General Assembly of the United Nations on 29 November 1947. Under this plan Palestine was to be divided into three parts: an independent Arab State, and independent Jewish State, and the international City of Jerusalem. …

In accepting the Partition Plan, the Jews accepted indirectly the status of a future independent Arab State of Palestine to be its partner in an economic union. …

The Arabs rejected the United Nations Partition Plan …

Arab rejection of the partion plan was not limited to rhetoric. According to historian Martin Gilbert, “In the twelve days following the United Nations Partition Plan, 79 Jews were killed by Arabs throughout Palestine.” Eventually, “Arab military units from Syria, Iraq and Egypt increased their efforts to drive the Jews from the Galillee and the Negev.” After Israel declared its independence, “six Arab armies … invaded Israel.” Egypt occupied what is now the Gaza Strip. Jordan occupied the West Bank.

arabs invade.jpg
Arabs invade Israel after rejecting partition plan.

In the AP summary of events, there was no Israeli acceptance of partition, no Arab rejection, no Arab attack.

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