UN partition plan is colonialist plot, says PA official

Official PA TV, Friday sermon from Ramallah by Supreme Shari’ah Judge and Chairman of the Supreme Council for Shari'ah Justice Mahmoud Al-Habbash, on the anniversary of the UN Partition Plan and the International Day of Solidarity with the Palestinian People

Supreme Shari’ah Judge and Chairman of the Supreme Council for Shari'ah Justice Mahmoud Al-Habbash: "On this day 72 years ago, the whole world, perhaps, cooperated in a disgraceful act of exploitation against Palestine and its people… when the UN issued the partition resolution (i.e., Resolution 181). Those who were partners in the plot thought that Palestine was on the way to disappearing from the map, and that its people was also about to disappear… and foreigners who never had a connection – religious or historical – would be brought to this land. This [was] a plot planned by the forces of colonialism, arrogance, tyranny, and aggression. From the middle of the Middle Ages, before the 17th century, the Western colonialist forces wanted to plant a foreign body in the heart of the Arab and Islamic world, foreign to its peoples, [that would be] their ally – in order for them to have a foothold or arrowhead in the chest and heart of the nation… They [the Western colonialist forces] never wanted the best for the Jews – because most of the tragedies that the Jews have suffered throughout history have been with them, and by their hand. All of the massacres carried out against Jews throughout history were with them, and by their hand. The Jews lived among the Muslims and the Arabs like the others from among the peoples and religions… until this plot came along that wanted to plant them here claiming that 'this is the land of their forefathers, leave us.' They wanted to get rid of them [the Jews], and to throw them in the face of the Arab and Islamic world. The conspiracy was completed, and then the UN issued the partition resolution. A land that has people and owners - they wanted it to be 'a land without a people, for a people without a land.'" 

UN Resolution 181 (the UN partition plan for Palestine) was passed by the UN General Assembly in 1947. It called for the partition of the British Mandate of Palestine into separate Jewish and Arab states, with Jerusalem as a separate entity under the rule of a special international body. The Arab state was meant to be comprised of the western Galilee, the West Bank, and the Gaza Strip, and the remaining territory of the Mandate west of the Jordan River would be the state of Israel - Jordan (known at the time as Transjordan) had already been established in what had been the part of the Mandate that was east of the Jordan River. The resolution was accepted by the Jewish Agency for Palestine, but Arab leaders and governments rejected it, and launched a war to destroy Israel.