On this date in history, November 29, 1947, the United Nations voted to approve the Partition Plan, dividing the British-ruled Palestine Mandate into a Jewish state and an Arab state.

The vast majority of the Jewish population of the Mandate, including many Holocaust survivors, accepted the borders created by the plan, despite being extremely difficult to defend. In fact, the Partition Plan called for borders even more narrow than those eventually agreed upon in the 1949 ceasefire.

Watch and see maps of the original Partition Plan. You will also see how the Arab population in the British-ruled mandate and the surrounding Arab states reacted to what was supposed to be a plan for a peaceful solution to the conflict.