No Stupid Questions

• Creation of a binational Jewish-Palestinian state called the "Federal Republic of the Holy Land";

• Partition of the state into five administrative regions, with Jerusalem as a city-state;

• Return of all Palestinian refugees;

• Supervision by the United Nations of free and fair elections on the first and second occasions;

• Removal of weapons of mass destruction from the state;

• Recognition of the state by the Arab League.

The Zionist position changed in 1928, when the pragmatic Palestinian leaders agreed to the principle of parity in a rare moment in which clannish and religious differences were overcome for the sake of consensus. The Palestinian leaders feared that without parity the Zionists would gain control of the political system. The unexpected Palestinian agreement threw the Zionist leaders into temporary confusion. When they recovered, they sent a refusal to the British, but at the same time offered an alternative solution: the partitioning of Palestine into two political units.

• Pg 132 of Ilan Pappe - A History of Modern Palestine

On 31 August 1947, UNSCOP presented its recommendations to the UN General Assembly. Three of its members were allowed to put forward an alternative recommendation. The majority report advocated the partition of Palestine into two states, with an economic union. The designated Jewish state was to have most of the coastal area, western Galilee, and the Negev, and the rest was to become the Palestinian state. The minority report proposed a unitary state in Palestine based on the principle of democracy. It took considerable American Jewish lobbying and American diplomatic pressure, as well as a powerful speech by the Russian ambassador to the UN, to gain the necessary two-thirds majority in the Assembly for partition. Even though hardly any Palestinian or Arab diplomat made an effort to promote the alternative scheme, it won an equal number of supporters and detractors, showing that a considerable number of member states realized that imposing partition amounted to supporting one side and opposing the other.

• Pg 181 of Ilan Pappe - A History of Modern Palestine