Issues relating to the State of Palestine and aspects of the Israeli–Palestinian conflict occupy continuous debates, resolutions, and resources at the United Nations. Since its founding in 1948, the United Nations Security Council, as of January 2010, has adopted 79 resolutions directly related to the Arab–Israeli conflict.

The adoption on November 29, 1947, by the United Nations General Assembly of a resolution recommending the adoption and implementation of a plan of partition of Palestine was one of the earliest acts of the United Nations. This followed the report of the United Nations Special Committee on Palestine.P. J. I. M. de Waart, Dynamics of Self-determination in Palestine, Brill, 1994, p.121 Since then, it has maintained a central role in this region, especially by providing support for Palestinian refugees via the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East (UNRWA; this body is not a totally separate body from the UNHCR, the UN body responsible for all other refugees in the world) by providing a platform for Palestinian political claims via the Committee on the Exercise of the Inalienable Rights of the Palestinian People, the United Nations Division for Palestinian Rights, the Special Committee to Investigate Israeli Practices Affecting the Human Rights of the Palestinian People, the United Nations Information System on the Question of Palestine (UNISPAL) and the International Day of Solidarity with the Palestinian People. The UN has sponsored several peace negotiations between the parties, the latest being the 2002 road map for peace.

History

1940s

Following World War II and the establishment of the United Nations, the General Assembly resolvedA/RES/106 (S-1) of May 15, 1947, General Assembly Resolution 106 Constituting the UNSCOP that a Special Committee be created "to prepare for consideration at the next regular session of the Assembly a report on the question of Palestine." It would consist of the representatives of Australia, Canada, Czechoslovakia, Guatemala, India, Iran, Netherlands, Peru, Sweden, Uruguay and Yugoslavia. In the final report of September 3, 1947, seven members of the Committee in Chapter VI "expressed themselves, by recorded vote, in favor of the Plan of Partition with Economic Union" (reproduced in the Report). The Plan proposed "an independent Arab State, an independent Jewish State, and the City of Jerusalem". On November 29, 1947, the General Assembly recommended the adoption and implementation of a Plan of Partition with Economic Union, General Assembly Resolution 181, a slightly modified version of that proposed by the majority in the Report of September 3, 1947, 33 votes in favor, 13 against, and 10 abstentions. The vote itself, which required a two-thirds majority, was a dramatic affair. It led to celebrations in the streets of Jewish cities but was rejected by the Arab Palestinians and the Arab League.

Within a few days, full scale Jewish–Arab fighting broke out in Palestine.Benny Morris, The Birth of the Palestinian Refugee Problem Revisited, p. 13 It also led to anti-Jewish violence in Arab countries,Tudor Parfitt, The Road to Redemption: the Jews of the Yemen, Brill, 1996, p.166 and to a Jewish exodus from Arab and Muslim countries. "On May 14, 1948, on the day in which the British Mandate over Palestine expired, the Jewish People's Council gathered at the Tel Aviv Museum, and approved" a "proclamation" which declared "the establishment of a Jewish state in Eretz Israel, to be known as the State of Israel",Declaration of Establishment of State of Israel: 14 May 1948: Retrieved 4 May 2012 Resolution 181 also laid the foundation for the creation of an Arab state, but its neighbor states and the Arab League, which rejected all attempts at the creation of a Jewish state, rejected the plan. In the introduction to the cablegram from the Secretary-General of the League of Arab States to the UN Secretary-General on 15 May 1948, the Arab League gave reasons for its "intervention": "On the occasion of the intervention of Arab States in Palestine to restore law and order and to prevent disturbances prevailing in Palestine from spreading into their territories and to check further bloodshed".

The same day, five Arab states invaded and rapidly occupied much of the Arab portion of the partition plan. This war changed the dynamic of the region, transforming a two-state plan into a war between Israel and the Arab world. During this war, resolution 194 reiterated the UN's claim on Jerusalem and resolved in paragraph 11 "that the refugees wishing to return to their homes and live at peace with their neighbors should be permitted to do so at the earliest practicable date". This resolution, accepted immediately by Israel, is the major legal foundation of the Palestinian right of return claim, a major point in peace negotiations. Resolution 194 also called for the creation of the United Nations Conciliation Commission for Palestine. The Arab states initially opposed this resolution, but within a few months, began to change their position, and became the strongest advocates of its refugee and territorial provisions.

In the aftermath of the 1948 war, and conditional on Israel's acceptance and implementation of resolutions 181 and 194, the UN General Assembly voted, with the May 11, 1949 Resolution 273 (III), to admit Israel to UN membership as a "peace-loving country". This resolution reiterated the demands for UN control over Jerusalem and for the return of Palestinian refugees. The vote for resolution 273 was held during the five-month-long Lausanne conference, organized by the UN to reconcile the parties. This conference was largely a failure but was noteworthy as the first proposal by Israel to establish the 1949 armistice line between the Israeli and Arab armies, the so-called green line, as the border of the Jewish state. This line has acquired an after-the-fact international sanction.

Following the failure at Lausanne to settle the problem of the Arab refugees, UNRWA was created with December 1949 resolution 302 (IV) to provide humanitarian aid to this group. The Conciliation Commission for Palestine published its report in October 1950.General progress report and supplementary report of the United Nations Conciliation Commission for Palestine, Covering the period from December 11, 1949, to October 23, 1950, GA A/1367/Rev.1 23 October 1950 It is noteworthy as the source of the official number of Palestinian Arab refugees (711,000). It again reiterated the demands for UN control over Jerusalem and for the return of Palestinian refugees.

1950s

After the failure of early attempts at resolution, and until 1967, discussion of Israel and Palestine was not as prominent at the UN. Exceptions included border incidents like the Qibya massacre, the passage of Security Council Resolution 95 supporting Israel's position over Egypt's on usage of the Suez Canal, and most prominently the 1956 Suez Crisis.

1960s

After months of debate in the Security Council and General Assembly before, during and after the 1967 Six-Day War, United Nations Security Council Resolution 242 was adopted. It became a universally accepted basis for Arab-Israeli and later, Israeli-Palestinian peace negotiations. In it, the Land for peace principle was spelled out. This resolution is one of the most discussed, both within and outside of the UN.

The Six-Day War generated a new wave of Palestinian refugees who could not be included in the original UNRWA definition. From 1991, the UN General Assembly has adopted an annual resolution allowing the 1967 refugees within the UNRWA mandate.

In 1968, the Special Committee to Investigate Israeli Practices Affecting the Human Rights of the Palestinian People was created to investigate Jewish settlements on Palestinian territories. It generates yearly General Assembly resolutions and other documents.

1970s

The Israeli–Palestinian conflict gained prominence following the emergence of Palestinian armed groups, especially the Palestine Liberation Organization and the increased political strength of the Arab group as the main suppliers of petroleum to the Western world. At the UN, the Arab group also gained the support of the Eastern Bloc against Israel allied to the US.

In rapid succession, several events brought the Palestinian struggle to the forefront: the 1972 Olympic Munich massacre, the 1973 Yom Kippur War, the ensuing 1973 oil crisis and, in 1975, the beginning of the Lebanese Civil War.

The Geneva Conference of 1973 was an attempt to negotiate a solution to the Arab–Israeli conflict. No comprehensive agreement was reached, and attempts in later years to revive the Conference failed.

On November 13, 1974, Yasser Arafat became the first representative of an entity other than a member state to address the General Assembly. In 1975, the PLO was granted permanent observer status at the General Assembly.

Starting in 1974, Palestinian territories were named "Occupied Arab Territories" in UN documents. In 1982, the phrase "Occupied Palestinian Territories" became the usual name. This phrase was not used at the UN before 1967 when the same territories were under military occupation by Jordan and Egypt.

The Committee on the Exercise of the Inalienable Rights of the Palestinian People was created in 1975 and of the United Nations Division for Palestinian Rights in 1977. Also in 1977, the International Day of Solidarity with the Palestinian People was first celebrated on November 29 the anniversary of resolution 181.

The 1979 Egypt–Israel peace treatyTreaty of Peace between the Arab Republic of Egypt and the State of Israel, March 26, 1979, www.mfa.gov.eg was a landmark event. Egyptian president Anwar Sadat is credited for initiating the process, following the failure of the UN-mediated peace negotiations, notably the Geneva Conference. The secret negotiations at Camp David in 1978 between Sadat, Menachem Begin and Jimmy Carter, and the treaty itself essentially bypassed UN-approved channels. The Camp David Accords (but not the Treaty itself) touch on the issue of Palestinian statehood. Egypt, Israel, and Jordan were to agree on a way to establish elected self-governing authority in the West Bank and Gaza. Egypt and Israel were to find means to resolve the refugee problem.

The General Assembly was critical of the accords. General Assembly Resolution 34/65 (1979) condemned "partial agreements and separate treaties". It said that the Camp David accords had "no validity insofar as they purport to determine the future of the Palestinian people and the Palestinian territories occupied by Israel since 1967". In protest, the General Assembly did not renew the peace-keeping force in the Sinai peninsula, the UNEF II, despite requests by the US, Egypt, and Israel, as stipulated in the treaty. To honor the treaty despite the UN's refusal, the Multinational Force and Observers was created, which has always operated independently of the UN. Egypt was expelled from the Arab League for ten years.

1980s

The Palestinian National Council adopted in Algiers in 1988 the declaration of independence of the State of Palestine. The UN has not officially recognized this state but, by renaming the PLO observer as the Palestine observer, can be seen as having done so unofficially. In July 1998, the General Assembly adopted resolution 52/250 conferring upon Palestine additional rights and privileges, including the right to participate in the general debate held at the start of each session of the General Assembly, the right of reply, the right to co-sponsor resolutions and the right to raise points of order on Palestinian and Middle East issues.

1990s

2000s