>I have done some research on this since my last post and it seems to me that regardless of the size of Israel and the number of people per square mile, Israel's borders do not reflect the borders laid out in the UN Resolution 181. It was interesting to me that none of the Arab states that voted on that resolution voted for it, but all voted against it. Also, Israel managed to form a recognized state but Palestine did not yet both were provided for in the resolution.

All of that is because the Arab states rejected the partition and chose not to form the Arab state that was provided for. When the partition took effect, the neighboring Arab countries told Arabs in Israel to leave and that they'd be able to return to their homes once the Jews were pushed into the sea. They then attacked, but Israel prevailed.

At that point, the Arab neighbors should have incorporated the people they'd turned into refugees into their own countries, but they chose not to. There's no excuse for those people having been left in refugees camps for over 50 years; surely the people who put them there bear that responsibility.

As for Israel having borders beyond the 1947 partition, as far as I know, when a country attacks another, and the country that was attacked not only repels the attack, but continues into the land of the attacker, the attacked country is entitled to keep the land captured until a peace treaty is signed. When Israel and Egypt made peace, the Sinai peninsula reverted to Egypt (despite the presence of Israeli settlements).

>What I do not understand is why the Palenstinians do not create a state that is recognized in accordance with UN resolution 181. Are they really refusing to do so until all lands laid out in UN resolution 181 are returned to them or am I still missing something? Where is the benefit in that? I must still be missing some piece of valuable information...

Obviously, you'd need to ask the people involved, but I believe it's because many of those people will never accept the existence of Israel. They won't settle for anything less than all of what was once called Palestine.

Tamar