Palestinian president halts primary elections amid voter fraud allegations News
Palestinian president halts primary elections amid voter fraud allegations

[JURIST] Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas [BBC profile] Tuesday suspended primary elections of his ruling Fatah movement [party website in Arabic] amid election fraud said to be prevalent in Gaza and the West Bank. Primaries in the Gaza Strip were cancelled [BBC report] on Monday after Fatah gunmen stormed some polling stations alleging unfair voting. The primary elections were the first for Fatah and come ahead of January's parliamentary election where Islamic group Hamas is seen as a strong challenger to Fatah. Last week, voters in primaries in the West Bank voted against Fatah politicians, selecting newcomers and militants. Reuters has more. Aljazeera has local coverage.

THIS DAY @ LAW

UN General Assembly approves Palestine partition plan

The UN General Assembly approved UN Resolution Resolution 181 (II) on November 29, 1947, recommending that the British Mandate for Palestine be split into a Jewish state, an Arab state, and an international zone for Jerusalem. The vote in the assembly was 33 for to 13 against, with 10 abstentions. The resolution sparked a war between Palestinian Arabs and Jews in 1947 and a wider war after Egypt, Syria, Jordan, Iraq, and Lebanon invaded the new State of Israel in 1948. Read Resolution 181 (II).

UN divided Palestine between Arabs and Jews

On November 29, 1947, the UN General Assembly voted to partition Palestine into Jewish and Arab territories, leading to the establishment of a Jewish state the following year. Read UN General Assembly Resolution 181.

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