It is not hard to understand the Palestinian Arab position. By 1947 the Arabs of Palestine constituted a two-thirds majority with over 1.2 million people, compared to 600,000 Jews in Palestine. Many towns and cities with Palestinian Arab majorities, like
Haifa, were allotted to the Jewish state.
Jaffa, though nominally part of the Arab state, was an isolated enclave surrounded by the Jewish state. Moreover, Arabs owned 94 percent of the total land area of Palestine and some 80 percent of the arable farmland of the country. Based on these facts, Palestinian Arabs refused to confer on the United Nations the authority to split their country and give half away.
—
Eugene Rogan, The Arabs: A History