Remembering the UN’s Pivotal Role in Israel’s Creation

“The deep, slightly hoarse voice came back, making the air shake as it summed up with arough dryness brimming with excitement: Thirty-three for. Thirteen against. Tenabstentions and one country absent from the vote. The resolution is approved. His voicewas swallowed up in a roar that burst from the radio….”So wrote Amos Oz, Israel’s greatest novelist, recounting his experience on November 29,1947, when the United Nations voted to end 25 years of British mandatory rule inPalestine and laid the groundwork for a two-state solution – one Jewish, one Arab. Sixmonths later, under the looming threat of war from the very countries that had rejectedthe UN resolution, the State of Israel declared independence. In the past 60 years, the UN’s partition decision has been overwhelmingly vindicated. Ina region plagued with religious extremism, tyranny and economic stagnation, Israelstands as a model of democratic pluralism, economic growth and human progress. TheJewish State has contributed to the global community in myriad ways, from anentrepreneurial social sector that has invented new ways to meet human needs, to acutting edge high-tech economy that has produced innovations in agriculture, medicine,science and communications technology. It has developed solutions that hold promise for the developing world and advanced nation-states alike, and has generously offered itsassistance to all countries in need.Despite these momentous contributions, Israel remains the only state whose very right toexist is still under attack, often by the same array of forces who rejected the two-statesolution six decades ago. Yet, a two-state solution remains, as the UN recognized in 1947,the only reasonable solution to the Arab-Israeli conflict.Unfortunately, the U.N.’s landmark decision has been commandeered by forces opposedto any peaceful solution. In an Orwellian twist contrived by Arab countries in 1976, theUN declared November 29th a “Day of Solidarity with the Palestinian People.” Theoriginal UN decision was thus distorted beyond recognition, and used to undermine,rather than promote, the cause of peace.Last year’s “Day of Solidarity” misleadingly displayed a large map of “Palestine” onwhich Israel did not appear. The “Committee on the Exercise of the Inalienable Rights of the Palestinian People” used a map dated before Israel’s day of Independence. Whiletechnically correct, the implication of a Palestine without Israel was clear.In a subtle rebuke of the Committee right after this incident, the UN Secretary Generaldenounced the statement of the Iranian president that Israel “should be moved from theMiddle East” and cited his previous statement that Israel is a longstanding member of theUN.By using the UN as a vehicle to de-legitimize Israel, the Arab states and their supportershave rendered the global body virtually irrelevant to regional peacemaking. As a result, itwould be difficult for any responsible Israeli leader to trust the UN to play a productive