No Partition, No State

Ya'akov Ahimeir

November 11, 2007
Ma'ariv, Today supplement

Sixty years ago today the UN General Assembly voted to establish a Jewish state alongside an Arab one. The Arabs refused then and have ever since.

After reading the full version of UNGAR 181 one has to agree with Abba Eban's famous quote: "The Arabs never miss an opportunity to miss an opportunity". The UN Resolution dealing with the partition of the Land of Israel into two states emphasizes the lack of vision afflicting Arab policy. Arab, mind you, not Palestinian. This document speaks of two states - a Jewish state and an Arab state. Arab, mind you, not Palestinian.

The State of Israel is not mentioned in the text, but it was established half a year after the vote. What the General Assembly approved was the "Jewish State", and the text makes no mention of the Jewish people or the Palestinian people. The Arabs refused to recognize Israel as a Jewish state then, just as they do now. The UN resolution also deals with the settling of the Land of Israel, and defines the intended boundaries between the two sates. Nahariya and Beer-Sheva, e.g., would have been part of the Arab state. But nrcause the Arabs rejected the partition plan, Israel has retained its yekke town, with its industrious and equally intellectual population, famous for locally-produced cheeses and ice-creams.

Jerusalem was not meant to be a capital city, neither "the eternal capital of the Jewish people", nor the capital of the "Palestinian state." Jerusalem was to be a separate entity, under a special international Trusteeship Council, administered by a governor, not mayor.

The Arabs were not alone in refusing the partition. Menahem Begin, head of the pre-state underground Irgun (Etzel) and Israel Eldad, one of the Lehi commanders, also refused. After the UN vote, Begin declared that the Jewish people would fight to free its country on both sides of the Jordan: "The Land of Israel will be returned to the Jewish people. All of it, for ever."

Now the Arab states are struggling to establish a Palestinian state. Had they accepted the partition, they would have been celebrating the 60th anniversary of yet another Arab state. Instead, the Arab countries went to war. The bloodshed has never stopped. The paper on which the United Nations partition resolution has become just another piece of paper. The State of Israel was established thanks to the valor and boldness of its soldiers and fighters. I was a child when the resolution was passed. I remember one of our neighbors in Jerusalem worrying that we had no air force. Except now we do have an air force. And not only.

Yet in this day and age, the UN General Assembly would have rejected the partition plan, perhaps even by a large majority. Had the necessity of a Jewish state been at stake in
November 2007, instead of November 1947, the Jews of the Land of Israel would have been split by a fierce debate, just as we are now. Sixty years ago such a debate would have been unthinkable.