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Why the 1947 UN Partition Resolution Must Be Celebrated

(Mosaic) Martin Kramer - Compared with the festivities surrounding the Balfour Declaration centenary, relatively little attention is being paid to the 70th anniversary of the UN partition vote. But there is a compelling reason to emphasize the 1947 resolution, and to do so time and again. That reason: the Arabs rejected it. And because they did, preferring war, they cannot escape their share of responsibility for the war's consequences: their nakba. Evasion of responsibility explains why the Palestinians, in telling the saga of their "dispossession," stress the Balfour Declaration and downplay the partition resolution. Prior to the 1947 vote, the UN General Assembly empowered UNSCOP, comprising representatives of 11 uninvolved member-states, to investigate the situation and make recommendations. This is now standard procedure in the handling of conflicts. But Palestinian Arab leaders at the time boycotted UNSCOP. In the Arab view, the Jews had no right to anything. They thought that once the British left, they would defeat the Jews. Why concede anything to a motley mob of cowardly Jews? It took more than 60 years for a Palestinian leader, Mahmoud Abbas, to describe Palestinian and Arab rejection of partition as a "mistake" (in an interview in 2011). It is important to mark this anniversary of the UN partition vote and every anniversary to come. It isn't just a reminder of Israel's legitimacy; it's a reminder of Arab responsibility. The writer is founding president emeritus of Shalem College in Jerusalem and a visiting fellow at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy.
2017-11-28 00:00:00
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