Today could have been Palestine’s 65th birthday
The State of Palestine could have been 65 years old today if the UN partition plan of 1947 had been accepted by the Arab world. A just and lasting peace between two sovereign states is still prejudiced by the false narrative that Palestinians were the only refugees created in 1947.
Irwin Cotler Nov 29, 2012
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Today, the Palestinian Authority is seeking Observer Status at the UN General Assembly with a view to securing a UN General Assembly vote later in the day. The November 29 is no random date – it marks the 65th anniversary of the UN Partition Resolution of 1947. It is sometimes forgotten – and often not even known – that this was the first-ever blueprint for an Israeli-Palestinian “two states for two peoples” solution. Regrettably, while Jewish leaders accepted the resolution, Arab and Palestinian leaders did not – which they had a right to do if they felt it did not comport with their objectives or interests.
However, what they did not have a right to do was to launch a war of aggression against the nascent Jewish state. Nor did they have a right to launch a war against their own Jewish nationals – a documented pattern of state-sanctioned repression and persecution – disenfranchising them, dispossessing them of their – detaining, murdering and expelling them. This double aggression resulted in two sets of refugees: Palestinian refugees resulting from the Arab war against the Jewish State, and Jewish refugees resulting from the Arab war against their own Jewish nationals.
Yet the false Middle East narrative – prejudicial to authentic reconciliation and peace between peoples as well as between states – continues to hold that there was only one victim population, Palestinian refugees; that Israel was responsible for the Palestinian Nakba (catastrophe) of 1947-8; and that, as Prof. Rami Khouri of the American University of Beirut recently wrote – during the Israel-Hamas hostilities – “As long as the crime of dispossession and refugeehood that was committed against the Palestinian people in 1947-48 is not redressed through a peaceful and just negotiation that satisfies the legitimate rights of both sides, we will continue to see enhancements in both the determination and the capabilities of Palestinian fighters.” In his words, “Only stupid or ideologically maniacal Zionists fail to come to terms with this fact”.
But his revisionist view of history ignores the fundamental fact that had the UN Partition Resolution been accepted, there would have been no 1948 Arab- Israeli war, no refugees, and none of the pain and suffering of these past 65 years. Indeed, another event falling on today’s date - the annual UN-organized International Day of Solidarity with the Palestinian People – could this year have been a day commemorating the 65th anniversary of the establishment of both the State of Israel and the State of Palestine.