tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6003330.post130935544348440743..comments2024-03-20T06:29:27.167-04:00Comments on The Rabbi with a Blog (Rabbi Jason Miller): November 29Rabbi Jason Millerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07805550465729805847noreply@blogger.comBlogger2125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6003330.post-2976726794032699332007-11-30T14:22:00.001-05:002007-11-30T14:22:00.001-05:00November 29th was the 60th anniversary of the Unit...November 29th was the 60th anniversary of the United Nations<BR/>vote to partition the British colony of Palestine into two states; one for<BR/>the Jews and one for the Arabs. From the Jewish perspective this vote is<BR/>celebrated as a big step in the creation of the State of Israel a few months<BR/>after this vote. For the Jews, the UN vote represented official sanction<BR/>and recognition to the Jewish right to a state in Palestine/Israel. The<BR/>following article appeared in yesterdays Jerusalem Post. It provides a<BR/>short historical synopsis of what was going on among the Jews in Palestine<BR/>at the time of the vote. <BR/><BR/>You can see a PDF version of the Jerusalem/Palestine Post from November 30,<BR/>1947 at http://static.jpost.com/images/2007/pdf/oldcovers/1947.1130.pdf<BR/>You can also hear a recording of the vote at<BR/>http://www.isracast.com/Transcripts/territories_trans.htm#audio<BR/><BR/> <BR/><BR/>Between Pragmatism and Ideology Colin Shindler, Jerusalem Post, November<BR/>29, 2007<BR/><BR/>The Zionist leadership was incredibly pessimistic in the spring of 1947 that<BR/>the handing over of responsibility of the Palestine question to the United<BR/>Nations would bring any sort of positive results. If it eventually came to a<BR/>vote, the British were confident that the Zionists would fail dismally to<BR/>achieve a two thirds majority at the UN. Yet as history records, on 29<BR/>November 1947, the General Assembly vote on partition was 33 for, 13 against<BR/>with 10 abstentions. <BR/><BR/>Harold Beeley, the advisor on Palestine to the British Foreign Office had<BR/>told David Horowitz, head of the Jewish Agency's economics department, that<BR/>without the full weight of the Soviet bloc, the Zionists would fail dismally<BR/>and the responsibility for Palestine would probably be returned to an<BR/>emboldened, empowered British authority. In April 1947, the Soviets had<BR/>voted with the Arabs at the UN. In May 1947, Andrei Gromyko made his famous<BR/>intervention which argued that the preferred solution was a bi-national<BR/>state, but if this was not possible, then a partitioned state was the<BR/>answer. This flew in the face of Marxist-Leninist orthodoxy and the fact<BR/>that the Soviet Union had been sending Zionists to the Gulag for the past 25<BR/>years. The Kremlin wanted to exclude not only the British, but also stop<BR/>increasing American involvement in the Middle East. Moreover, the powerful<BR/>Zionist Left, besotted with the USSR, the Kremlin reckoned, could prove to<BR/>be a political asset in the future. <BR/><BR/>At the beginning of 1947, it was also believed that the Vatican would not<BR/>favor a Jewish state on theological grounds. Yet a majority of Latin<BR/>American states voted for partition. In the last few days before the vote,<BR/>US president Harry S Truman fully threw his political authority behind the<BR/>Zionist diplomatic effort. <BR/><BR/>YET ABOVE all, 1947 indicated a determined common effort, a Zionist popular<BR/>front, to sink personal and ideological differences and to utilize this<BR/>almost unexpected opportunity which had arisen. It is no cliché to state<BR/>that the weight of Jewish history was upon their shoulders. <BR/><BR/>Before 1947, there had been severe division within Zionist ranks. The<BR/>co-chairmen of the American Zionist Emergency Committee, Stephen Wise and<BR/>Abba Hillel Silver, did not see eye to eye. This was further complicated by<BR/>the opening of a Jewish Agency office in Washington in 1943 by Chaim<BR/>Weizmann. The office was headed by Nahum Goldmann whose cavalier diplomacy<BR/>and independent action infuriated Silver. <BR/><BR/>Goldmann openly espoused partition whereas Silver believed that this was<BR/>tactically foolish since the British would attempt to whittle down any<BR/>proposition. He argued that only a maximalist position should be pitched,<BR/>compromise could come later. Goldmann said that this denied the Jewish<BR/>reality in 1946. Following the Holocaust, there simply were not enough<BR/>European Jews that could create a Jewish majority in a non-partitioned<BR/>state. Although Silver refused to testify before the Anglo-American<BR/>Commission of Inquiry in 1946, by the autumn of 1947, he too began to use<BR/>all his talents for support the recommendations of the UN Special Committee<BR/>on Palestine for a partitioned state. <BR/><BR/>This movement toward accepting partition affected Zionist parties which 10<BR/>years before in 1937 had vehemently opposed the Peel Commission's proposals<BR/>for the division of Palestine. The Holocaust and its aftermath of wrecked<BR/>lives and displaced people had created an urgency which relegated ideology<BR/>to a secondary concern. Golda Meir had opposed partition in 1937, but<BR/>supported it in 1947. The religious Zionists of Mizrachi moved toward<BR/>supporting Yehuda Leib Maimon (Fishman) who advocated partition over the<BR/>revered Meir Bar-Ilan. The Lamifneh faction of Hapoel Hamizrachi included<BR/>many Jews from Germany, Yosef Burg, Moshe Unna and Ephraim Urbach - they too<BR/>argued for partition. <BR/><BR/>There were even dramatic displays of disunity at the world conference of<BR/>Agudat Yisrael in Marienbad in August 1947. The ultra-orthodox party had<BR/>been established as a bulwark against Zionism. Its president had told the<BR/>Anglo-American Commission of Inquiry in 1946 that "for us, the state is not<BR/>a goal in itself." Yet at the conference, survivors were willing to oppose<BR/>party leaders and demand to go to Palestine. <BR/><BR/>The long time belief of the Marxist Zionists, Hashomer Hatzair in a<BR/>bi-national state, started its slow demise with Gromyko's fateful statements<BR/>at the UN. Indeed, the movement's initial belief was that he had been<BR/>misreported. The Communists of Palestine had unfortunately published an<BR/>editorial on the same day as Gromyko's speech recommending the old line of a<BR/>federated Arab-Jewish state. Like all dedicated followers of Soviet<BR/>Communism, they saw the light - and it was good. Achdut Ha'avodah, the party<BR/>of Yitzhak Tabenkin, Yigal Allon, Moshe Carmel and Yitzhak Rabin, believed<BR/>that a Jewish socialist society should be constructed before the<BR/>proclamation of a Jewish state. Tabenkin wanted an extension of the Mandate<BR/>and believed that the ensuing conflict had been deliberately contrived by<BR/>the British to obstruct Arab-Jewish cooperation. <BR/><BR/>THE MAIN group of Zionists which did not move from their ideological beliefs<BR/>were the nationalists - the Revisionists, the Irgun and Lehi. Ze'ev<BR/>Jabotinsky had opposed the 1937 partition, labelling the partitioned state<BR/>as a new "Pale of Settlement." Menachem Begin similarly spoke about the<BR/>gettoization of the Jews in a statelet along the coast which would be unable<BR/>to absorb large numbers of Jews. <BR/><BR/>It would be economically unviable and would have to maintain a large army.<BR/>The Irgun envisaged that the Negev would be unsuitable for Zionist<BR/>settlement for decades. Above all, Begin lamented the first partition of<BR/>Palestine and refused to accept that the East Bank, TransJordan, had been<BR/>irrevocably lost. <BR/><BR/>In a memo to the UN in April 1947, the Irgun stated its belief that the Jews<BR/>constituted a clear majority of the population on both sides of the Jordan.<BR/>This included "those of our people, numbering millions, who strive to return<BR/>to it immediately but are unable to realize their right because the British<BR/>occupation regime has placed it self in their path." <BR/><BR/>Begin also invoked "the consciousness of historic unity" of the present with<BR/>the past. Such "imponderables," he argued, were one of the most real factors<BR/>in human history. "Their power is supreme and their influence ineradicable."<BR/><BR/><BR/>Most Zionists disagreed with him and made a difficult choice between<BR/>pragmatism and ideology. Begin never lost his attachment to the East Bank<BR/>and his distaste for partition, yet he, too, as prime minister, had to<BR/>distinguish between the dream and the reality. <BR/><BR/>The writer lectures in Israeli studies at London University. Cambridge<BR/>University Press will be publishing his History of Modern Israel in 2008.<BR/><BR/> <BR/><BR/>We all know what the Arab perspective on the vote was and unfortunately we<BR/>are still struggling with Arab resistance to the existence of Israel. It is<BR/>somewhat ironic that the Annapolis conference occurred this week of November<BR/>29. Perhaps this latest international conference will eventually lead to<BR/>the two state solution voted on and approved 60 years ago.Daniel Schweberhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/03539545347362762917noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6003330.post-2249133426827096562007-11-29T12:47:00.000-05:002007-11-29T12:47:00.000-05:00There are not many Israelis still living today who...There are not many Israelis still living today who personally witnessed the historic United Nations debate sixty years ago on November 29. However, today's Jerusalem Post features Suzy Eban, widow of former Israeli Ambassador to the U.N. Abba Eban (whom I met while I was a high school student), who reminisces about the experience.<BR/><BR/>The article concludes by mentioning several historical coincidences including the fact that both Abba Eban and Chaim Weizmann died in November, the same month of the Balfour Declaration, the U.N. Partition Plan, and this week's Annapolis Conference. It also mentions that before becoming Prime Minister, Ehud Olmert lived on <B>Kaf Tet b'November Street</B>.Rabbi Jason Millerhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/07805550465729805847noreply@blogger.com