The November 29th Show

There will be no fewer than 20 anti-Israeli resolutions on the UN agenda on November 29th, guaranteed to pass by the automatic anti-Israeli majority in the General Assembly. It’ll be a day of accusations and condemnations, investigation committees will be launched and threats will be made, in an annual routine taking place at the UN since 1977, when “Palestine Solidarity Day” was set to November 29th: The day UN resolution 181, the partition plan, was brought in front of the General Assembly in 1947.

In light of what the UN’s Palestine Solidarity Day has become, it’s easy to forget that the resolution on the table on that day in 1947 was a proposal of compromise: Partitioning the land of the former British Mandate into two independant states. Accounts of the lobbying efforts that preceded the vote give a confusing impression, as if the proposed plan was to give it all to the Jews: While the Zionists vigorously lobbied UN members to vote yes, the Arab world lobbied to reject, and with equal zeal.

November 29th was in fact the day in which the Arab world rejected compromise in the form of the original 2-state solution. The resolution, as we know, passed the vote, but the Arab’s tragic decision continued to echo in the 1947/8 war, and through countless other disasters that befell the region since — all could have been avoided on November 29th, 1947.

The hope would be that the now reformed Palestinians would turn their backs to a legacy of refusal to compromise, but that’s unfortunately far from the truth. The events around November 29th are a symbolic middle finger to those who believe that Palestinian self-determination is not contingent upon Jewish demise. It’s a shameless celebration of eternal enmity, taking place on the day the original rejection of compromise was announced by an Arab world that decided to take the route of war, violence and grief, for the sake of total victory over the Jews.

It’s regretful that Palestine Solidarity Day is consistent with every-day conduct of the UN, an organization that as far as the Israeli-Arab conflict is concerned, operates as if its roles are to cement hatreds and exacerbate conflict. An organization that more than once a year is seemed obsessed with one task: To undo the resolution of compromise it had passed on November 29th, 1947.