JERUSALEM — The black-and-white photos show masses of people
yearning for independence, celebrating a vote recognizing a
state in Palestine. It was a day that generations of pupils
would be taught to remember with reverence: Nov. 29. The
jubilant revelers were Jews, the year was 1947, and the vote was
held in the United Nations General Assembly. The Palestinians
rejected the partition plan, which called for Jewish and Arab
states to be established after the imminent expiration of the
British rule over Palestine. The outraged Arabs soon started a
war they eventually lost. Sixty-five years later to the day, the
tables are somewhat reversed: Palestinians have turned to the
General Assembly for a second chance — and it is the Israelis
who have dismissed the vote, which resoundingly upgraded the
Palestinians’ U.N. status, as a symbolic trifle. The irony of
the date was not lost on the Israelis. “We are the best teachers
of the Palestinian people in their struggle for independence,”
wrote Eitan Haber, a veteran col