Olmert: My father was wrong, Ben-Gurion was right

Prime Minister Ehud Olmert opened Monday's Knesset session commemorating the 60th anniversary of the historic UN vote to partition British-mandate Palestine (Resolution 181) with a personal admission: "I was brought up on Ze'ev Jabotinsky's heritage in a revisionist home, and my father Mordechai –may he rest in peace - who also served as a member of the Israeli Knesset, strongly opposed the partition plan out of a sense of loyalty and sincere love for the whole of Israel.

"I humbly bow my head in adoration for the man and his memory when I say these things that would probably have caused him to groan, but which I must say: Ben-Gurion was right."

Over a thousand people were invited to the festive ceremony, including family members of the Latin American ambassadors of the day who had fought for the establishment of a Jewish State in Palestine.

But not everyone joined the festivities, Arab Knesset members abstained from the session. The decision, they said, was one made individually by each MK and was not decided on by the factions themselves.

Arab MKs did however say that they felt the ceremony was a "hypocritical, political celebration" marking only half of the partition plan. "This session commemorates the callous imbalance which is worshiped still today. The partition plan did not speak only of the establishment of the State of Israel, and therefore we can not take part (in the session)," said MK Taleb A-Sana (United Arab List-Ta'al.)

Marking the anniversary of the vote, they said, more so than ever before reflects the distorted reality created in the State of Israel since the day of its founding.

"From the moment of the partition, Israel only took the issue of establishing a Jewish state. The partition plan did not speak of expelling 800,000 people nor of the occupation and appropriation of land. The partition plan spoke of preserving the rights of the Palestinians in Israel and so I ask today: Have our rights been preserved?" Balad Chairman MK Jamal Zahalka said. "It would never occur to me to take part in such a celebration of hypocrisy," he said.

Livni: Arabs are the ones who rejected partition

Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni said she was "proud of where Israel is today" and stressed that the Jewish leadership in Palestine had readily accepted the UN partition as opposed to its neighboring Arab states.

"I am sorry that the Arab world rejected the partition, but I hope and pray that today there is an understanding that instead of fighting, the right thing is to build a joint future in two separate states.

"One, the State of Israel, which was established as a Jewish State and National Home for the Jewish People, and the second- Palestine, which will come about as the full national solution for the Palestinian people wherever they may be- those residing in Gaza and the West Bank and those in the refugee camps

in other Arab states with temporary status, waiting to feel that they have a nation-state of their own.

"It is that same feeling of completeness that the State of Israel gave the Jewish people with its establishment, to all those refugees who were forced out of Europe and the Arab nations and who built this country."