Theodor Herzl (1860-1904) wrote in his diary on Sep. 3, 1897, three days after the close in Basel of the Zionist Organization's First Zionist Congress that he had chaired:
in Basel habe ich den Judenstaat gegründet. Wenn ich das heute laut sagte, würde mir ein universelles Gelächter antworten. Vielleicht in fünf Jahren, jedenfalls in fünfzig wird es jeder einsehen.
(at Basel, I founded the Jewish State. Were I to say this in public today, I would be greeted with universal laughter. Perhaps in five years, in any case in fifty, everyone will see [the truth of] this.)
 The above quote starts with the final two words of the top line. |
Fifty years later to the day, on Sep. 3, 1947, the United Nations Special Committee on Palestine (UNSCOP) presented its Report to the General Assembly calling for the end of the British Mandate and proposed a Plan of Partition of Palestine into a Jewish state and an Arab state.
On Nov. 29, 1947, the UN General Assembly passed UNSCOP's plan almost without changes as Resolution 181, thereby formally recognizing "the Jewish State" that Herzl had foreseen.
 The "Palestine Post" reported the General Assembly vote lacking a sense of its historic importance. |
This extraordinary prediction comes to mind on the 120th and 70th anniversaries of the two dates. (September 3, 2017)
