President characterizes day of UN Partition Plan as "most emotional day in lives of the Jewish people."
By GREER FAY CASHMANperes granados 224.88(photo credit: Ariel Jerozolimski)
Three generations of the families of diplomats involved in the UN Partition Plan for Palestine held an emotional meeting with President Shimon Peres at Beit Hanassi on Thursday.
"This is not a meeting like any other meeting," Peres told families of three of the 11 members of the 1947 United Nations Special Committee on Palestine (UNSCOP) and the grandchildren and great-grand children of the then-president of the UN General Assembly. "We invited you to say thank you. You belong to families that are noble, courageous and historic."
Harking back to the UN resolution taken 60 years ago, Peres said, "It was a most unusual resolution - so far away from real politics, and it brought hope to many people, because it stood on the side of the weak and did justice to something controversial."
Recalling how Israelis had gone out to dance in the streets after the results were announced, Peres characterized it as "the most emotional day in the lives of the Jewish people."
Peres said that although the UN had not yet decided on a date for statehood, "it gave us legitimacy." "Remember that we will never forget," he added..
His guests, who included Stella Garcia Granados, a former Guatemalan ambassador to Israel, were emotional, excited and proud. Her father-in-law, Jorge Garcia Granados, lobbied very hard on Israel's behalf and was Guatemala's ambassador to the United Nations on the day that Israel declared its sovereignty, and immediately announced that Guatemala recognized the new state of Israel.
Granados's grandson, who is also his grandfather's namesake, said how proud he was to be named after him. He was 10 at the time of his grandfather's death, he said, "but I knew what he was fighting for and what he was talking about. We have it in our blood to fight for a just cause."
Oswaldo Aranha, whose grandfather of the same name was Brazil's delegate to the UN and president of the UN General Assembly in 1947, expressed pride in being in Israel.
"My grandfather would have been very proud to see what Israel has accomplished," said Monica Garcia of Peru, while Daniel Rodriguez of Uruguay said that he had been privileged to learn the history of those times directly from his father, who had been part of it all.
"He said it was a very just cause, and he said till the last day of his life, that he had done the right thing."
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