29 November 1947, a few minutes after midnight
No one is sleeping. Everyone is sitting by the radio. And over the I ether comes the message: the General Assembly of the United Nations has decided in favor of the founding of a Jewish and an Arab state.
Joy explodes like a wild storm. Young people stream onto the streets, collect together, go wild. Such a demonstration of mass enthusiasm has never been seen before in this land. Groups are formed, people packed together, songs are sung, and wildly dancing circles form at the crossroads. Men and women who have never met before hug and kiss each other.
Joy washes away all boundaries; limits and differences disappear. In a sea of flags, drunk with enthusiasm, the youth celebrate the great news.
* * *
In the last few months the land of Palestine had fallen ever deeper into the abyss. Order collapsed and chaos ruled everywhere.
On 29 September 1947, exactly two months before the historic decision, Jamal Husseini1 declared, in a clear and unambiguous speech, that the Arabs would take up arms to convert the land into an Arab state. On the same day the police station in Haifa was blown up by the Irgun, with the death of ten British soldiers. The govern-ments of Syria and Lebanon began moving their armies to the border. On 12 November the British murdered four young members of the Lehi. The next day the Lehi killed eight Englishmen in various parts of the country. Three days later the ship Aliyah ran the British maritime blockade and brought refugees to the beach of Nahariya.2 On 19 November two new Jewish settlements were founded in the