On this day, 2 October 1947: Ben-Gurion offered the Arabs peace as equals

On 2 October 1947, David Ben-Gurion stood in Jerusalem before the Elected Assembly of the Jewish community in Mandatory Palestine (the Yishuv). He asked the Arabs to take a state of their own and to meet the Jews as sovereign equals. It was shortly before the UN vote on the partition of Palestine on 29 November 1947.

The UN committee UNSCOP had proposed two options: the majority advocated two states, one Jewish and one Arab; the minority wanted a federal state. Ben-Gurion made clear that the Jewish side wanted to pursue peace and mutual benefit, but would not give up the right to immigration (aliyah), the building of the land and statehood. If attacked, they would fight back — but they would do everything to keep the peace.

Not an offer after the war. Seven months before it. The UN had not yet voted. No Arab army had yet crossed a border. The British still governed the Mandate.

Ben-Gurion admitted that the Arabs had refused even to sit at the same table as the Jews. Yet he made the offer: "We will do everything in our power to maintain peace and establish cooperation gainful to both. It is now, here and now, from Jerusalem itself, that a call must go out to the Arab nations to join forces with Jewry and the destined Jewish State and work shoulder to shoulder for our common good, for the peace and progress of sovereign equals."

The Arab states and the Arab League had already declared against a Jewish state, and the Arab Liberation Army was being formed. The Jewish leaders accepted the UN partition resolution with two states; the Arab leaders rejected it.

The UN recommended two states, with borders already drawn. The Arab Higher Committee said no.

In May 1948, five Arab armies invaded to strangle at birth the state whose leader had only just asked them to be partners.

Arabs who left during that war — in part at the urging of their own leaders — are now often portrayed as victims of a plan supposedly drawn up at the Jewish Agency.

The plan on the table in October was the exact opposite: get your own country; those who stay in ours become citizens with equal rights and a passport; and together we build our countries as equals.

The Arabs heard him, and then chose …

War.