“The deep, slightly hoarse voice came back, making the air shake as it summed up with a rough dryness brimming with excitement: Thirty-three for. Thirteen against. Ten abstentions and one country absent from the vote. The resolution is approved. His voice was swallowed up in a roar that burst from the radio.”

So wrote Israeli novelist Amos Oz, recounting his experience on Nov. 29, 1947-when the United Nations voted to end 25 years of British mandatory rule in Palestine and laid the groundwork for a two-state solution, one Jewish, one Arab. Six months later, under the looming threat of war from the countries that had rejected the UN resolution, Israel declared independence.

In the last 60 years, the UN’s partition decision has been overwhelmingly vindicated. In a region plagued with religious extremism, tyranny and economic stagnation, Israel stands as a model of democratic pluralism, economic growth and human progress. … Yet Israel’s right to exist is still under attack, often by the same forces that rejected the two-state solution six decades ago. …

In an Orwellian twist contrived by Arab countries, the UN in 1977 declared Nov. 29 a “Day of Solidarity with the Palestinian People.” This distorted the original UN decision beyond recognition-using it to undermine, rather than promote, the cause of peace.

Last year’s “Day of Solidarity” UN event, for example, featured a large map of “Palestine” on which Israel did not appear. The official explanation was that it was simply that the map predated Israeli independence-but the implication of a Palestine without Israel was clear. …

The United Nations made the right decision in 1947, but its policies have since been hijacked by those more interested in perpetuating conflict than solving it. To move forward, the United Nations must remind the world of the courageous vote it took 60 years ago. Only then can the world body live up to the high ideals of its charter and potentially help replicate-this time successfully-one of the greatest moments in its own history.

As Amos Oz’s father told his young son on Nov. 29, 1947, “From now on, from the moment we have our own state, you will never be bullied just because you are a Jew and because Jews are so-and-so’s. Not that. Never again. From tonight that’s finished here. Forever.”

(Diane Steinman is executive director of the American Jewish Committee’s New York chapter.)