In the midst of it all he managed to do the nearly impossible: maintain his sense of humor. In a letter to his wife he wrote: "You wouldn't believe what it's like holding these monkeys together, pushing them and coming out with an agreement. I swear I will never go back to the Palestine issue."
Had he kept his "oath," he might have spared himself great heartbreak. But Bunche went on dealing with the Israeli-Arab conflict, and in 1967 was a partner to the UN secretary-general's moves that hastened the Six-Day War; the Green Line, the greatest achievement in Bunche's lifetime, was erased and he was a partner to its erasure, with his bare hands. He died in 1971. To the very end, he considered the Six-Day War a personal tragedy.
.. CHANGES MATTER .. The Green Line agreements he came up with in 1949 gave the Middle East 20 years of relative sanity. His success earned Bunche a Nobel Peace Prize.
ReplyDeleteIn the midst of it all he managed to do the nearly impossible: maintain his sense of humor. In a letter to his wife he wrote: "You wouldn't believe what it's like holding these monkeys together, pushing them and coming out with an agreement. I swear I will never go back to the Palestine issue."
Had he kept his "oath," he might have spared himself great heartbreak. But Bunche went on dealing with the Israeli-Arab conflict, and in 1967 was a partner to the UN secretary-general's moves that hastened the Six-Day War; the Green Line, the greatest achievement in Bunche's lifetime, was erased and he was a partner to its erasure, with his bare hands. He died in 1971. To the very end, he considered the Six-Day War a personal tragedy.