The British Mandate - The State of Israel - War

The British Mandate

   

The British promised to create a Jewish state. Instead they served their own Arab-linked interests as millions died in the Holocaust.

---

World War I changed the map of the world.

World War I, a huge conflict waged over four years (1914-1918) pitted the Allies (chiefly France, Britain, Russia, and later, the U.S.) and the Central Powers (Germany, Austria-Hungary, and the Turkish Ottoman Empire) against each other. The end result of their struggle was very dramatic:

• Russia of the Czars disappeared. In the midst of the war, and in some part because of it, the Russian Revolution succeeded, creating the Communist state known as the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics.
• The domination of Eastern Europe by Germany and the Austria-Hungarian Empire ended. Poland—which had not existed for more than a hundred years, having been divided between Russia, and Prussia (Germany) and Austro-Hungary—was re-created anew.
• The entire Middle East, which had been part of the Ottoman Empire, was split into two great swaths. Half was controlled by France (the French Mandate), the other half by England (the British Mandate).

BALFOUR DECLARATION

The French Mandate included the northern part of what is today the territory of Lebanon and Syria. The British Mandate included the southern and eastern part of the Ottoman Empire.

It is important to keep in mind that the Ottoman Empire controlled the Middle East from the 16th to the early 20th century—for some 400 years. During this time, the countries of Syria, Lebanon, Iraq, Saudi Arabia, etc. did not exist. The residents in these areas were predominately Arab subjects of the Ottoman Empire, living in loosely organized tribal communities.

The British Mandate included the landmass on the West Bank of the Jordan River all the way to the Mediterranean Sea, as well as the landmass on the East Bank of the Jordan River, an area known as Trans-Jordan. The British called this whole huge area “Palestine.”

(As we might recall from Part 38, the name Palestine for the land of Israel had been coined by the Romans after their destruction of Jerusalem, which they re-named Aelia Capitolina.)

When the British took over the land of Israel, suddenly the dream of a homeland for the Jews became a real possibility as opposed to a fervent hope.

By this time, there were between 85,000 to 100,000 Jews living in the Land of Israel, of a total population of 600,000. (See History of the Jews by Paul Johnson, p. 430.) Most of the Arabs living in the land had migrated there only in the previous thirty years attracted by the jobs created by the Jews who were building and farming. (Note that when Jews began to immigrate to Palestine in large numbers in 1882, fewer than 250,000 Arabs lived there. See From Time Immemorial by Joan Peters, p. 244)

A big boost for a Jewish homeland came from Earl Arthur Balfour (1848-1930), then foreign secretary, who in 1917 promised British support for the cause.

As we might recall from Part 63, Balfour became a friend of the Jewish cause in some measure because of Chaim Weizmann whose invention of artificial acetone, the chief ingredient in cordite-smokeless gun powder, enabled the British to mass-produce gunpowder for the war effort. Balfour said that acetone converted him to Zionism.

A fascinating conversation is recorded between Balfour and Weizmann in 1906, with Balfour arguing that the Jews should consider the offer made by the British some three years earlier to take Uganda instead of Israel (At the time the Ottomans still controlled the Middle East)l:

In reaction, Weizmann said to Balfour, “Would you take Paris over London?”

Balfour replied, “But we already have London.” (He meant, of course, Jews should take whatever they can get; beggars can’t be choosers.)

At which point Weizmann came back with, “Mr. Balfour, the Jews had Jerusalem when London was a marsh.”

That gave Balfour pause. “Are there many Jews who think like you?” he asked.

“I believe I speak the mind of millions of Jews whom you will never see and who cannot speak for themselves, but with whom I could pave the streets of the country I come from,” Weizmann answered.

“If this is so, you will one day be a force,” Balfour concluded.

Balfour’s support for a Jewish homeland became known in history as the Balfour Declaration which was issued in the form a letter to Lord Rothschild on November 2nd, 1917. It stated:

“His Majesty’s government looks with favor upon the establishment in Palestine of a national homeland for the Jewish people.”

One month later, in December of 1917, the Turks surrendered Jerusalem to British.

But talk is cheap, and when it came to the reality of creating such a state, the British had many other considerations and interests to take into consideration, as we shall see presently.

FAILED PROMISES

Despite the support of certain British political figures, the British Foreign Ministry and others were generally much more pro-Arab, and the British government got busy carving out Arab countries from the lands of the Ottoman Empire.

Through their efforts the country of Iraq was created in 1921. It was a monarchy with Faisal ibn Hussein, the son of Hussein the Sherif of Mecca, as king. Soon thereafter Iraqi oil started to flow to the West.

Iraq has the second largest known oil reserves in the world (after Saudi Arabia) and it is no wonder the British were interested in having a bond with this country as well as other oil-rich Arab states.

Another country created by the British in 1922 was Jordan. In 1923, the British installed Abdullah ibn Hussein, another son of the Sherif of Mecca, as emir of the new country called Trans-Jordan, later Jordan. Jordan was confined to the East Bank of the River Jordan and did not include any part of the West Bank. (Jordan encompassed 75% of the total area of the British Mandate. In 1922 the British separated this territory from the mandate territory on the west bank of the Jordan River (which they called Palestine) and made it off-limits to Jewish settlement.)

Why were the sons of the Sherif of Mecca made rulers of these countries?

The British wanted alliances with all the Arab kingdoms. They had shored up support for the Ibn Saud of the Arabian Peninsula, who had fought the Turks alongside them. Ibn Saud got Saudi Arabia.

But when that happened, the British had to pay off the Hussein Sherif of Mecca, who was in charge of the Islamic holy sites and who had also sided with British against the Ottomans in WW I. (The Hussein family are Hashemites, the tribe of Mohammed, the founder of Islam, and have been traditionally the keepers of Holy City of Mecca.)

They had to give him and his children some land, so they gave them Iraq and Trans-Jordan—the land on the East Bank of the River Jordan.

King Abdullah of Jordan was not adverse to the creation of a Jewish State and even met secretly with members of the Jewish Agency.. He paid for his moderation with his life when he was gunned down by an assassin on the Temple Mount in Jerusalem on July 20th, 1951. His brother, King Faisal I of Iraq, was also willing to live at peace with a Jewish State and even welcomed the return of the Jewish people to the land of Israel [2]

NO ISRAEL

Yet despite all this country-making, and despite the Balfour Declaration, the British could not get around to creating a country called Israel.

Why not?

There was a clear British bias against the Jews as is readily apparent to anyone who has studied the series of White Papers issued by the British government in the 1920s and 1930s.

The reasons for this bias were:

• The British had to deal with the issue of an Arab majority living in what was left of Palestine. They came up with all kinds of partition plans all of which were rejected by the Arabs. (Not all Arabs were opposed by-the-way; King Faisal of Iraq signed an agreement with Chaim Weizman calling for peace and cooperation.)
• Many members of the British government and military were clearly anti-Semitic and had a romantic/patronizing attitude toward the Arabs.

The Arabs had oil and England needed oil. In the final analysis, the British had to take into consideration what was in their best interest. Looking after their strategic interests and placating tens of millions of Arabs was more important in their eyes than saving a few hundred thousand Jews, even though this went against the conditions of the mandate that they were granted in 1920.[1]

Meanwhile the poor Jews, not knowing that the British were going to back out of their promise, kept migrating to the land.

The third migration or aliyah (between 1919 and 1923) brought 35,000 Jews to the land. The fourth aliyah (between 1924 and 1928) brought 80,000 Jews to the land. The fifth aliyah (between 1929 and 1939 as Hitler rose to power in Germany) brought 250,000 Jews to the land.

ARAB RIOTS

The Arabs made it clear that they were not going to sit still for a Jewish state. In August of 1929, due to the instigation of the preachers in the mosques, a series of riots broke out in which many Jews were massacred.

The New York Times in its history of Israel (Israel: from Ancient Times to the Modern Nation, pp. 38-39) writes of this time:

“The riots of August, 1929, were ignited in Jerusalem over a rumor spread by Arab leaders that Jews were going to destroy Al-Aqsa Mosque, Islam’s third most holy shrine. Fighting soon spread throughout Palestine. The worst massacres were in Hebron, sacred to Jew and Muslim alike, where 67 Orthodox Jews - men, women and children - were slaughtered by Arabs and 50 more wounded. Pierre van Paassen, a reporter, described the horror that he witnessed by lamplight in a Jewish seminary in Hebron: ‘The slain students in the yard, the dead men in the synagogue, slashed throats and mutilated bodies.’ By the time order was restored 133 Jews had been killed, 399 wounded.”

The 1930s saw more rioting and more massacres, especially in Jaffa and again in Hebron.

In response, the British convened the Peel Commission which almost totally did away with the Balfour Declaration that had originally promised a Jewish homeland in Palestine on both sides of the River Jordan.

In July of 1937, the Peel Commission issued a report which said that all the Jews should be confined to a tiny state that would include a sliver of land along the Mediterranean coast and a small piece in the north abutting the west side of the Lake Kineret (“Sea of Galilee”).

The Arabs greeted the Peel Commission recommendation with a revolt which lasted until 1939.

The Arab Revolt was led by Haj Amin Husseini (c. 1893-1974), who was originally appointed as the Mufti of Jerusalem by the British. It is interesting to note that in addition to hundreds of Jews who were killed by Arabs, some 3,000 Arabs died in this revolt at the hands of other Arabs and at the hands of the British.

For all the British criticism of Israel today, at that time the British were not shy in their efforts to quell the rioting. They introduced the policy of housing demolition and used artillery to shell rebellious towns.

The revolt was finally crushed and the Mufti fled first to Beirut and later to Europe, where he became an ally of Adolph Hitler, organizing a Bosnian S.S. unit to kill Jews in the Balkans.

After the war he was captured but escaped. He was later involved in fomenting violence, including the assassination of King Abdullah of Jordan in 1951. He died in Beirut in 1974. (Faisal Husseini, who was the PLO’s representatives in Jerusalem and who died of a heart attack 2001 was a relative of his.)

DEATH SENTENCE

The British did not keep the promise contained in the Balfour Declaration and neither did they keep the promise contained in the Peel Commission report.

They did enforce one aspect of the Peel Commission report—that which limited Jewish migration to the land to only 12,000 a year for the next five years (1939-1943). By doing so the British doomed the Jews under the control of Nazis—they would no longer be able to find refuge in their homeland.

They did this, knowing full well what the Germans were doing to the Jews—this was after the Nuremberg Laws and Kristallnacht (see
Part 60). And still the British closed an escape route that would have saved millions of Jewish lives.

The Jews were desperate and they tried to come illegally in a movement known as Aliyah Bet. In response, the British set up a blockade to keep them out.

Many Jews managed to circumvent the blockade and it is estimated that 115,000 Jews got through. But 115,000 is a very small number compared to the 6 million Jews who died in the Holocaust and who could not find refuge in the land of Israel.

JEWISH RESISTANCE

Meanwhile, the mainstream of the Zionist movement in the Land of Israel coalesced into the Jewish Agency, an organization headed by David Ben-Gurion. Officially recognized by the British as representing Jewish aspirations, the Jewish Agency tried not to antagonize the British openly.

The Jewish Agency did have an underground military organization called the Haganah, which tried to protect the Jewish settlements from the Arabs (since the British were doing next to nothing in this regard.)

There were other Zionists, who were not part of the Jewish Agency, who felt that the Jewish Agency was too conciliatory to the British. As they saw it, the British had broken promise after promise to the Jews and had openly sided with the Arabs. Therefore, the Jews had to be much more pro-active.

One of those who had a more aggressive attitude was Vladimir Jabotinsky (1880-1940).

Originally from Odessa, Jabotinsky broke away from the mainstream Zionist movement and in 1923 formed the World Union of Zionist Revisionists. This organization from 1936 on urged the evacuation of Eastern European Jews to Palestine. Had their pleas been heeded by the British, many Jews could have been saved from the Holocaust.

At this time Jabotinsky also became the head of the Jewish underground movement called Irgun Tzevai Leumi—simply known as the Irgun—founded in 1937.

In 1941, Menachem Begin (1913-1992), who would later become Prime Minister of Israel, arrived from Russia and assumed the leadership of the Irgun, which took a radical approach towards confronting the British and attacking the Arabs, who were responsible for the death of Jews.

Another, even more radical group, was the Lochamei Cherut Yisrael—better known as Lechi and called by the British the “Stern Gang” after its founder Avraham Stern (1907-1942). The future Prime Minister of Israel, Yitzchak Shamir, was one of the key leaders of Lechi.

As Jewish patience with the British withered after the devastation of the Holocaust, these more radical groups engaged in violent resistance against the British.

For example, the Irgun blew up one wing of the King David Hotel in Jerusalem in 1946 which at the time was the headquarters of the British authorities in Palestine. Their prior warning was apparently received and ignored. Menachem Begin quotes one British official who supposedly refused to evacuate the building, saying: “We don’t take orders from the Jews.” As a result, the casualty toll was high: 91 killed and 45 injured. Among the casualties were 15 Jews.

They also hanged two British army officers in retribution for the hanging of Irgun members, and staged a daring break-out of the Acco (Acre) prison where the British held many Jews active in the resistance.

A senior British officer summed up the effects of the Jewish resistance groups:

“The British Army suffered greater losses in traffic accidents than in all the [Jewish] underground operations put together. But the blows to the Empire’s pride and prestige were something which could not be digested. The break-in at the Acre Prison and hanging of the two sergeants were blows to our pride. The break-in at the prison gained the symbolic significance of the fall of the Bastille.” (To the Promised Land by Uri Dan, p. 120)

But the British still did not give in.

[1]For an excellent summary of the period see: Connor Cruise-O’Brien, The Siege-The Story of Israel and Zionism. (Paladin Grafton Books, 1988).

[2] In January 1919, Faisal I and Dr. Chaim Weizmann, President of the World Zionist Organization signed the Faisal-Weizmann Agreement for Arab-Jewish cooperation, in which Faisal conditionally accepted the Balfour Declaration on which subject he made the following statement: “We Arabs ... look with the deepest sympathy on the Zionist movement. Our deputation here in Paris is fully acquainted with the proposals submitted yesterday by the Zionist Organisation to the Peace Conference, and we regard them as moderate and proper. We will do our best, in so far as we are concerned, to help them through; we will wish the Jews a most hearty welcome home…. I look forward, and my people with me look forward, to a future in which we will help you and you will help us, so that the countries in which we are mutually interested may once again take their places in the community of the civilised peoples of the world “

---

#64 of 70 in the Aish.com Jewish History Series
<< Previous Part 63: Modern Zionism	Next >> Part 65: The State of Israel

The State of Israel

   

After the British brutally turned away Holocaust survivors from Israel, the UN voted to partition the land.

---

The British broke their promise to the Jews while they created new Arab countries out of the land of the former Ottoman Empire. In addition, because of Arab revolts and pressure, the British even barred entry to the land of Israel to Jews fleeing the Holocaust. (See Part 64.)

Even when the full scope of the Holocaust was known, and thousands of Holocaust survivors were stranded in refugee camps (DP camps), the British refused to relent.

One of the most egregious of the British actions involved the refugee ship,Exodus, which the Royal Navy intercepted in 1947 in the Mediterranean Sea with 4,500 Jews aboard. The ship was brought into Haifa port under British escort; there the Holocaust survivors were forcibly transferred to another ship and returned back to Germany via France.

Abba Eban, who was then the Jewish liaison to a special UN committee—called Special Committee On Palestine or UNSCOP—persuaded four UN representatives to go to Haifa to witness the brutality of the British against the Jews.

Historian Martin Gilbert includes Eban’s account of what happened there in Israel: A History (p. 145):

“[In Haifa] the four members watched a ‘gruesome operation.’ The Jewish refugees had decided ‘not to accept banishment with docility. If anyone had wanted to know what Churchill meant by a “squalid war,” he would have found out by watching British soldier using rifle butts, hose pipes and tear gas against the survivors of the death camps. Men, women and children were forcibly taken off to prison ships, locked in cages below decks and set out of Palestine waters.’

“When the four members of UNSCOP came back to Jerusalem, Eban recalled, ‘they were pale with shock. I could see that they were pre-occupied with one point alone: if this was the only way that the British Mandate could continue, it would be better not to continue it at all.’”

UN PARTITION OF PALESTINE

The British also wanted out of the problem. They had 100,000 soldiers/police trying to maintain control with a total population of about 600,000 Jews and 1.2 million Arabs. (Interestingly, until its independence in 1947, they had the same size force controlling India with a population of over 350 million!)

And so it came to pass that the British turned the matter over to the UN which decided to end the British Mandate over what was left of “Palestine” (after the creation of the country of Jordan) and to divide the remaining land among the Arabs and Jews, based on the demographic reality within the country. (Areas with a majority of Jewish population would go to the Jews while areas with an Arab majority would go to the Arabs) . The proposal called for the Jews to get:

• a narrow strip of land along the Mediterranean coast, including Tel Aviv and Haifa
• a piece of land surrounding the Kineret (Sea of Galilee), including the Golan Heights
• a large piece in the south, which was the uninhabitable Negev Desert

The Arabs were to get:

• the Gaza Strip
• a chunk of the north, including the city of Tzfat (Safed) and western Galilee
• the entire central mountain region of Judea and Samaria (today known as the West Bank) till the River Jerusalem was to be under international control.

On November 29, 1947, the United Nations voted for this partition plan . Of those voting, 33 nations voted yes, including USA and USSR; 13 mostly-Arab nations voted no; 11 nations abstained.

Hard-hearted to the end, the British did not vote yes; they abstained. They also announced that they would not cooperate in the execution of the partition plan and that they would depart from Palestine by May 15, 1948.

As disappointed as the Jews were with the portion allotted for the Jewish state, they felt that something was better than nothing after all the waiting and the pain.

However, the Arabs, always maximalist in their demands, rejected the UN resolution. The next day Arab rioting began, and two weeks later volunteers from surrounding Arab countries began arriving into Palestine to fight the Jews.

The British, happy to be out of the situation, were packing up to go and turned their backs on what was going on. Writes David Ben Gurion in hisIsrael: A Personal History (p. 65):

“The British did not lift a finger to stop this military invasion. They also refused to cooperate with the UN committee charged with supervising implementation of the General Assembly resolution. At the same time, the Arabs living in the district destined to become part of the Jewish state began evacuating their homes and moving to the Arab states neighboring Palestine at the orders of the Arab High Committee.”

In the midst of confusion, the rioting continued with almost 1,000 Jews murdered by Arabs in the ensuing four months.

One of the worst incidents occurred on April 13, 1948. A convoy of doctors and nurses making their way to Hadassah Hospital on Mount Scopus was ambushed by Arabs. This happened 200 yards of a British police station. After a seven-hour shoot-out, during which the British did almost nothing, virtually all the members of the convoy (77) were killed. Some of the bodies were so badly burned that 24 were never identified.

JERUSALEM UNDER SIEGE

In all of this, the British quietly encouraged the King of Jordan, Abdullah, to invade and annex the Arab sections to his kingdom. To Abdullah this was not enough. He wanted Jerusalem too.

As a result Jerusalem came under siege.

The focus of the struggle during April and May 1948 was the road to Jerusalem which passes through the mountains. The vehicles on that road are completely exposed to gunmen up above. It was on this road that all supplies to the Jews of the city had to come. But they could not get through. steel plates were welded on to trucks in attempt to create primitive armored cars that could withstand the constant ambushes. The narrow, winding road and the overweight vehicles made easy targets. Many were destroyed and the conveys of badly needed food and other supplies weren’t making it to Jerusalem,

Hunger reigned. The residents of the Jewish Quarter of the Old City were completely cut off.

The most intense fighting for control of the road to Jerusalem took place at the Kastel in the mountains to west of Jerusalem. The Kastel was the site of an ancient fortress and the Arab forces used the position as the staging area for attacks on the convoys. On April 5, 1948 Haganah forced launched an attack on the Arab positions above the Jerusalem-Tel Aviv highway and the Kastel. The fighting was fierce and the position changed hands several times. And then an amazing incident happened. A young Yemenite Jew, who was not known for his shooting skills, killed Abdul Khader el-Husseini the leader of the Arab forces. Demoralized, the Arab forces called off their counter attack and by the next day they had abandoned their positions to attend his funeral.

As a result a huge convoy of 250 trucks of food was able to re-supply the city and several more convoys soon followed. Writes Berel Wein inTriumph of Survival (p. 397):

“[On Shabbat, April 17, 1948] Jews left their synagogues and, with their prayer shawls still draping their shoulders, helped unload the convoy. The siege of Jerusalem was broken for the moment. The Arabs, however, mounted a strong counter-attack, and by the end of April once again cut the Jerusalem road… for the next seven weeks Jewish Jerusalem was isolated.”

A NEW STATE IS BORN

The official date given by the United Nations in their partition vote for the creation of the two new entities was May 15th, 1948.

Thus, May 14th was to be the last day of the British Mandate. At 4 p.m., the British lowered their flag and immediately the Jews raised their own.

It was a flag designed in 1897 by the First Zionist Congress. It was white (the color of newness and purity), and it had two blue stripes (the color of heaven) like the stripes of a tallit, the prayer shawl, which symbolized the transmission of Jewish tradition. In its center was the Star of David.

Thus on May 14, 1948 at 4:00 p.m., Hay Iyar, the 5th of Iyar, despite immense international pressure not to declare independence, Israel declared itself a state.

After 2,000 years, the land of Israel was once more in the hands of the Jews.

David Ben Gurion read the Declaration of Independence over the radio:

“The Land of Israel was the birthplace of the Jewish people. Here the spiritual, religious and national identity was formed. Here they achieved independence and created a culture of national and universal significance. Here they wrote and gave the Bible to the world…

“Exiled from Palestine, the Jewish people remained faithful to it in all the countries of the dispersion, never ceasing to pray and hope for their return and restoration of their national freedom.

“Accordingly we, the members of the National Council met together in solemn assembly today and by virtue of the natural and historic right of the Jewish people and with the support of the resolution of the General of the United Nations, hereby proclaim the establishment of the Jewish state in Palestine to be called Israel…

“We offer peace and amity to all neighboring states and their peoples and invite them to cooperate with the independent Jewish nation for the common good of all…

“With trust in the Rock of Israel, we set our hands to this declaration at this session of the Provisional State Council in the city of Tel Aviv on Sabbath Eve, 5th Iyar 5708, 14th day of May 1948.”

(Note that the Declaration of Independence of Israel—unlike the American Declaration of Independence—does not mention God. This is because the hard-line secularists that dominated the Jewish Agency opposed any such thing. “Rock of Israel” -which could be understood either as God or the Israeli Defense Force-became a compromise.)

Israeli Minister, Zeev Sharef described the scene:

  ...Rabbi Y.L. Fishman delivered the benediction of “Who hath kept and sustained and brought us to this day,” which the aged rabbi did in a trembling voice choked with emotion…Suddenly the full impact of what had been done came home.-The significance of the creation of the state… As the signing of the document ended, Hatikvah was struck up by the orchestra; and it seemed as if the heavens had opened and were pouring out a song of joy on the rebirth of a nation. The audience stood motionless, transfixed… “The State of Israel is established! This meeting is ended!” It had taken thirty-two minutes in all to proclaim the independence o9f a people who, for 1,887 years, had been under the servitude of other nations… People embraced…tears of rejoicing streamed; yet there was grief for sons who had fallen and sons whose fate was in the womb of the future-grief and dread locked the innermost recesses of the heart. Outside thousands had gathered….The streets of Tel Aviv were filled with crowds…

People were dancing in the streets. But not for long.

Almost immediately five Arab countries declared war and Egypt bombed Tel Aviv.

---

[1]There can be little doubt that one of the primary reasons for U.N. support for a Jewish States came out of European guilt for the Holocaust. The death of millions of Jews “bought” enough sympathy to allow for the creation of a Jewish State. Sadly, since the partition vote of 1947, the U.N. voting record on Israel has gotten progressively worse: In 1975 the U.N. voted to declare Zionism as a racist ideology (resolution 3379) and since 1990 fully two thirds of ALL U.N. resolutions have condemned Israel. For more on this topic see: Dore Gold, Tower of Babble-How the United Nations Has Fueled Global Chaos. New York: Crown Forum, 2004. and Eric Shawn, The U.N. Exposed-How the United nations Sabotages America’s Security. New York: Sentinel, 2006.

[2] While armies from surrounding Arab countries had to wait until the British departed to officially invade, the actual fighting began immediately after the U.N. partition vote and the British did little or nothing to stop it.

[3] Larry Collins & Dominique Lapierre, O Jerusalem,(Pocket Books, 1972), p. 327.

[4] In May 1948, once the war of Independence had officially begun, Arab forces were able to close the road off once again by firing from the British police station at Latrun. The Haganah (fledgling Israeli army) tried several times to take Latrun but failed. Just as Jerusalem was about to fall an alternative road (nick named the “Burma Road”) was quickly cut through the rocky hills allowing badly needed supplies to arrive and prevent the fall of Jerusalem to the Arabs.

[5] Benjamin Blech, Eyewitness to Jewish History. (New York: John Wiley & Sons, Inc., 2004), p.267.

---

#65 of 70 in the Aish.com Jewish History Series
<< Previous Part 64: The British Mandate	Next >> Part 66: War

War

   

Since its founding in 1948, Israel has been in a constant state of war and yet it has achieved great economic success.

---

The Arab world is not in a compromising mood… Nations never concede; they fight. You won’t get anything by peaceful means or compromise. You can, perhaps, get something, but only by force of your arms… It may be that we shall lose Palestine. But it’s too late to talk of peaceful solutions.

Azzam Pasha, Secretary General of the Arab League, Sept. 16 1947

On Erev Shabbat, 5th Iyar 5708, 14th day of May 1948, Israel became a state.

And immediately it was plunged into war as five of the neighboring Arab states attacked. These Arab states had previously voted against the UN partition of Palestine and now simply refused to recognize that historic and democratic vote. (See Part 65 for more on this subject.)

Little Israel, which had virtually no heavy artillery, no tanks, no airplanes, had to defend itself against Egypt, Lebanon, Syria, Jordan and Iraq! That’s 600,000 Jews against 45 million Arabs, while the United Nations did nothing.

And yet the Jews won. It was nothing short of a miracle.

But the victory was bittersweet. The Old City of Jerusalem—including the Jewish Quarter and access to the Kotel, the Western (Wailing) Wall—fell to the Jordanians. The Jews were driven out of the Old City, and their homes and synagogues looted and destroyed.

Even though the Jordanians signed an armistice agreement that would allow Jews access to the Western Wall and the cemetery on the Mount of Olives, they barred Jewish access to these sites and desecrated thousands of tombs on the Mount Olives, and the world again did not lift a finger to protest that the religious rights of a people were being violated.

(For fascinating details about the War of Independence, see The Pledgeby Leonard Slater.)

NEW BORDERS

The War of Independence had lasted 13 months. Some 6,000 Israelis died or a full 1% of the Jewish population at that time.

(If that had happened in America, proportionally, 3 million people would have died. As upset as America was about the Vietnam War, it lost 52,000 soldiers in that war.)

Mt. Herzl, the national cemetery, is full of graves without names. These are graves of Holocaust survivors who made it to Israel only to be handed a gun in order to fight for the survival of the Jewish nation. No one had time to get to know their names. They went down in history only as Yossi or Hershel or Moshe. It is a tragic thing to see all these graves marked “Plony” (which is the Israeli version of “John Doe.”)

The War of Independence was Israel’s costliest war.

The end of the war defined the borders of the new State of Israel in a radically new way. The borders were not the ones that the UN defined in their partition vote. In sum total, Israel got more land, though it lost the Old City of Jerusalem.

ISRAEL	As per UN vote:	After the 1948 war:
	Narrow strip of land along Mediterranean (Tel Aviv and Haifa)	Narrow strip of land along Mediterranean (Tel Aviv and Haifa)
JEWISH CONTROL	Land surrounding the Sea of Galilee Negev Desert	Land surrounding the Sea of Galilee Negev Desert North and Western Galilee (Tzfat)
ARAB CONTROL	Entire West Bank of the River Jordan (Judea and Samaria) Gaza Strip North and Western Galilee (Tzfat)	Entire West Bank of the River Jordan (Judea and Samaria) Gaza Strip
Jerusalem	Under international control	In Jordanian hands

POPULATION

Already, at the time of the UN partition vote, Arab residents of Palestine began fleeing in anticipation of war. The first to go were the 30,000 of the wealthiest. By January 1948 the Palestine Arab Higher Committee asked other Arab countries to bar entry of refugees because the Arab exodus from Palestine was so alarming.

At the time of the declaration of the State of Israel, 500,000 Arabs fled as war broke out.(1)

At the same time, 820,000 Jews (out of total estimated population of more than 870,000) were forced to flee Arab lands such as Syria, Iraq, Egypt etc. Most of the property of these Jews, many of whom were wealthy people, was confiscated, never to be returned. (Of these Jews, about 580,000 settled in Israel.) (2)

Once the war was over, the population began to rise by leaps and bounds with Jewish immigrants coming not only from Arab countries, but also from other states and more recently from Ethiopia and Russia.

• 1948: 600,000 Jews
• 1956: 1.2 million Jews
• 1973: 1.8 million Jews
• 1999: 4.7 million Jews
• 2007: 5.4 million Jews(3)

The population of Israel, since the founding of the state, has increased 900%! This increase had presented a special challenge, because of the huge economic burden of absorbing such a huge number of newcomers.

However, while it was a burden, the population growth has also been a big blessing. Immigration has done tremendous things for the country. The standard of living in Israel—which in 1948 was forced to ration food—has gone up tremendously in the last two decades.

Was this a miracle? Clearly. But it certainly sounds like a step toward the fulfillment of the Biblical prophecy.

And the Lord, your God, shall return you from your captivity, and have compassion upon you. He shall return and gather you from amongst all the nations. And the Lord, your God will bring you back into the land your fathers inherited. He will make you even more prosperous and numerous than your fathers. (Deut. 30:3-5)
For thus says God, “Shout with joy for Jacob, exult at the head of the nations; proclaim your praise and say: ‘O God, deliver your people, the remnant of Israel!’ Behold, I will bring them back from northern lands, and gather them from the ends of the world ...” (Jeremiah 31:6-7)

But Israel has not only been able to absorb huge masses of people, it has not only survived living in a constant state of war, it has grown economically. And this despite various trade boycotts instigated by Arab nations. (For example, Pepsi Cola didn’t sell in Israel for years because of the boycott. For many years, Subaru was the only Japanese car manufacturer to sell here.) Keeping this in mind, it is absolutely miraculous what Israel has been able to do.

Not only did the “desert bloom,” but in a relatively short time the once barren land was producing a surplus! This surplus was then exported to other, far more “lush” countries, like the U.S.

Another fulfillment of prophecy:

“As for you, O mountains of Israel, you shall shoot forth your branches and bear your fruit for My people Israel, for their return is close at hand. For behold, I am with you and I shall turn to you; then you shall be tilled and sown. And I will multiply men upon you, the entire family of Israel.” (Ezekiel 36:8-11)

In 1997 the International Monetary Fund took Israel off the list of developing countries, because it is now fully developed. It has the 19th highest standard of living in the world, just behind that of England.(4)

SIX DAY WAR

The Arab countries did not easily accept their defeat in 1948. All the while they were plotting a comeback.(5)

On May 22, 1967, Egyptian President Gamal Abdel Nasser (1918-1970) declared the Strait of Tiran—that is Israel’s sea access to Eilat—was closed to all Israeli ships and any other ships bound for Israel. This attempt at economic strangulation would have been an act of war to any other country, but initially Israel did not react, attempting to find a political solution.

Meanwhile, Nasser became more and more aggressive in his verbal attacks on Israel. On May 27, 1967, he declared: “Our basic objective will be the destruction of Israel. On June 1, 1967, Iraq’s president Abel Rahman Aref declared: “Our goal is clear—to wipe Israel off the map.”

Egypt and Syria already had an alliance combining their armies and now Egypt made a similar agreement with Jordan. It was clear that war was imminent.

On June 5th, 1967, Israel, realizing that the entire Arab world is about to attack, launched a preemptive strike.

It was one of the most brilliant preemptive strikes in history. In one fell swoop, Israeli planes bombed the entire Egyptian Air Force still sitting on the ground, and a day later did the same thing to the entire Jordanian Air Force.

Why didn’t the Jordanians react after the Egyptians were bombed? Because the Egyptians were broadcasting that they had achieved a tremendous victory (when they were completely crushed). Not knowing what was truly happening, the Jordanians believed the propaganda and thus were unprepared.

In just six days, Israel captured huge chunks of territory and won what is generally considered to be one of the greatest military victories in history:

• In the south, the Sinai Peninsula (from Egypt)
• In the north, the Golan Heights (from Syria); note that Syria, initially part of the lands of the French Mandate after World War I, became part of the United Arab Republic (together with Egypt and Yemen) in 1958; in 1961 Syria withdrew from the union, creating its own borders which included the Golan Heights
• In the east, the West Bank of the River Jordan, which Jordan annexed after 1948, though this land was never meant to be part of the country of Jordan
• And most importantly, Israel re-captured the Old City of Jerusalem, which should have been “international” under the UN plan, but which Jordan unilaterally took over in 1948 barring all Jews

REUNITED JERUSALEM

For 19 years, Jews had not been able to enter the Old City or pray at their most holy of sites, the Temple Mount or the Kotel (the Western Wall) of the Temple Mount.

Many of the soldiers fighting the war had not been born yet when this site was lost to the Jewish people. They had only seen it in photographs.

Entering the Old City, they did not know where to go, and when they found it, they openly wept.

On the radio, the paratrooper, who was leading the Old City forces, announced: “Har HaBayit b’yadenu—The Temple Mount is in our hands.”

People were jubilant. They couldn’t believe the miracle that had happened.

It must be stressed that the Jewish behavior in victory was in stark contrast to the Arab behavior after their victory over the Old City in 1948, when five dozen synagogues were looted and destroyed. Jewish soldiers did not dynamite the Dome of the Rock or any other mosque in the Old City and access to these sites for Arab has continued uninterrupted.

PLO

The Palestinian Liberation Organization (PLO) was founded in January 1964 by Ahmed Shukeiry as a representative organization of the Arab refugees of the 1948 war. It was never a peaceful organization, however. In fact, Shukeiry once predicted an Arab victory over Israel, saying: “Those [Jews] who survive will remain in Palestine. I estimate that none of them will survive.”

The first and consistent aim of the PLO was the elimination of the State of Israel and its replacement by the State of Palestine.

(It is important to note that a State of Palestine had never existed in history. The Arab people living in this land during the days of the Ottoman Empire were simply Arabs with no national identity. After the Ottoman Empire collapsed, in the days of the British Mandate, both Jews and Arabs were considered “Palestinians” by the British.)

Egyptian-born Yassir Arafat (1929-) was the head of Fatah, the PLO’s terrorist group, and after the Six Day War, he took over the entire organization.

One of the most infamous acts carried out under Arafat’s direction in the early days was the kidnapping and murder of 11 Israeli athletes at the 1972 Munich Olympics.

It is important to remember that the world again stood silent. The Olympic Games went on, while the terrorists were holding the Jewish athletes. The Israelis wanted to intervene but the Germans refused their help. In the end, the Germans totally botched the rescue attempt which led to the deaths of all the athlete hostages. Israel later hunted down and killed many of the terrorists responsible for Munich.

Since that time the PLO has carried out literally countless numbers of terrorist attacks against Israelis. To list them all would take a book in itself.

PEACE PROCESS

Since the U.N. partition vote in November of 1947, Israel has consistently called on the surrounding Arab Nations live in Peace with the Jewish state but these offers have almost always been rejected. On May 14th 1948, the day the State of Israel was created, Prime Minister David Ben Gurion stated:

In the midst of wanton aggression, we yet call upon the Arab inhabitants of the State of Israel to preserve the ways of peace and play their part in the development of the State, on the basis of full and equal citizenship and due representation in all its bodies and institutions…. We extend our hand in peace and neighborliness to all the neighboring states and their peoples, and invite them to cooperate with the independent Jewish nation for the common good of all.

Azzam Pasha’s, Secretary of the Arab League, statement the following day characterized the uncompromising Arab attitude toward the fledgling Jewish state:

This will be a war of extermination and a momentous massacre which will be spoken of like the Mongolian massacre and the Crusades.

It’s important to note that immediately following Israel’s victory in the Six Day War, the Israeli government, led by Prime Minister Levi Eshkol, excepted U.N. Resolution 242and offered to return the captured territories to the surrounding Arab countries in return for peace treaties with its Arab neighbors. In August 1967, the Arab League rejected the offer:

Kings and presidents have agreed to unified efforts international and diplomatic levels to eliminate the consequences of aggression and to assure the withdrawal of the aggressor forces of Israel from Arab lands, but within the limits to which Arab states are committed:
NO PEACE with Israel,
NO NEGOTIATIONS with Israel,
NO RECOGNITION of Israel….

In 1979, Egyptian president Anwar Sadat, in a bold move that ultimately cost him his life (He was assassinated by radical Moslems in Cairo in 1981), broke from the traditional Arab rejectionist position and signed a peace treaty with Israeli prime minister, Menachem Begin. In return Israel returned every square inch of territory it won in the ‘67 war.

In 1994, King Hussein of Jordan signed the second peace treaty with the government of Yitzchak Rabin (Who was murdered in 1995).

Israel has proven time and time again that it desires peace above all else and has been willing to make serious territorial concessions for the sake of peace.

In 2,000 the Palestinian Authority, led by Yassar Arafat, rejected an incredible offer by Prime Minister, Ehud Barak, for complete Israeli withdrawal from all lands taken in ‘67 and for the creation of a Palestinian State on this territory(6).. Indeed, it is beyond the scope of this Crash Course in Jewish History to attempt to outline the turbulent history of the State of Israel in the last 35 years which includes at least two major wars—1973, the Yom Kippur War, (7) the 1982, Lebanon War(8)—as well as the attacks by Iraq in the 1991 Persian Gulf War and the second Lebanon War in 2006.

Prime Minister Gold a Meir once remarked that: “We (Israel) will only have peace with the Arabs when they love their children more than they hate us.”

Events of the past few years have unfortunately shown that the Arab world, for the most part, is not moving in the direction of Peace. The Moslem world, especially Iran, continues to demonize, de-legitimize and threaten to destroy Israel. Palestinian children are taught to hate Jews and Israel and to aspire to be martyrs and suicide bombers. Despite Israel ‘s painful withdrawal from Gaza in the summer of 2005 the situation there has further deteriorated with the Hamas take-over of Gaza in 2007 and the daily firing of rockets and mortar rounds into southern Israel. It is clear that the Hamas, the PLA and many other Islamic states have still not abandoned their dream of destroying Israel.

Yet despite all these obstacles, Israel continues to strive for peace; the economy continues to expand; the high-tech industry is booming and the population continues to grow as the Diaspora slowly “shuts down” and the Jewish people return home. Perhaps the Israel Ministry of Tourism said it best when they coined the slogan: “Israel, the miracle on the Mediterranean.”

---

[1] Source: Martin Gilbert, The Arab -Israeli Conflict-Its History in Maps. (4th Edition).There is much debate about the exact number of refugees, both Jewish and Arab and the causes of the refugee problem. The vast majority of Jewish refugees from Arab lands were either expelled from these countries or chose to leave due to rising antisemtism caused by the Arab-Israeli conflict and various Arab governments anti-Israel and anti-Jewish rhetoric. The Arab refugees from Israel (both in 1948 and 1967) also left for a variety of reasons: Many heeded the “advice” of Arab leaders to get out of the war zone and to return after Israel was destroyed; others chose to flees from the fighting while some were also driven out by Israeli forces. What ever the causes, two points are clear: 1) Had the Arabs not attacked Israel there would have been no cause to flee and therefore no refugees. 2) While Israel absorbed hundreds of thousands of Jewish refugees, the Arab world has deliberately refrained from doing the same with Arab refugees out of recognition that even 60 years later, these refugees remain a powerful tool in the propaganda war against Israel.

[2] Source: Martin Gilbert, The Arab -Israeli Conflict-Its History in Maps. (4th Edition). p. 48.

[3] As for 2007 Israel is now considered to the largest Jewish population in the world, surpassing that of the United States. More Jews now live in Israel than at any time since the destruction of the 1st Temple and the Babylonian Exile 2,500 years ago. Given current demographic trends it is now estimated that within a a few decades, maximum, the majority of the Jewish people will be back in the Land of Israel.

[4] All of this development accomplished in less than 40 years, in a constant state of War, terrorism and economic boycotts and in a country with no natural resources while having to absorb millions of immigrants, many of them destitute.

[5] In 1956, after Egyptian President Gamal Abdul Nassar nationalized the Suez Canal. Israel, backed by England and France invaded the Sinai Peninsula and captured the Suez Canal. American pressure forced Israel to with draw.

[6] Arafat never actually rejected the offer. He walked out of the talks and initiated a five-year long terrorist war know as the second Intifada. If one studies the history of the Arab-Israeli conflict, or more specifically the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, it becomes clear that the issue has never really been about creating a Palestinian state. (Such a state could have been created numerous times in the past 60 years), but rather it has really been about destroying the Jewish State and the Arab world’s inability to accept a Jewish state of any kind, no matter what the borders.

[7] The Yom Kippur War, was fought from October 6 to October 26, 1973 by a coalition of Arab states led by Egypt and Syria against Israel. The war began with a surprise joint attack by Egypt and Syria on the Jewish holiday of Yom Kippur. Egypt and Syria crossed the cease-fire lines in the Sinai and Golan Heights, respectively, which had been captured by Israel in 1967 during the Six-Day War.
The Egyptians and Syrians advanced during the first 24-48 hours, after which momentum began to swing in Israel’s favor. By the second week of the war, the Syrians had been pushed entirely out of the Golan Heights. In the Sinai to the south, the Israelis struck at the “seam” between two invading Egyptian armies, crossed the Suez Canal (where the old ceasefireline had been), and cut off the Egyptian Third Army just as a United Nations cease-fire came into effect. In the end, Israel had won a greater victory than in 1967 but at a much higher cost with 2,378 soldiers killed as opposed to 766 killed in 1967. (Total Arab casualties in both wars were never announced).

[8] The 1982 Lebanon War called by Israel the “Operation Peace of the Galilee” and later also known in Israel as the First Lebanon War (There was a second Lebanon War during July-August 2006), began June 6, 1982, when the Israel Defense Forces invaded southern Lebanon-which had been largely taken over by the PLO and used as a staging area for attacks against Israel. The Government of Israel ordered the invasion as a response to the assassination attempt against Israel’s ambassador to the United Kingdom, Shlomo Argov by the Abu Nidal Organization. After attacking PLO, Syrian and Muslim Lebanese forces, Israel occupied southern Lebanon. Surrounded in West Beirut , the PLO and the Syrian forces negotiated passage from Lebanon with the aid of international peacekeepers. Israeli forces (with their South Lebanese allies) maintained a security, buffer zone in south Lebanon until the IDF’s withdrawal in 2000.

---

#66 of 70 in the Aish.com Jewish History Series
<< Previous Part 65: The State of Israel	Next >> Part 67: The Miracle of Jewish History