How Did Israel Survive After It's Birth in 1948 When War Was Already Happening?

Nadene Goldfoot                                           

Palestinian irregulars of the Holy War Army, approaching al-Qastal village near Jerusalem to take it back from Palmach.On the night of April 7-8, under the command of Abd al-Qadir al-Husseini, Palestinian irregulars counterattacked the Haganah occupiers of Castel. The Palestinians are seen here moving to the counterattack.

  The real question should be how did it manage to survive before its birth when in the womb, so to speak?  A Civil War was happening between the Arab and Jewish communities in Eretz YIsrael that started after November 29, 1947.  This war was started by the Arabs.  They refused to accept the UN partition resolution.  The proposed Arab state never came into being, the Arab areas being taken over by Jordan and Egypt, and the recommended economic union was not implemented.  These changes were incorporated in the Rhodes Agreements between Israel and Egypt, Lebanon, Jordan and Syria when the military phase of Israel's War of Independence was ended.  

From the beginning of April 1948, units of Arab irregulars  entered the country from Syria, Lebanon and Egypt to reinforce local Arabs in their attacks of Jewish communities and to block the main roads.  
                                                            

Then on May 14, 1948, the very day the Jews announced statehood, Eretz Yisrael was invaded by the regular armies of Egypt, Transjordan, Iraq, Syria and Lebanon and the Saudi Arabian contingent in about 5 minutes after the radio announcement.  
                                                       

Aftermath of the car bomb attack on the Ben Yehuda St., which killed 53 and injured many more.

The next day, Azzam Pasha, Secretary General of the Arab League, proclaimed in Cairo: "This will be a war of extermination and a momentous massacre which will be spoken of like the Mongolian massacres and Crusades." They had been known as the League of Arab States. The Arab League was formed in Cairo on 22 March 1945 initially with six members: Egypt, Iraq, Transjordan (renamed Jordan in 1949), Lebanon, Saudi Arabia, and Syria. Yemen joined as a member on 5 May 1945. Currently, the League has 22 members, but Syria's participation has been suspended since November 2011.  Their major trading partner was THE UNITED KINGDOM.  

The Egyptian army attacked and got as far as 30 km south of Tel Aviv.  Arab forces besieged Jerusalem. The Iraqi army got 15 km from the Mediterranean and threatened to cut Israel in two.  The Syrian army advanced west into the Upper Galilee and was set to amputate Israel's finger in the north. 
                                                      

War of Independence

Israel only had 650,000 population and really had no army to speak of at all. They depended on the Haganah to defend all these people and they were so poorly equipped to do so.  Yet they managed to drive back these invading forces.  It was a matter of do or die.  The fighters penetrated into the Sinai peninsula to drive out the Egyptian invaders.  Today Israel has a Jewish population of over 6 million, the very number they lost in the Holocaust from 1939-1945.  The need for the return to Eretz Yisrael was great as the climate was continually bad for them in the other parts of the world as it had been before WWII.  

"While the Jewish population was ordered to hold their ground everywhere at all costs, the Arab population was disrupted by general conditions of insecurity. Up to 100,000 Arabs from the urban upper and middle classes in Haifa, Jaffa and Jerusalem, or Jewish-dominated areas, evacuated abroad or to Arab centres to the east."
                                                    

Jewish fighters in War of Independence

6,000 Jews were killed in this War of Independence;  more than in all the subsequent wars combined.  

A truce was called and negotiations for an armistice began.  During 1949, separate armistice agreements were signed between Israel, Egypt, Jordan, Lebanon and Syria.  In each agreement it was laid down that the purpose was to create the transition from the truce to permanent peace.  Nobody foresaw that instead of leading to peace, the Egyptian agreement would dissolve in 7 years in another war, and the after 18 years, Jordan, Syria and Lebanon would also start another war with Israel.   
                                   

1949 Armistice Agreements:

• Establishment of the State of Israel beyond the borders proposed by the Partition Plan
• Establishment of All-Palestine Government in the Gaza Strip under Egyptian patronage
• Jordanian rule of West Bank and East Jerusalem
• Syrian foothold North and South of Sea of Galilee

                                            

Israel has had to fight in 12 major wars:
1947-1949  The Israeli War of Independence
1956   The Suez Campaign
1967   The Six Day War
1973   The Yom Kippur War
1982   Operation Peace for Galilee
1985-2000  South Lebanon Conflict
1987-1993  1st Intifada
2000-2005  2nd Intifada
2006  Lebanon War
2008-2009  Gaza War
Operation Pillar of Defense  2012
Operation Protective Edge  2014  
                                                    

No nation should be forced to go to war time and time again, not in these centuries when people had created THE LEAGUE OF NATIONS to stop wars followed by the better plan of the United Nations.  

Knesset in Jerusalem

 No nation should be surrounded by neighbors who dream of its destruction-and by that I mean that Palestine, who does, should not become a state with Israel's original land.  That is close.  It's in Israel's back yard lot.  It's bad enough to have neighbors already who are just beginning to get used to Israel, hopefully now accepting peace with Israel.
                                                  

No nation should have to explain year after year that it has the right to live, and to defend itself over and over again. 

 No nation should be judged at the United Nations by Middle Eastern countries hatefully minded to Israel, and picked upon continually while other actual warlike nations are given the green light and their actions against others are ignored, never to be brought up for discussion.  
                                                        

Moshe Dayan 1915-1981
Haganah member as a teen, a founder of Palmah
lost his eye fighting in Lebanon when in British army.
In Independence fought Syrian army, was minister of
Defense of Israel just before 6 day war.  

Israel has had to do all these things.  
                                                          
Throughout all of this, Israel continues to progress and grow in a way that only benefits the world.  This happens in their scientific achievements in so many ways, now in medical ways, finding ways to fight the coronavirus for one.  She shares so much with the world while her hospital near Gaza has had to go underground from attacks of rockets, missiles and mortars.  

Israel is a miracle.  It's the most ancient of all countries and is here despite the unacceptance it has found for 3,000 years.  Israel has a purpose in mind, a job to do, to be a light for people, something to live up to in expectations of itself.  It notes when others have lent a helping hand when it was pushed down and trodded upon, which is not forgotten.  It's a light for them to show where their goal must be.  
    

Resource:                                        

Movie:  Cast A Giant Shadow with Kirk Douglas, Senta Berger, Frank Sinatra
Facts about Israel from Information, Foreign Affairs, Jerusalem
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arab_League
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_wars_involving_Israel

Israeli Jews Fighting Western Anti-Semitism Along With The Muslim World

Nadene Goldfoot                                                                    

Before WWI was over, the West knew they would be ready to rule Palestine.  "In 1916, Britain and France concluded the Sykes–Picot Agreement, which proposed to divide the Middle East between them into spheres of influence, with "Palestine" as an international enclave."

On November 2, 1917 the Balfour Declaration in essence created the right of the Jews to regain Palestine as the Jewish Homeland because the allies had won WWI and the Ottoman Empire was beaten.  They had sided with the Germans.  It took 31 years for the Jews to be able to announce that Israel was accepted in the United Nations.

"At the Peace Conference in 1919, Emir Faisal, speaking on behalf of King Hussein, asked for Arab independence, or at minimum the right to pick the mandatory.  In the end, he recommended an Arab state under a British mandate. The World Zionist Organization also asked for a British mandate, and asserted the 'historic title of the Jewish people to Palestine'"

Why did it take so long?  England was given the mandate to rule Palestine for 25 years. It was confirmed on England on July 24, 1922.   It started on September 29,  1923 and ended May 14, 1948 at midnight.  That's when the Jews were able to announce the birth of the Jewish state on May 14, 1948.

During the 25 years of waiting to have their own state once again and  being homeless for the past 1,847 years, WWII emerged.  The main victims of this war were the Jews.  Jews are followers of Moses, the people of the "Old Testament."  Since the New  Testament for Gentiles replaced the "Old", the Jews became those repulsed despicable people.  Religion certainly is strange.

Six million Jews were slaughtered in Germany's plan to exterminate them all in the whole world before the allies again won the war.  What they did to deserve being slaughtered was that they were different.  They were not of everyone else's religion. They wouldn't convert.   In Germany they had been residents there since 70 CE or even before when Jerusalem was attacked by the Romans.  They had a long history of being good patriotic citizens even though  they had been  attacked by the Gentile Germans on occasion.  Many had reacted from these attacks by moving into other countries.  They worked their way into the Pale of Settlement held by Russia.  The Nazis of WWII were able to reach all the Jews of Europe and tried to get the ones in Africa before they were stopped.  In 6 years, 6 million civilian  Jews were slaughtered.

WWII ended on May 5, 1945.  Three (3) years separated the end of the war and the birth of Israel.  A whole generation had gone by since it was decided that a Jewish Homeland should be created.  The generation that lived during  the Holocaust must have realized that the waiting period  caused the death of 6 million innocent people.  They could have been saved if they had been allowed to enter Palestine, but the British stopped them from entering.  They even turned back shiploads of Jews who were so close to freedom.  Not the Arabs, though.  They aided and abetted their entrance.  Could be their strong anti-Semitism  of a few thousand years was guiding their decisions?

England's history with Jews is shameful. Jews lived in England since Roman times, and were noticed as Jews in 1070.   Jews lived in Jerusalem after its attack in 70 CE, but along came the Crusaders led by England in 1099 and massacred their Jewish community.  By 1290 King Edward of  England expelled any Jews from   living there. Jews couldn't return until Oliver Cromwell in 1656 changed that, though there were a few Sephardic Jews there in 1655. Cromwell died 2 years later after the Jewish admission.     In their defense, there isn't a country that didn't treat Jews in the same manner.  England was just earlier than most in being so anti-Semitic.  Cyprus, the Byzantine Empire and  Germany preceded England in their anti-Semitic acts.  France and Spain were close behind, following England.  England was without Jews for 366 years, from the Middle Ages to the Age of Enlightenment.    300,000 Jews were living in England  about 10 years ago, but the 2011 census counted 263,346.

During those 25 years of holding the Palestine mandate, England turned their heads when Arabs were entering Palestine illegally.  The whole world had been suffering from anti-Semitism since the time the Jews lost Jerusalem, anyway because of their own religious reasons.  It wasn't until 1967 when Israel was attacked unmercifully by all their neighbors in a take-over and the massive combined armies lost the battle.  Suddenly the Jews were heroes being they were then the underdogs.  Like a soccer game upset, the little state of Israel overcame all the odds and were the winners.  Their popularity didn't last long and anti-Semitism settled back into the hearts of the world again.  Oh-they are the Jews!

We all know what the Muslim world is doing to drive out Jews from Israel.  Does the western world see how they are in cahoots with such a goal?  Take Amnesty International, supposedly a group promoting universal human-rights principals- evidently for all except for Jews.  Being the most influential NGO in the world,  they're silent when it comes to Jews' rights.  Jewish civilians, young children included, have been severely injured from stone-throwing Palestinians, stabbing attacks, and have been killed in shootings.  Israelis are consistently dehumanized and demonized by Muslims.  

They're first to enter the political scene against Israel.  April 2002, an Amnesty official on BBC confirmed IDF massacre in Jenin, which never took place.  It was a blood libel that continues to be propagated.  In 2009, they were participating in the Goldstone Report which was filled with many false indictments against Israel after Operation Cast Lead in Gaza.  They are obsessed against Israel.  Israel of late has been peppered by petrol bombs but Amnesty International says they pose little or no threat to the lives of the IDF.

 How about the BDS Movement?   .  It was started by Palestinians on July 9, 2005 and is still continuing.  It's a Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions against Israel that is trying to attack Israel's economic growth and development which a state needs to exist.  Almost all American universities as well as European ones are on the bandwagon against Israel on this.

I have news for you all.  Israel's Jews aren't going anywhere.  They've been there, done that in being homeless, something that lasted 2,000 years.  They know what you all are like.  They have faith in their religious belief in that it promotes goodness, something they really have seen very little of in the rest of the world.  They know they're onto a good thing.  Their ancestors told them so, and they see that they were right.  Somebody has to be the light of the world even though the world is throwing a lot of water on their light in trying to put it out.  Like the Burning Bush that radiated without fire, the Jews continue to radiate their goodness in an evil world.  If anti-Semites would only take their blinders off, they might see it.

Resource: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/British_Mandate_for_Palestine_(legal_instrument)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/World_War_II
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Balfour_Declaration
Facts About Israel 1973, Division of information, Ministry for Foreign Affairs, Jerusalem.
Book: "From Time Immemorial"  by Joan Peters
Magazine:  The Jerusalem Report, April 7, 2014, Political theater of the absurd by Prof. Gerald M. Steinberg
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boycott,_Divestment_and_Sanctions
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_the_Jews_in_England
http://www.olivercromwell.org/jews.htm
http://www.theguardian.com/world/2013/sep/15/jews-new-sense-of-identity

Surrounding Arab States, Not Native Arabs Incensed Over Israel's Creation

Nadene Goldfoot
On the eve of the establishment of Israel, May 14, 1948, a war broke out when the Arab states and the Arab Higher Committee rejected the United Nation's Partition Plan, Resolution 181 ( November 29, 1947) of the General Assembly.  These Arab states threatened to use force to prevent the implementation of the resolution and did.  Israel's War of Independence was the first of many between the State of Israel and her neighboring Arab countries. Israel found themselves up against 5  regular Arab armies;  Egypt, Lebanon, Jordan, Syria and Iraq.   On the 13th of May there were still 100,000 British troops stationed in Palestine but their policy was not to intervene except to keep the British forces safe.

 The native Arabs living in Palestine were being manipulated by their brethren just like pawns in a chess game.   This was the first offering by the Jews through the United Nations of two states, Jewish and Muslim and it was refused.  The plan was taking place on land originally decided and stipulated by the League of Nations to be the Jewish National Homeland.  The new offer was a disappointment to the Zionist leaders as well, but they were desperate to have their own state, and something was better than nothing.  This first war lasted until January 5,1949.  It was 7 months of intense fighting with a few  truces, one of which was 28 days from June 10th to July 18th 1948.

By the time it stopped, Israel had 6,373 deaths including about 4,000 soldiers.  That was almost 1% of the total population of 650,000.  (Moses had taken 600,000 Israelites out of Egypt.) The Arabs suffered 2,000 the death of about 2,000 regular invading troops and  and unknown number of irregular Palestinian forces.  They never agreed to a truce and continued harassing against Jewish forces and villages in the north.  It was Egypt who had agreed on January 5, 1949, to negotiate for an armistice which the UN demanded on November 16, 1948.  Jamal Abdel Nasser was in an Egyptian brigade that was cut off in a small pocket around Falouja.

Israel had been able to reopen the road to the south and capture Be'er-Sheva on October 21.  Egyptian forces had been cut off from their bases.  Israel had an army of 100,000 troops, which was awesome considering they had 600,373 people, many of which had just come out of the holocaust.

The Jewish section of my old city of Safed in the Galilee, had been under siege.  Jews had continually lived there as had Jews in Jerusalem.  The Hagana managed to briefly reopen the road to Jerusalem and its Jewish section, captured all of Tiberias below Safed, Haifa and other places.  British intervention,  which wasn't to be allowed by their own rules, prevented the conquest of Jaffa.  The city later surrendered in May.  This is a good example of the fact that Britain was given the mandate "job" of carrying out the wishes of the League of Nations to establish the Jewish National Home and worked against it.

The Syrian army had captured Masada,  originally Herod the Great's Palace and fortress,  the site now used to induct Israel's soldiers into the IDF.  It is on the eastern edge of the Judean Desert overlooking the Dead Sea.   This was where the last stand took place in 73 CE against the Romans where the Jews, on top of a high mountain had taken refuge.  Instead of allowing the Romans to rush and kill them all unmercifully, they decided on a mass suicide.  When the Romans entered, they found all 960 people were dead.

An interesting aspect of this is that the Druze, a light-skinned people with their own religion, a form is Islam which the Muslims sneer that they are idolaters, had started to fight with the Muslims and then switched and fought with the Israelis.  Today they are still on Israel's side and are some of its greatest champions.  They live in their own towns and marry within themselves and are wonderful Israeli citizens.  They also serve in the IDF while Israel up to now has not asked Israeli Muslims to do, but this is on the table for change to include all Israeli citizens.

Resource:  http://www.knesset.gov.il/holidays/eng/independence_day_war.htm
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Masada
http://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/jsource/History/1948_War.html
Book: Genesis 1948:  The First Arab-Israeli War by Dan Kurzman  1970 2nd edition

What the Fight Between Jews and Arabs Is Really All About

Nadene Goldfoot
Actually, The modern effort to establish a national homeland for the Jewish people began in 1839 with the petition by Sir Moses Montefiore to Sa'id, Khedive of Egypt, for a Jewish homeland in the region of Palestine.


Finally, November 29, 1947 was the day the UN decided to recommend the partition of Palestine into an Arab and a Jewish state.  The Jewish state would be even smaller than what was later decided by Armistice Lines in 1949, after all the Arab nations had attacked the new-born Israel.   It was only a little more than half of western Palestine, about 15,000 square km or 6,000 square miles and that was including the semi-arid Negev Desert.  In contrast, Egypt has 386,000 sq miles. Today Israel amounts to 7,992 square miles.

 At the time there were already 7 Arab states in the same area:  Egypt, Iraq, Syria Lebanon, Saudi Arabia, Yemen and Transjordan.  The area of land they already had was 230 times larger than the planned Jewish state and had a population 60 times more than the Jews, who numbered about half a million, or pretty close to 600,000.

At this time the Arabs wanted the Jewish land as well.  This is what they fought the Jews about.  There were no "occupied territories" to fight about The Arabs were guaranteed their state out of the Jews' promised Jewish Homeland. There weren't any Arabs living in refugee camps.   In fact, their portion was 7/8 of all of Palestine on both sides of the Jordan River.  All 7 states would invade Israel.  It was a ratio of 7:1.

They even refused to recognize the Jewish claims to the land.  That hasn't changed as we saw on the Geraldo show last night that Palestinian legislator, Dr. Hanan Ashrami vehemently denied Jews any history to Jerusalem or the land at all.

Palestine was quite a large piece of land as known at the time of the British Mandate of 1918 at the end of World War I.  In the map above you can see the Dead Sea.  February 1919 Emir Faisal, the recognized Arab leader of his day was also  in the act of striving for  the creation of an Arab political independence in Syria where he was a king for a brief time and Iraq where he ruled for 40 years.  He signed a formal agreement with Dr. Chaim Weizmann for cooperation between the two over the projected Arab state and the projected reconstituted Jewish state of "Palestine"  Faisal saw the borders proposed as moderate and proper.  The Zionists included what became Mandatory Palestine on both banks of the Jordan as well as NW Galilee up to the Litany River, later included in S. Lebanon, part of the Golan Heights, later included in Syria and part of Sinai.  

What the League of Nations was establishing was separating the  "state of Palestine" from Syria. They had the mandate over the Ottoman Empire that had lost the World War I.  Britain saw that Palestine would control its own source of water power and irrigation on Mount Hermon in the east to the Jordan.  This was of great importance since the success of the new state would depend upon the possibilities of agricultural development. " The mandate formalised British rule in the southern part of Ottoman Syria from 1923–1948."


 " It was recommended the the Jews be invited to return to Palestine and settle there, being assured by the Conference of all proper assistance in so doing that may be consistent with the protection of the personal (especially the religious) an the property rights of the non-Jewish population, and being further assured that it will be the policy of the League of Nations to recognize Palestine as a Jewish state as soon as it is a Jewish state in fact. "


The League of Nations Report said:  "It is right that Palestine should become a Jewish state, if the Jews, being given the full opportunity, make it such.  It was the cradle and home of their vital race, which has made large spiritual contributions to mankind, and is the only land in which they can hope to find a home of their own;  they being in this last respect unique among significant peoples."


Instead of following Emir Faisal's wishes which would have had a good outcome for all, the Arabs followed the advice of the Grand Mufti of Jerusalem and attacked the Jews instead.  The Grand Mufti was in cahoots with Germany.  " as shown in a memo written November 2, 1943 from Heinrich Himmler to an anti-Balfour Declaration meeting: 


"To the Grand Mufti:
  "The National Socialist Movement of Greater Germany has, since its beginning, inscribed upon its flag the fight against world Jewry.  It has, therefore, followed with particular sympathy the struggle of the freedom--loving Arabians, especially in Palestine, against the Jewish interlopers....." 


The British had compounded the Jewish efforts by doing everything in their power to keep them out of the area.  It was truly a miracle that Israel was pronounced a state as the British Mandate was up and they left on May 14, 1948.


Reference: http://www.colostate.edu/orgs/ESA/general.html
Book: Battleground, Fact and Fantasy in Palestine by Samuel Katz
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Geography_of_Israel
Book:  From Time Immemorial by Joan Peters
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/British_Mandate_for_Palestine_(legal_instrument)

The Epic That Is Israel

The Epic of Jews in the Promised Land goes back 3,700 years.  

Nadene Goldfoot
Not many states have been created because of a directive from the Bible, but Israel was. In his last years as a leader Moses (born 1400 BCE)  had entered Canaan and with the younger generation fought the Amorites, Moabites, Midianites and Bashan who were in what would be Transjordan.   Joshua, of the tribe of Ephraim and the 600,000 entered the Promised Land when Moses could no longer continue on the 40 year Exodus trek, dying at age120. Joshua captured what would be most of the the Land of Israel.   Jews, given monotheism and the laws to be a Holy nation and a model for others by him,  settled and cities grew.

Jerusalem was the capital of Israel sitting in the center of the Judean Mountains.  Joshua's conquest was 1320 BCE and the king of Jerusalem was Adoni-Zedek who was defeated,  but the city remained as an independent town  between the tribal areas of Benjamin and Judah.  King David captured it in 1010 BCE, dealing leniently with the Jebusites while adding to the city.  It became the religious center of Israel and the capital of his empire that reached from the Red Sea to the Euphrates.  Solomon, his son, (970-930 BCE) enlarged the city.  He built the Temple.  Jerusalem remained the capital of Judah and of the Davidic dynasty.

After the destruction of the 2nd Temple in Jerusalem in 70 CE by the Romans, many of the wealthier Jews of leadership were taken away as slaves, but still many remained.  Their national language of Hebrew continued.  They maintained their own unique civilization with their special laws.  Large communities were reestablished in Jerusalem and Tiberias by the 9th century.

 In the 11th Century, Jewish communities grew in Rafah, Gaza, Ashkelon, Jaffa and Caesarea.  However, along came the Crusaders starting in 1096-9 bringing war led by Christian rulers to take back Palestine from the Moslems and massacred many Jews. In their zeal they slaughtered Jews in N. France and in the Rhineland, Prague and Salonica, capturing Jerusalem in 1099. During the 12th century  of 1147 the 2nd Crusade began again, .A 3rd Crusade of 1189-92 brought in England who attacked Jews in York, England. 1320 saw another attack in France and Spain. Though dangerous to live anywhere, it seems that Palestine was the safest place to be in those days.  Jews were not safe outside of their own land.    


  The Palestine communities rebounded in the 13th and 14th centuries.  Many rabbis and Jewish pioneers immigrated to Jerusalem and the Galilee.  Famous rabbis started communities Safed, Jerusalem and other places during the next 300 years.  

By the early 19th century, before the birth of the modern Zionist movement, more than 10,000 Jews lived in what is today-Israel.  We've had 78 years of nation-building which began in 1870.  The end goal was the reestablishment of the Jewish state which came to fruition May 14, 1948.

The Balfour Declaration was the promise of the Jewish Homeland through the British who had the mandate after the World War I in 1917.  This was the international clincher to be a nation again among nations. 

                                                             Ashkelon 2012

The League of Nations Mandate gave Britain the responsibility to carry out the decisions to fullfill the Balfour Declaration, but they managed to give away most of the land to the Arabs and saved but a sliver for the Homeland.

The UN partition resolution  of 1947 was accepted by the Jews and rejected by the Arabs that would have given the Arabs most of the land for a state of their own.  Already a huge chunk of the land had been given over to Arabs who created Transjordan-called Jordan today. Israel was announced as a state May 14, 1948 and the next day was attacked by all the surrounding Arabs.   Israel was admitted  to the UN in 1949.

Resource: Myths and Facts by Mitchell G. Bard and Joel Himelfarb
The New Standard Jewish Encyclopedia
http://www.jewfaq.org/moshe.htm  Judaism 101
http://www.jnf.org/assets/pdf/gibborim_timeline.pdf

Balfour Declaration 1922 Concerning Israel in Palestine

 Acknowledges Our Rights to Israel

In League of Nations

from Mitchell Bard, PhD.
Nadene Goldfoot, comments on
Mitchell Bard does an excellent job of writing about this piece of legislature that was accepted as a legal binding statement. I merely am commenting and expanding some of the facts he presents.

In 1917, Britain issued the Balfour Declaration: Britain had the mandate, which means they were responsible for governing and taking care of the land taken over from the Ottoman Empire, which was Turkey. The Turks had sided with Germany in WWI and had lost to the Allies.


His Majesty's Government views with favor the establishment in Palestine of a national home for the Jewish people, and will use their best endeavors to facilitate the achievement of this object, it being clearly understood that nothing shall be done which may prejudice the civil and religious rights of existing non-Jewish communities in Palestine or the rights and political status enjoyed by Jews in any other country.

The Mandate for Palestine included the Balfour Declaration. It specifically referred to "the historical connections of the Jewish people with Palestine" and to the moral validity of "reconstituting their National Home in that country." The term "reconstituting" shows recognition of the fact that Palestine had been the Jews' home. Furthermore, the British were instructed to "use their best endeavors to facilitate" Jewish immigration, to encourage settlement on the land and to "secure" the Jewish National Home. The word "Arab" does not appear in the Mandatory award.11

The Mandate was formalized by the 52 governments at the League of Nations on July 24, 1922.

As soon as the Arab governments started complaining, and they had oil, Britain themselves started backing down.