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Facts About Israel's History - Part 3
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John Henry
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Mar 25, 2005 22:01 PST
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40 Significant Facts About Israel's History
By Clarence H. Wagner, Jr.
PART THREE
Fact #21
In 1897, Jewish leaders, moved by Theodore Herzl, formally organized the
Zionist movement at the First Zionist Congress in Basle, Switzerland. They
called for the restoration of the Jewish National Home in Palestine where
Jews could have sanctuary, self-determination and the renascence of their
ancient civilization and culture.
In 1898, Theodore Herzl met Kaiser Wilhelm just outside Jerusalem's Jaffa
Gate.
William Hechler, a Bible-believing Protestant and Christian Zionist, had a
profound influence on Herzl, as he supported and motivated him to continue
with his goal of establishing a Jewish State in Palestine. Hechler was
motivated by his reading of the Bible prophets and his belief that the God
of Israel was able to fulfill these prophecies for His people, Israel, in
their ancient homeland.
At the First Zionist Congress in 1897, Herzl predicted that in 50 years,
the State of Israel would be a reality. Exactly fifty years later, in 1947,
the United Nations voted for Israel to be a state (Nov. 29, 1947), and on
May 14, 1948, the new flag of Israel was raised.
Meanwhile, Jews began to come in waves from different parts of the world.
What was called, "The Second Aliyah," or the second wave of Jewish
immigration, took place in the early 1900s. They came from Russia as a
result of the Pogroms against the Jewish citizens there. The movie,
"Fiddler on the Roof," depicts Jewish life in Russia at this time, when
many were forced to leave. Some Jews came to Palestine.
As the Jews immigrated and began to develop the region, Arabs from many
parts of the impoverished, decaying Ottoman Empire of the Middle East
rushed into Palestine to get jobs. Many of today's "Palestinians" are
descendants of these newcomers.
Fact #22
The Middle East became enveloped in World War I, which began in 1914. In
1916, even before Britain and France had conquered the Ottoman Empire, they
set up an Anglo-French commission to submit an agreed plan for the postwar
partition of the Ottoman Empire. The British representative was Sir Mark
Sykes and the French representative was Charles Francois Georges-Picot. The
agreement became known as the Tripartite (Sykes-Picot) Agreement of 1916,
which effectively drew the borders of the new states of the Middle East.
Their interests were more in favor of the strategic interests of Britain
and France, not necessarily the people who would live in this region.
Consequently, Kurdistan was apportioned to Turkey, Syria, Iraq and Iran and
to this day, the Kurds are disenfranchised.
Most of the modern Arab states of the Middle East owe their borders to the
Sykes-Picot Agreement, as does Israel.
While many believe that Israel is a new state to the region, having only
acquired its sovereignty in 1948, it needs to be remembered that the other
Middle East states also acquired their independence in this century, e.g.,
Saudi Arabia (1913), Lebanon (1920), Iraq (1932), Syria (1941), Jordan
(1946), and Kuwait (1961).
Therefore, none can boast historical claims to this or that border, other
than the very ancient claims, including those of the Jews in the Land of
Israel with the Bible as their deed.
After World War I, the Turks were defeated and the British began to rule
what was known as the British Mandate of Palestine, which lasted from
1917-1948.
This was the first time Christians had ruled Jerusalem since the days of
the Crusaders. While there were three Jewish Legions fighting with the
British forces, the British were considered a Christian nation by the
Moslems of the Middle East. The General that led the forces was General
Edmund Allenby. As part of his campaign, leaflets were dropped from a plane
on the inhabitants of Jerusalem. These leaflets were printed in Arabic
telling them to surrender, and they were signed by General Allenby. In
Arabic, his name could be misread as "Allah Nebi" which means, a Prophet of
Allah, which added great fear into the hearts of those who thought to defy
this command.
Allenby was a devout Christian and it is said he always kept the Bible at
his bedside. Out of respect for the city, he dismounted his horse as he
approached Jaffa Gate, entered Jerusalem on foot, and declared, "We have
returned to you!" This was on December 11, 1917, and British rule lasted
until 1948, when Israel became a sovereign nation.
At the beginning of British rule, there was an effort to reinforce the
national aspirations of both the Arabs and Jews of the region. As the
Turkish Empire was being dissolved and redivided among various ethnic
groups, the horizon looked bright for the creation of a Jewish state in the
Middle East along with numerous Arab Moslem states.
Fact #23
On October 31, 1917, the British War Cabinet accepted the Balfour
Declaration, which was issued on November 2, 1917, as government policy. It
stated:
"His Majesty's Government views with favour the establishment in Palestine
of a national home for the Jewish people, and will use their best
endeavours 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 Balfour Declaration was the result of "circumstances" that brought the
early Zionist leader, Dr. Chaim Weizmann, a British scientist, into contact
with the ex-prime minister of Britain, Arthur James Balfour. His scientific
gifts enabled him to render important services to the Admiralty and the
Ministry of Munitions. These gifts, including his invention of TNT, which
helped win the war, brought him to the attention of Lloyd George, who
became Minister of Munitions in the spring of 1915. All the while, Weizmann
was spreading his message, to all those who would give him an ear, of the
need for a homeland in Palestine for the Jews. These included Balfour and
Lloyd George.
In 1916, just before Britain conquered Palestine, there was a change of
government in Britain, and Balfour became the Foreign Secretary and Lloyd
George, the Prime Minister. Weizmann helped to draft the Balfour
Declaration and it was accepted by the War Cabinet and became government
policy.
Was this "circumstance" or was it God moving the hand of history to His
prophetic end?
The Balfour Declaration won the approval of the United States and other
Western powers. At first, there was hope that the Arabs would also accept
it, as both the Arabs and the Jews were just breaking free from the yoke of
the Ottoman Empire.
Fact #24
Emir Faisal, son of the acknowledged leader of the Arabs, Sherif Hussein,
met with Dr. Chaim Weizmann and other Zionist leaders during the 1919 Paris
Peace Conference. They signed an agreement by which the Arabs stated that
"mindful of the racial kinship and racial bonds existing between the Arabs
and the Jewish people," they declared that "the surest means of working out
the consummation of their [Jewish] national aspiration is through the
closest possible collaboration of the development of the Arab state AND
Palestine." (In 1919, Palestine was considered that portion of the Middle
East designated for the Jewish people.)
The agreement between Faisal and Weizmann looked to the fulfillment of the
Balfour Declaration and also called for "all necessary measures... to
encourage and stimulate immigration of Jews into Palestine on a large
scale, and as quickly as possible to settle Jewish immigrants upon the land
through closer settlement and extensive cultivation of the soil."
On March 3rd, one day after Weizmann presented the Zionist case to the
Peace Conference, Faisal wrote to Felix Frankfurter, a U.S. Supreme Court
Justice and Zionist leader, declaring: "The Arabs, especially the educated
among us, look with deepest sympathy on the Zionist movement ... We will
wish the Jews a hearty welcome home ... We are working together for a
reformed and revised Near East and our two movements complete one another.
The Jewish movement is nationalist and not imperialist. Our movement is
nationalist and not imperialist. And there is room in Syria for us both.
(Under Turkish rule, Syria included part of Palestine.) Indeed, I think
that neither can be a real success without the other."
Faisal had conditioned his acceptance on the fulfillment of British wartime
promises to the Arabs, who had hoped for independence in a vast part of the
Ottoman Empire.
These hopes were temporarily dashed when the French took over the mandate
for Syria, ejecting Faisal from Damascus, where he had been proclaimed King
of Syria. As consolation, the British named Faisal King of Iraq. And in a
further effort to please the Arabs, British Colonial Secretary, Winston
Churchill, cut away 80% of the Jewish National Home in Palestine, some
35,000 sq. miles (90,565 sq. km.) and created a brand new Arab entity,
called Transjordan. Churchill installed Faisal's brother, Abdullah, as
Emir. (Abdullah is the great-grandfather of the present-day King Abdullah
II of Jordan.) Britain administered Transjordan until 1946, when
independence was granted, and the name of the area became the Hashemite
Kingdom of Jordan.
Fact #25
This apportionment - the first partition of Palestine and of the promised
Jewish National Home - was a blow to the Zionists. The Jewish people
reluctantly accepted the partition because Britain simultaneously took over
the League of Nations Mandate for Palestine in 1922, and they really had no
one to which they could appeal.
It should be emphasized that Arab hopes for a vast empire have since been
realized. Today, the Arab League includes 21 separate Arab states spanning
an area of more than 5,000,000 square miles (12.9 million sq. km.) However,
there is only one Jewish state consisting of 8,000 square miles (20,715 sq.
km.). It is called Israel.
While the Arabs showed early signs of acceptance of a Jewish state in
Palestine in 1919, later it would be seen that once the Arabs had a taste
of independent power, they quickly lost interest in encouraging Jewish
immigration and a Jewish state.
Arab hopes for a vast empire have been realised. Today, the Arab League
includes 21 separate Arab states spanning an area of more than 5,000,000
square miles. However, there is only one Jewish state, consisting of 8,000
square miles - Israel.
Nevertheless, the Third Aliyah (Jewish immigration movement) began in 1919,
motivated by the Balfour Declaration and an open window of opportunity to
bring oppressed Jews from eastern Europe and those fleeing communism which
was taking control of Russia and surrounding nations. Over 50,000 Jews
immigrated at this time. However, during the 1920s, the Arabs had a change
of heart and attacks on the Jews of Palestine began in earnest. The fight
was on from the Arab side to negate any hope of a Jewish state.
Fact #26
As time went on, the British feared their relations with the Arabs would
suffer and sought to protect British oil interests in the Middle East. As
World War II loomed on the horizon and oil became a paramount concern,
British appeasement to the Arab cause against the Jews of Palestine was
obvious. They greatly limited Jewish immigration in the British Mandate.
From 1936-1939, there was an Arab uprising in which 10,000 people were
killed. The British showed leniency in the beginning, which resulted in a
disaster - 1,000 British were killed, 500 Jews, and 8,500 Arabs (most of
the Arabs were killed by other Arabs vying for control). In the end, the
British had to use the iron-fist policy to stop the uprising. This event
put greater fear into the British, who put further limits on Jewish
immigration. The climax was the British White Paper in 1939, which ordered
that future Jewish immigration be limited to 10,000 per year for five years
and to an additional 25,000 refugees from Nazism - 75,000 in all. Hardly
much help while Hitler was killing 6,000,000 Jews during this same period.
At the end of a ten year period, the White Paper called for an independent
state in the region - an Arab state!
During WWII, Haj Amin al-Husseini, the Moslem Mufti of Jerusalem (uncle of
today's Palestinian Authority Minister of Jerusalem Affairs, Faisal
Husseini), met with Adolph Hitler to organize the extermination of the
Jewish populations of the Middle East. Yasser Arafat is also related to
this family by his mother.
Fact #27
As World War II came to an end, revealing the extent of the catastrophe
that had befallen the Jewish people in Europe, there were demands
everywhere for swift action to rehabilitate and resettle those who had
survived the Holocaust through the establishment of a Jewish state. The
British had also tired of their role as supervisors of the British Mandate,
which had been maintained since World War I. In Palestine, they were
looking for a way out, as well as a way to appease both the Arabs and the
Jews of this region.
The Holocaust, which claimed the lives of 6,000,000 Jewish men, women and
children, one-third of world Jewry, had a severe impact on the Jewish
people which is still prevalent today. However, according to Ezekiel 37,
the Valley of Dry Bones, representing the "whole house of Israel," would
rise up out of their graves, come into their land of Israel and become an
"exceeding great army." This occurred in 1948 as a fulfillment of prophecy.
God made it happen.
Prior to the founding of the State of Israel, the British tried, but
failed, to work out an agreement acceptable to both Arabs and Jews on the
issue of Palestine, so they turned the problem over to the UN early in 1947.
The UN sent an 11-nation Special Commission on Palestine (UNSCOP) to the
region to investigate. UNSCOP found two people groups, Arabs and Jews, both
claiming all the country. To satisfy the national aspirations of both
peoples, UNSCOP proposed termination of the British Mandate and a partition
of the area into an Arab state and a Jewish state based on population
concentrations. Jerusalem would be an international zone.
The Jewish state was already in de facto existence in all areas. So, eager
for independence, the Jews of Palestine were ready to accept a compromise -
partition. The Arabs boycotted the UNSCOP plan. World opinion strongly
favored the UN resolution, and it was adopted by a vote of 33-13, with 10
abstentions, on Nov. 29, 1947.
Throughout the 1947 UN debate, the Palestine Arab Higher Commission
threatened war, while Jewish Agency spokesmen appealed for peace. Jamal
Husseini, spokesman for the Arab committee, told the UN on Nov. 24, 1947:
"The partition line proposed shall be nothing but a line of fire and blood."
Five days later, the UN voted for the partition and the Arabs began their
war to prevent implementation of the UN resolution. Roads were mined,
Jewish settlements isolated, and Jewish convoys were ambushed. By the end
of that week, 105 Jews had been killed. Later, apartments in Jerusalem were
blown up and more than 50 men, women and children were killed. Thirty-five
Hebrew University students were massacred on the road near Jerusalem. The
Jewish Agency was bombed and took heavy casualties. A convoy was set afire
on the road to Hadassah Hospital on Mt. Scopus and 77 Jewish doctors,
nurses and scientists died.
Fact #28
On May 14, 1948, the State of Israel was declared to be independent and her
Declaration of Independence was signed. Among its many clauses, it states:
"Eretz Israel (the Land of Israel) was the birthplace of the Jewish people.
Here, their spiritual, religious and political identity was shaped. Here
they first attained to statehood, created cultural values of national and
universal significance and gave to the world the eternal Book of Books....
Jews strove in every successive generation to re-establish themselves in
their ancient homeland... they made deserts bloom, revived the Hebrew
language, built villages and towns, and created a thriving community,
controlling its own economy and culture, loving peace but knowing how to
defend itself....
The State of Israel... will foster the development of the country for the
benefit of all its inhabitants; it will be based on freedom, justice and
peace as envisaged by the prophets of Israel; it will ensure complete
equality of social and political rights to all its inhabitants irrespective
of religion, race or sex; it will guarantee freedom of religion,
conscience, language, education and culture; it will safeguard the Holy
Places for all religions; and it will be faithful to the principles of the
Charter of the United Nations.
We extend our hand to all neighboring states and their peoples in an offer
of peace and good neighborliness, and appeal to them to establish bonds of
cooperation and mutual help with the sovereign Jewish people settled in its
own land."
Fact #29
The flag of the State of Israel is based on the design of the Jewish prayer
shawl (the tallit), represented in the two blue stripes on a field of
white. The blue represents the Holy Spirit of God and the white represents
heaven.
In the center, there is the Magen David, the Star of David, a symbol about
which books have been written. One of the most meaningful interpretations
of the Star of David comes from the noted Jewish scholar, Franz Rosensweig.
He sees the Star of David as two triangles superimposed upon one another.
One represents the nature of God, as Creator, Redeemer, and Teacher. The
other triangle represents the relationships between God, man and others.
Both of these interpretations are also consistent with a Christian
understanding of the nature of God and man.
What a meaningful flag to have flying over a nation that is the fulfillment
of Bible prophecy and the continuation of a covenant established by God
with the Jewish people 4,000 years ago. This is a testimony to God's
faithfulness to His people, His land, and His Word.
Fact #30
The Arabs rejected the UN partition plan of 1947 and didn't accept their
portion of land. Instead, five Arab armies (Egypt, Syria, Transjordan,
Lebanon and Iraq) immediately invaded Israel expecting to sweep the
Israelis into the sea.
On May 15, 1948, Azzam Pasha, Secretary General of the Arab League, said in
Cairo: "This will be a war of extermination and a momentous massacre which
will be spoken of like the Mongolian massacres and the Crusades."
Fortunately, his words were not prophetic and Israel not only retained that
which was given to her by the UN, but a bit more. Those areas designated
for the Arab state in Palestine were occupied by other Arab countries: the
West Bank (of the Jordan River) by Jordan, and the Gaza Strip by Egypt.
After the establishment of the State of Israel, Jewish refugees of WWII and
others from Moslem countries of the Middle East began to pour in. From
1948-1972, over 1,400,000 immigrants came into Israel. All had to be
settled, trained, given Hebrew language classes, and many needed health
care. All of this cost fell on the shoulders of the Israelis and the Jewish
community worldwide.
For the Palestinian Arabs of Western Palestine, their rejection of the 1947
Partition Plan and choosing war caused them to miss the first of many
opportunities to obtain a national home - missed by their insistence on a
policy of "all or nothing."
The well-known Israeli diplomat, Abba Eban, often declared that "the
Palestinians never miss an opportunity to miss an opportunity."
Arabs of the region also became refugees, when they were encouraged to
leave the area by the Arab leadership who intended to "push the Jews into
the sea." However, even greatly underarmed and outnumbered, the Jews were
not pushed into the sea and actually added land to their original allocation.
Refugees were created on both sides. However, an exchange of populations
had actually taken place. By coincidence, the total number of Arabs who
reportedly left Israel equaled the number of Jews who were forced out of
the Arab countries. There was also a more than even tradeoff of property
between the Jews of the Middle East and the Arabs. The Jews who fled Arab
countries where they had lived for 2,500 years, left assets behind far
greater than those the Arabs left in Israel. Jewish property that the Arabs
confiscated in Iraq, Syria, Libya and Egypt more than offset Arab claims of
compensation from Israel.
After the war in the negotiations for an Armistice Agreement in 1949, the
Arabs, having lost, insisted that Israel then accept the 1947 partition
lines as borders before they would negotiate. Actually, what they were
demanding after defeat, was what they could have had before their invasion
without firing a shot! The purpose of this declaration by the Arabs was to
appear as the defenders of the UN and its resolutions, and to cast Israel
as its violator. The opposite was true.
This model created a novel concept, which the Arabs still use to this day:
the doctrine of the limited liability war. Under this theory, an aggressor
may reject a compromise settlement and may gamble on war to win everything
in the comfortable knowledge that, even if he fails, he may insist on
reinstating the original compromise and claim rights under it. This has
been the pattern in each war of 1948, 1956, 1967, 1973, 1982 and even in
today's declarations by Yasser Arafat, head of the Palestinian Authority.
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