A HISTORY OF BETRAYAL: The Zionist Establishment of Israel

Myths and Facts ^ | 1-18-2002 | The Orthodox Presbyterian

[OrthodoxPresbyterian]

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“Nobody does Israel any service by proclaiming its 'right to exist.'

Israel's right to exist, like that of the United States, Saudi Arabia and 152 other states, is axiomatic and unreserved. Israel's legitimacy is not suspended in midair awaiting acknowledgement.... There is certainly no other state, big or small, young or old, that would consider mere recognition of its 'right to exist' a favor, or a negotiable concession. -- Abba Eban, former Foreign Minister of Israel

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BACKGROUND

• The Condition of Palestine prior to 1900

For many centuries, Palestine was a sparsely populated, poorly cultivated and widely-neglected expanse of eroded hills, sandy deserts and malarial marshes. As late as 1880, the American consul in Jerusalem reported the area was continuing its historic decline. "The population and wealth of Palestine has not increased during the last forty years," he said.

The Report of the Palestine Royal Commission quotes an account of the Maritime Plain in 1913:

The road leading from Gaza to the north was only a summer track suitable for transport by camels and carts...no orange groves, orchards or vineyards were to be seen until one reached [the Jewish village of] Yabna [Yavne]....Houses were all of mud. No windows were anywhere to be seen....The ploughs used were of wood....The yields were very poor....The sanitary conditions in the village were horrible. Schools did not exist....The western part, towards the sea, was almost a desert....The villages in this area were few and thinly populated. Many ruins of villages were scattered over the area, as owing to the prevalence of malaria, many villages were deserted by their inhabitants.

Lewis French, the British Director of Development wrote of Palestine:

We found it inhabited by fellahin who lived in mud hovels and suffered severely from the prevalent malaria....Large areas...were uncultivated....The fellahin, if not themselves cattle thieves, were always ready to harbor these and other criminals. The individual plots...changed hands annually. There was little public security, and the fellahin's lot was an alternation of pillage and blackmail by their neighbors, the Bedouin.

Mark Twain, who visited Palestine in 1867, described it as: “...[a] desolate country whose soil is rich enough, but is given over wholly to weeds-a silent mournful expanse.... A desolation is here that not even imagination can grace with the pomp of life and action.... We never saw a human being on the whole route.... There was hardly a tree or a shrub anywhere. Even the olive and the cactus, those fast friends of the worthless soil, had almost deserted the country.”

• The Establishment of the Zionist Movement

In the late 19th century, the rise of religious and racist anti-Semitism led to a resurgence of pogroms in Russia and Eastern Europe, shattering promises of equality and tolerance. This stimulated Jewish immigration to Palestine from Europe.

Simultaneously, a wave of Jews immigrated to Palestine from Yemen, Morocco, Iraq and Turkey. These Jews were unaware of Theodor Herzl's political Zionism or of European pogroms. They were motivated by the centuries-old dream of the “Return to Zion” and a fear of intolerance. Upon hearing that the gates of Palestine were open, they braved the hardships of travel and went to the “Land of Israel.”

The Zionist ideal of a return to Israel has profound religious roots. Many Jewish prayers speak of Jerusalem, Zion and the Land of Israel. The injunction not to forget Jerusalem, the site of the Temple, is a major tenet of Judaism. The Hebrew language, the Torah, laws in the Talmud the Jewish calendar and Jewish holidays and festivals such as Shavuot all originated in Israel and revolve around its seasons and conditions. Jews pray toward Jerusalem and recite the words “next year in Jerusalem” every Passover. Jewish religion, culture and history make clear that it is only in the land of Israel that the Jewish commonwealth can be built.

In 1897, Jewish leaders formally organized the Zionist movement, calling for the restoration of the Jewish national home in Palestine, where Jews could find sanctuary and self-determination, and work for the renaissance of their civilization and culture.

THE BALFOUR DECLARATION

• The Balfour Declaration regarding conquered Turkish Teritories, 1917

In 1917, Britain issued the Balfour Declaration:

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.

According to the Peel Commission, appointed by the British Government to investigate the cause of the 1936 Arab riots, "the field in which the Jewish National Home was to be established was understood, at the time of the Balfour Declaration, to be the whole of historic Palestine, including Transjordan."

The Mandate for Palestine's purpose was to put into effect 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.

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

• Arab Nationalist acceptance of the Balfour Declaration, 1919

It is a little-known fact that many Arab leaders welcomed the idea that a free Israel would boost the common lot of everyone in the surrounding territories. For example, Emir Faisal, King of Syria, welcomed Dr. Chaim Weizmann’s efforts to establish an Israel with Jerusalem as its national capital.

Faisal, son of Sherif Hussein, the leader of the Arab revolt against the Turks, signed an agreement with Chaim Weizmann and other Zionist leaders during the 1919 Paris Peace Conference. It acknowledged the "racial kinship and ancient bonds existing between the Arabs and the Jewish people" and concluded that "the surest means of working out the consummation of their national aspirations is through the closest possible collaboration in the development of the Arab states and Palestine." Furthermore, the agreement looked to the fulfillment of the Balfour Declaration and 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 intensive cultivation of the soil."

Emir Faisal also saw the Zionist movement as a companion to the Arab nationalist movement, fighting against imperialism, as he explained in a letter to Harvard law professor and future Supreme Court Justice Felix Frankfurter on March 3, 1919, one day after Chaim Weizmann presented the Zionist case to the Paris conference. Faisal wrote:

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. Indeed, I think that neither can be a real success without the other.

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It was not to last. The Zionists supported the Arab Nationalist aim of establishing independent Arab Nations throughout the liberated territories of the Turkish empire, when the time came for the Arabs to fulfill their commitment to the establishment of a Jewish National Home in Palestine... the Arabs betrayed their covenants, and stabbed the Zionists in the back.

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THE FIRST BETRAYAL

• The British partition of the Jewish Palestine Mandate

In 1921, Colonial Secretary Winston Churchill severed nearly four-fifths of Palestine-some 35,000 square miles-to create a brand new Arab emirate, Transjordan. As a consolation prize for the Hejaz and Arabia going to the Saud family, Churchill rewarded Sherif Hussein's son Abdullah for his contribution to the war against Turkey by installing him as Transjordan's emir.

Brown -- Golan Heights; ceded to French Syrian Arab Mandate, 1923
Tan -- Arab Palestine, separated and closed to Jewish settlement
Yellow -- Jewish Palestine, remaining area of Jewish National Homeland

As British historian Paul Johnson noted, Zionists were hardly tools of imperialists given the powers’ general opposition to their cause. “Everywhere in the West, the foreign offices, defense ministries and big business were against the Zionists.”

THE SECOND BETRAYAL

• British incitement of Arab murder raids on Jewish Palestine

In 1921, Haj Amin el-Husseini first began to organize small groups of suicide squads — fedayeen — to terrorize Jews. Haj Amin hoped to duplicate the success of Kemal Atatürk in Turkey by driving the Jews out of Palestine just as Kemal had driven the invading Greeks from his country. Arab radicals were able to gain influence because the British Administration was unwilling to take effective action against them until they finally revolted against British rule.

Colonel Richard Meinertzhagen, former head of British military intelligence in Cairo, and later Chief Political Officer for Palestine and Syria, wrote in his diary that British officials “incline towards the exclusion of Zionism in Palestine.”

The British encouraged the Palestinians to attack the Jews. According to Meinertzhagen, Col. Waters Taylor (financial adviser to the Military Administration in Palestine 1919-23) met with Haj Amin a few days before Easter, in 1920, and told him “he had a great opportunity at Easter to show the world...that Zionism was unpopular not only with the Palestine Administration but in Whitehall and if disturbances of sufficient violence occurred in Jerusalem at Easter, both General Bols [Chief Administrator in Palestine, 1919-20] and General Allenby [Commander of Egyptian Force, 1917-19, then High Commissioner of Egypt] would advocate the abandonment of the Jewish Home. Waters-Taylor explained that freedom could only be attained through violence.”

Haj Amin took the Colonel’s advice and instigated a riot. The British withdrew their troops and the Jewish police from Jerusalem, allowing the Arab mob to attack Jews and loot their shops.

Haj Amin consolidated his power and took control of all Muslim religious funds in Palestine. He used his authority to gain control over the mosques, the schools and the courts. No Arab could reach an influential position without being loyal to the Mufti. His power was so absolute “no Muslim in Palestine could be born or die without being beholden to Haj Amin.” The Mufti’s henchmen also insured he would have no opposition by systematically killing Palestinians from rival clans who were discussing cooperation with the Jews.

The Arabs found rioting to be an effective political tool because of the lax British attitude and response toward violence against Jews.

THE THIRD BETRAYAL

• Arab support for the Nazi Holocaust

In 1941, Islamic Mufti of Jerusalem Haj Amin al-Husseini fled to Germany and met with Adolf Hitler, Heinrich Himmler, Joachim Von Ribbentrop and other Nazi leaders. He wanted to persuade them to extend the Nazis’ anti-Jewish program to the Arab world.

The Mufti sent Hitler 15 drafts of declarations he wanted Germany and Italy to make concerning the Middle East. One called on the two countries to declare the illegality of the Jewish home in Palestine. Furthermore, “they accord to Palestine and to other Arab countries the right to solve the problem of the Jewish elements in Palestine and other Arab countries, in accordance with the interest of the Arabs and, by the same method, that the question is now being settled in the Axis countries.”

In November 1941, the Mufti met with Hitler, who told him the Jews were his foremost enemy. The Nazi dictator rebuffed the Mufti's requests for a declaration in support of the Arabs, however, telling him the time was not right. The Mufti offered Hitler his “thanks for the sympathy which he had always shown for the Arab and especially Palestinian cause, and to which he had given clear expression in his public speeches....The Arabs were Germany's natural friends because they had the same enemies as had Germany, namely....the Jews....” Hitler replied:

Germany stood for uncompromising war against the Jews. That naturally included active opposition to the Jewish national home in Palestine....Germany would furnish positive and practical aid to the Arabs involved in the same struggle....Germany's objective [is]...solely the destruction of the Jewish element residing in the Arab sphere....In that hour the Mufti would be the most authoritative spokesman for the Arab world. The Mufti thanked Hitler profusely.

In 1945, Yugoslavia sought to indict the Mufti as a war criminal for his role in recruiting 20,000 Muslim volunteers for the SS, who participated in the killing of Jews in Croatia and Hungary. He escaped from French detention in 1946, however, and continued his fight against the Jews from Cairo and later Beirut. He died in 1974.

The Husseini family continued to play a role in Palestinian affairs, with Faisal Husseini, whose father was the Mufti's nephew, regarded as one of their leading spokesmen in the territories until his death in May 2001.

THE FOURTH BETRAYAL

• The Second Partition of Jewish Palestine, 1948

As World War II ended, the magnitude of the Holocaust became known. This accelerated demands for a resolution to the question of Palestine so the survivors of Hitler's "Final Solution" might find sanctuary in a homeland of their own.

The British tried to work out an agreement acceptable to both Arabs and Jews, but their insistence on the former's approval guaranteed failure because the Arabs would not make any concessions. They subsequently turned the issue over to the UN in February 1947.

The UN established a Special Commission on Palestine (UNSCOP) to devise a solution. Delegates from 11 nations went to the area and found what had long been apparent: The conflicting national aspirations of Jews and Arabs could not be reconciled.

The contrasting attitudes of the two groups "could not fail to give the impression that the Jews were imbued with the sense of right and were prepared to plead their case before any unbiased tribunal, while the Arabs felt unsure of the justice of their cause, or were afraid to bow to the judgment of the nations.”

Although most of the Commission's members acknowledged the need to find a compromise solution, it was difficult for them to envision one given the parties' intractability. At a meeting with a group of Arabs in Beirut, the Czechoslovakian member of the Commission told his audience: "I have listened to your demands and it seems to me that in your view the compromise is: We want our demands met completely, the rest can be divided among those left.”

When they returned, the delegates of seven nations — Canada, Czechoslovakia, Guatemala, The Netherlands, Peru, Sweden and Uruguay — recommended the establishment of two separate states, Jewish and Arab, to be joined by economic union, with Jerusalem an internationalized enclave. Three nations — India, Iran and Yugoslavia — recommended a unitary state with Arab and Jewish provinces. Australia abstained.

The Jews of Palestine were not satisfied with the small territory allotted to them by the Commission, nor were they happy that Jerusalem was severed from the Jewish State; nevertheless, they welcomed the compromise. The Arabs rejected the UNSCOP's recommendations.

The ad hoc committee of the UN General Assembly rejected the Arab demand for a unitary Arab state. The majority recommendation for partition was subsequently adopted 33-13 with 10 abstentions on November 29, 1947.

• The Arab “War of Extermination” against Israel, 1948

Violence in the Holy Land broke out almost immediately after the UN announced partition on November 29, 1947. Jamal Husseini, the Arab Higher Committee's spokesman, had told the UN prior to the partition vote the Arabs would drench "the soil of our beloved country with the last drop of our blood . . . ."

On May 4, 1948, the Arab Legion attacked Kfar Etzion. The defenders drove them back, but the Legion returned a week later. After two days, the ill-equipped and outnumbered settlers were overwhelmed. Many defenders were massacred after they had surrendered. This was prior to the invasion by the regular Arab armies that followed Israel's declaration of independence.

The UN blamed the Arabs for the violence. The UN Palestine Commission was never permitted by the Arabs or British to go to Palestine to implement the resolution. On February 16, 1948, the Commission reported to the Security Council:

Powerful Arab interests, both inside and outside Palestine, are defying the resolution of the General Assembly and are engaged in a deliberate effort to alter by force the settlement envisaged therein.

The Arabs were blunt in taking responsibility for starting the war. Jamal Husseini told the Security Council on April 16, 1948:

The representative of the Jewish Agency told us yesterday that they were not the attackers, that the Arabs had begun the fighting. We did not deny this. We told the whole world that we were going to fight.

The partition resolution was never suspended or rescinded. Thus, Israel, the Jewish State in Palestine, was born on May 14, as the British finally left the country. Five Arab armies (Egypt, Syria, Transjordan, Lebanon and Iraq) immediately invaded Israel. Their intentions were declared by Azzam Pasha, Secretary-General of the Arab League: "This will be a war of extermination and a momentous massacre which will be spoken of like the Mongolian massacres and the Crusades."

[OrthodoxPresbyterian]

You declare, my friend, that you do not hate the Jews, you are merely "anti-Zionist." And I say, let the truth ring forth from the high mountain tops, let it echo through the valleys of God's green earth: When people criticize "Zionism", they mean Jews -- this is God's own truth. -- Dr. Martin Luther King, jr.

[Objectivism USA]

Good post

[OrthodoxPresbyterian]

Good post

Thanks.

And as a staunch Libertarian (Calvinist, not Objectivist), I will hasten to add that I am not an advocate of US military involvement in the Middle East and I am never an advocate of Foreign Aid. The Zionist Claim to Jewish Palestine (which is the entirety of greater Israel from the Jordan to the Mediterranean) may be 100% in the Legal Right... but they are not, Constitutionally, an American State.

But THAT said... the Zionist Claim is 100% in the Legal Right.

[Pharmboy]

Thanks for the post, OP. Nice job.

[Fzob]

bump

[OrthodoxPresbyterian]

Your history is flawed....using the same illogical reasoning you used (British) than America belongs to the Indians. 4 posted on 1/18/02 7:16 PM Pacific by sfrgrabn333

Not at all.

A proper analogy would be if the Indians had legally contracted to permit the establishment of an American Nation in a tiny sliver of the American Continent (say, Delaware), in which region a substantial minority of Americans had lived for thousands of years...

...and then, when time came for the Americans to establish their State, the Indians broke all their Covenants and declared that they were going to murder the American race (as the Arabs attempted upon the Jews).

THAT would be a fitting analogy.

[Objectivism USA]

I would put it even simpler; Israel's government has the support of the majority of people living in present Israel. A government with popular support is a legitimate government; a government without it is not.

[satchmodog9]

The leftists argue that America is the big imperialist state with a bad foriegn policy. Half of these leftists come from Europe and all I ever see is the fact that England, France,Portugal,Italy and Spain were the great imperialists. Why is the world allowed to forget about the transgressions of Europe and call the US the great satan. The world blames the US for the mideast peace problems when it is really the fault of the UK. The problems of India and Pakistan and half of Africa are also creations of failed UK foriegn policy. The creation of the seperate state of Israel was about the only good thing to come from the policies of the UK in this region. The real truth of the matter is that the arabs have one goal in life and they have always had it. The destruction of Israel is the only thing keeping these people going. The free nation of Israel is a testimony to the strong will and the moral fiber of the Jews. The arabs should remember that the Jews are Gods chosen people(according to them). If this is true then I would hate to see a people that God was pissed at. Long live Israel and any other free nation.

[OrthodoxPresbyterian]

I would put it even simpler; Israel's government has the support of the majority of people living in present Israel. A government with popular support is a legitimate government; a government without it is not. 8 posted on 1/18/02 7:25 PM Pacific by Objectivism USA

Trouble is, if you kicked out all the Jews (or the Arabs just killed them all), there would no longer be a majority of people in Israel supporting the present government. And some people argue that the Jews have no Right to be there in the first place.

So, I hashed this together to address the issue of legal right.

[OrthodoxPresbyterian]

A while back (over a year, if memory serves) I promised you a thread on modern Israeli history.

Here ya go....

[spanky_mcfarland]

"The population and wealth of Palestine has not increased during the last forty years..."

The same could be said (in terms of the population and likely wealth as well) of West Virginia...maybe we should void all property ownership in this state and re-establish it as a religious state for Moonies, Wiccans, Sun cultists...

Proof that WV population has shrunk 1959-1999 justifying the voiding of all property rights and further justifying/mandating we hand it over to a religion to be named later.

[x]

This is propagandistic, superficial, selectively skewed and unconvincing. It begins with the assumption that Zionism is right and ends by portraying everyone who disagreed as wrong and evil. One can certainly criticize Palestinian conduct, but we would not react so differently from the Palestinians if someone declared that our land was their god-given ancestral homeland and the site of a state which they would rule. There are hundreds of books written on the Middle East. Reading more of them may not change your views, but it would convey the nuances and difficulties of the situation that this article ignores or denies.

[OrthodoxPresbyterian]

The same could be said (in terms of the population and likely wealth as well) of West Virginia...maybe we should void all property ownership in this state and re-establish it as a religious state for Moonies, Wiccans, Sun cultists... Proof that WV population has shrunk 1959-1999 justifying the voiding of all property rights and further justifying/mandating we hand it over to a religion to be named later. 12 posted on 1/18/02 9:04 PM Pacific by spanky_mcfarland

This is not a question of property Rights. I acknowledge the property Rights of Palestinian Arabs, and disapprove of their abrogation by Jewish Palestinians.

This is a question of national sovereignty. Israel, Jewish Palestine, enjoys rightful Sovereignty claim to the West Bank. If Arab Palestinians feel that the important thing is their property rights, then they need to acknowledge that the West Bank is within the rightful sovereign borders of Israel, cease their armed revolt, and demand that Israel protect their Rights. IF, on the other hand, they feel that it is more important to live in a racially-arab "Palestinian Arab State"... there already is one, and they can move there.

Jordan = Arab Palestine

[OrthodoxPresbyterian]

This is propagandistic, superficial, selectively skewed and unconvincing.

Horse-hockey.

It begins with the assumption that Zionism is right and ends by portraying everyone who disagreed as wrong and evil.

Nope. It begins by assuming that the Arab Nationalists agreed to the Zionist request for one sliver of the Middle East....
...which they did.

The Arab Nationalists got their independent Arab Nations; they must stick by the deal, and acknowledge Jewish Palestinian rightful sovereignty over Jewish Palestine's independent Nation: Israel.

A deal is a deal.

[Objectivism USA]

Trouble is, if you kicked out all the Jews (or the Arabs just killed them all), there would no longer be a majority of people in Israel supporting the present government. And some people argue that the Jews have no Right to be there in the first place.

So, I hashed this together to address the issue of legal right.

I agree with that. I like most people tend to believe that Countries that are older than I am are legitimate, changes during my lifetime are debatable.

[OrthodoxPresbyterian]

I like most people tend to believe that Countries that are older than I am are legitimate, changes during my lifetime are debatable.

I think that's true of most of us.

I am German by ethnic heritage, and enjoy studying German history, but it's probably not a good idea to re-visit German claims to Prussia and Silesia, ceded to Poland by Soviet administration well before my time.

They've been Polish a little while now, the last dust-up over the matter got kinda messy....

[RnMomof7]

Good work OP..BTTT

[Demidog]

I have a bit of a problem with the assessment that "The British" encouraged the Arabs to attack Israel. It almost seems as if you (or somebody else) are saying that the Zionists were tricked into moving into the region so that they could be slaughtered by the Arabs.

The League of Nations in adopting the Balfour declaration placed a preference upon rightfull heritage. Certainly you make good points about the size of the region which this covered and what actually was ceded.

But also it must be noted that there are a group of people who refer to themselves as Palestinians who are in limbo. Jordan doesn't want them and neither does Israel. For the prior 1300 years both were oppressed by the successive empires that controlled the region. So it wasn't exactly historical truth to place the Jews at odds with their Arab brethren.

The finer point you make is of course that Israel has a right to exist. Saying otherwise is tantamount to anti-Semitism since they of course exist and the last 80 years of international decision making has been in their legal favor in regards to Nationhood.

It is also true that Palestinians have a right to their own state. And if Jordan isn't going to cede that they are under their jurisdiction and protect their rights, then who is and where are they going to reside?

That Israel has been brutal to the Palestinians is an understatement as would be the same statement in reverse.

I certainly do not condone either. But I appreciate this post.

[Brad C.]

In 1921, Colonial Secretary Winston Churchill severed nearly four-fifths of Palestine-some 35,000 square miles-to create a brand new Arab emirate, Transjordan.

Strange isn't it. Back in 1921, 4/5ths of their country is taken away and given to another country, yet they don't refer to it as "Occupied territory" nor do they stake any claim on it. One would think they would be a lot more excited about losing so much land by the edict of a foriegn country.