Israel Started in 1917 With Balfour Declaration and Why

Nadene Goldfoot                   

 In 1915 there were about 83,000 Jews who lived in Palestine among 590,000 Muslim and Christian Arabs.  By 1948 there were 650,000 Jews.                                               

"The Arabs will not only demand the West Bank and the Gaza Strip, but all of the land conquered since 1948...The slogan that the rights of the Palestinians be restored and the Palestine liberated can have but one meaning....the elimination of Israel."  from Radio Damascus, December 22, 1976. 

At the end of WWI in 1917, Britain issued the Balfour Declaration.  This was to be the whole of historic Palestine, including Transjordan.  It said,

" 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."

Jews had been praying for 2,000 years to for their return to Jerusalem and the land of Israel and Judah.  They finally saw their chance in 1880 when many started to return in what was called Aliyot of which there were about 5 Aliyot, or immigration to Palestine.  That was because of all the anti-Semitism going on in Europe.  At the start of WWI, Chaim Weizmann created something that made ammunition of a much better quality and gave it to the Brits who therefore were able to win the war.   As a reward, they decided on using Palestine for the Jewish Homeland being Jews had come from there.  

The problem came to be that the head Arab leader, Abdullah,  fought for Britain and did so to become an emir like his father over his own land.  The land Britain awarded him was most all of the Jewish Homeland.  

Great Britain was given the mandate to make sure the Jewish Homeland came to be.  The Balfour Declaration spoke of the "historical connections of the Jewish people with Palestine and to the moral validity of "reconstituting (recognition of the fact that Palestine had been the Jews' home up to 70 CE)  their National Home in that country."  

The word, "Arab" does not appear in the mandatory award.  This Mandate was formalized by the 52 governments at the League of nations on July 24, 1922.  In the 1922 census, there were 84,000 Jews in Palestine while there were 643,000 Arabs.  The British were allowing Arabs in and keeping Jews out.  

College professors have zeroed in on the part where it says that nothing shall be done to prejudice right of non-Jews in Palestine telling their students that the Balfour Declaration means nothing as far as creation of Israel, then.  Let's look at what had happened.

                                                                                                                                                         

                                                                     

Emir Feisal was in on meetings and was all for the creation of a Jewish Homeland.  He said,

 "We Arabs...look with deepest sympathy on the Zionist movement....We will wish the Jews a hearty welcome home....our two movements complete one another....I think that neither can be a real success without the other."  Emir Feisal, Leader of the Arab National Movement, March 3, 1919.         

In 1921, Churchill rewarded Sherif of Mecca Hussein's 2nd son, Abdullah, for his contribution to the war against Turkey. This was a different sherif, not the one of Jerusalem. This Sherif Hussein was the guardian of the Islamic Holy Places in Arabia and had said, 

"The resources of Palestine are still virgin soil and will be developed by the Jewish immigrants.  One of the most amazing things until recent times was that the Palestinian used to leave his country, wandering over the high seas in every direction.  His native soil could not retain a hold on him, though his ancestors had lived on it for 1,000 years.  At the same time we have seen the Jews from foreign countries streaming to Palestine from Russia, Germany, Austria, Spain, and America.  The cause of causes could not escape those who had a gift of deeper insight.  They knew that the country was for its original sons (abna'ihi-I-asliyin), for all their differences, a sacred and beloved homeland.  the return of these exiles (jaliya) to their homeland will prove materially and spiritually to be an experimental school for their brethren who are with them in the fields, factories, trades and in all things connected with toil and labor."  

"When Mark Twain visited Palestine in 1867, he saw it as it was; a desolate country whose soil is rich enough, but is given over wholly to weeds, a silent mournful expanse...we never saw a human being on the whole route...there was hardly a tree or a shrub anywhere.  Even an olive and the cactus, those fast friends of the worthless soil, had almost deserted the country. " 

Churchill  made Abdullah emir in 1922  and severed nearly 4/5 of Palestine, some 35,000 square miles, to create a brand new Arab emirate, Transjordan.  He had been deposed by the French in Syria as rule of the new kingdom of Iraq.  His family had been defeated in tribal warfare that had taken place on the Arabian peninsula and needed a Kingdom to rule.    This is because Abdullah had his men follow him in fighting for Britain against the Ottoman Empire.  Jews did also, and Chaim Weizmann had made ammunition that won the war for them, but for their help got a sliver of their promised land.  

                                                                                                                                                                  

Sherif of Jerusalem, Haj Amin al-Husseini, or the Grand Mufti, was against the idea of Jews coming into the land and starting riots in 1929 against the Jews.  Then he went to Germany and met with Adolf Hitler and planned the Jews' deaths with him.  He said in 1948, "I declare a holy war, my Muslim brothers!  Murder the Jews!  Murder them all!"  Yasir Arafat said as the PLO Chairman, "The goal of our struggle is the end of Israel, and there can be no compromise."  

Instead of helping the Jews to create their homeland by being cooperative, the British hindered Jews needing to come into Palestine.  Their response to Jewish immigration was of appeasing the Arabs that continued for the 30 years the mandate lasted.  They placed restrictions on Jewish immigration but allowed Arabs to enter freely.

If that wasn't enough, in 1939 the British announced their White Paper saying that an independent Arab state would be created within 10 years and that Jewish immigration was to be limited to 75,000 for the next 5 years, and then it would stop altogether.  they forbid Jews to buy land in 95% of the land of Palestine.  The Arabs REFUSED THE PROPOSAL.  In 1939 there were 31,195 Jews who immigrated to Palestine.  Germany had closed the doors to Jews wanting to get out.  By 1941, only 4,592 were able to get in.

Of the promised Jewish Homeland, 1/5th of the land was left for them and that piece was divided in half between the Arabs and the Jews of which the Arabs kept refusing.  That's how Israel came to have the piece that they had on May 14, 1948.  Until 1967, Arabs showed no interest in creating a state of Palestine.  By the Six Day War of 1967, the nations that lost that war changed their minds and they started to become very nationalistic.

Now that the Jews have turned it into a Garden of Eden, the Palestinian Arabs covet it and plot to destroy the Jews and take it over.

Resource: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abdullah_I_of_Jordan
Myths and Facts, a concise record of the Arab-Israeli conflict by Mitchell Bard and Joel Himelfarb
Israel 101 from StandWithUs