Relevant History in Brief



But Haj Amin El Husseini, Mufti of Jerusalem, (who later collaborated with Hitler in World War II) and other Arab elites belligerently opposed opening any part of Palestine for Jewish development. Their political theology dictates that Palestine, like other territory once conquered by Muslim forces, is “Holy Land”, never again to be controlled by non-Muslims. Accordingly, despite conclusive archeological evidence supporting volumes of probative testimony, they minimalized or denied the multi-millennial connection of the Jews with the land of Palestine.



(Palestine and Jordan were both under British Mandate, but as my grand-father pointed out in his memoirs, they were hardly separate countries. Trans-Jordan being to the east of the river Jordan, formed in a sense, the interior of Palestine.” [King Hussein Jordan, Uneasy Lies the Head, New York, 1962, p.118])

Israel and the Wars that Followed

In 1947, after Britain had surrendered its Mandate, it was transferred as a “sacred trust” to the United Nations, successor to the League of Nations. The U.N. General Assembly adopted Resolution 181, calling for partition of the remaining 22% of the Palestine Mandate. This “Two-State Solution” provided for a second Arab state in Palestine (Jordan being the first). Although disappointed by the reduced portion of territory they would receive, the U.N. proposal was accepted by the Jews as “Israelis”. It was rejected forcefully by the Arabs.

The U.N vote was timely and critical, and it affirmed Israel’s legal and historic right to statehood. But the U.N. could not create the State: Britain opposed the U.N. plan and the U.S., France, and others failed in an attempt to have the U.N. General Assembly rescind the Partition Resolution. Contrary to hostile propaganda, Israel was neither created by nor imposed by the West, but arose in spite of obstruction, opposition, or inaction by most of the great Western powers. It was created by Jews who had settled the land, organized and built a functioning economy, society and governmental structure and demanded sovereignty for themselves and for their fellow Jews in Europe and in Moslem lands seeking security and dignity in the historic home of the Jewish people.

In 1948, five Arab armies undertook an avowed “War of Extermination” against the greatly outnumbered nascent Jewish State. To world-wide surprise, the Arabs were defeated. Under the subsequent armistice agreement when combat ceased, Jordan occupied the West Bank and Egypt occupied Gaza, but Israel had distinctly established its presence as a sovereign state in the Middle East.
