THE MODERN STATE OF ISRAEL ACHIEVED THROUGH DIVINE PROVIDENCE Conclusion (Part V)

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Through Violent Conflict A Jewish Homeland is Established

As a direct result of the Nazi persecutions, on November 29, 1947, the United Nations General Assembly voted thirty-three to thirteen, with ten abstentions, in favor of a Partition Plan that created the State of Israel. On the same day, the General Assembly of the United Nations voted with a two-thirds majority to partition western Palestine into a Jewish and an Arab state.[ix] Over seventy five percent of the land allocated to the Jews was desert. Desperate to find a haven for the remnants of European Jewry after the Holocaust, the Jewish population accepted the plan, which accorded them a diminished state. The Arabs, intent on preventing any Jewish entity in Palestine, rejected it.

On May 14, 1948, the last British forces left Haifa, and the Jewish Agency, led by Israel’s Prime Minister David Ben-Gurion, declared the creation of the State of Israel, in accordance with the 1947 United Nations Partition Plan. United States President Harry S. Truman immediately recognized the new state. Hours later, Soviet premier Joseph Stalin also recognized the new state. Arab League members Egypt, Transjordan, Syria, Lebanon and Iraq declared war and announced their rejection of the United Nations partition decision. Saudi-Arabia and Yemen also sent forces to participate in the invasion.

David Ben-Gurion (1886-1973) was the State of Israel’s first prime minister (1948-1953 and 1955-1963) and defense minister. He was born David Gruen in Plonsk (in Russia that became Poland), October 16, 1886. At age fourteen, he became one of the founders of the Ezra youth movement. Ben-Gurion joined the Poalei Zion (Zionist workers) movement at age seventeen and was arrested twice during the revolution of 1905-1906. He settled in Eretz Yisrael (The Land Israel) in 1906, first working in orange groves and wine cellars. As a watchman and farm worker, he became convinced that true Zionism meant settling the land. In Jerusalem in 1910, he began writing for Poalei Zion newspaper Ahdut, along with Yitzhak Ben-Zvi and Rachel Yanait (Ben-Zvi). This was the first time he used the name “Ben-Gurion.” During World War I, he originally favored Turkey and adoption of Ottoman citizenship. Anti-Zionist persecution changed his mind. He and Ben-Zvi were exiled to Egypt in March 1915. Ben-Gurion went to New York where he was instrumental in preparing young Jews to come to Palestine immediately after the war. He married Paula Munweis in 1917. She was an integral part of everything he did until her death in 1968. After the war, he became general secretary of the Histadrut labor federation in 1921. In 1930 he formed Mapai, the Zionist labor party; and in 1935 he became chairman of the executive committee of the Jewish Agency for Palestine. When Britain limited Jewish immigration to Palestine in 1939, a decade of Zionist warfare began. Ben-Gurion was unrelenting, and finally in Tel Aviv, on May 14, 1948, he proclaimed independence for the State of Israel

At four o’clock in the afternoon of May 14, 1948 the members of the provisional national council, led by David Ben-Gurion met in the Tel Aviv Art Museum. Ben-Gurion rose and read the following proclamation:

“The Land of Israel was the birthplace of the Jewish people. Here their spiritual, religious and national identity was formed. Here they achieved independence and created a culture of national and universal significance. Here they wrote and gave the Bible to the world. Exiled from Palestine, the Jewish people remained, faithful to it in all countries of their dispersion, never ceasing to pray and hope for their return and the restoration of their national freedom . . . Accordingly we, the members of the National Council, representing the Jewish people in Palestine and the Zionist movement of the world, met together in solemn assemble today, the day of the termination of the British Mandate of Palestine, by virtue of the natural and historic right of the Jewish people and the Resolution of the General Assembly of the United Nations, hereby proclaim the establishment of the Jewish state in Palestine, to be called ISRAEL . With trust in Almighty God, we set out hand to this declaration, at this session of the Provisional State Council, in the city of Tel Aviv, on this Sabbath eve, the fifth day of Iyar, 5708, the fourteenth day of May, 1948.

At that time the British who were still governing Israel refused to implement the partition plan. The British government made it plain that it would do all in its power to prevent the birth of the Jewish state. Then, immediately after the United Nations Assembly decision, the Arabs launched their preliminary onslaught on the Jewish community. The British Army gave the Palestinian Arabs cover and aid, which resulted in:

  1. Obstruction of Jewish defenses on the ground;
  2. Blocking movement of Jewish reinforcements and supplies to outlying settlements;
  3. Opening the land frontiers for the entry of Arab soldiers from the neighboring Arab states;
  4. Maintaining a blockade in the Mediterranean and sealing the coast and ports through which alone the outnumbered Jews could expect reinforcements;
  5. Handing over arms dumps to the Arabs;
  6. Sending in forces from Malta to bomb and shell the Jewish force when Jaffa was on the point of falling to a Jewish counterattack;
  7. Continuing to supply the Arab states preparing to invade across the borders with all that they asked for and making no secret of it.

In 1948, after the United Nations voted to give Israel statehood, five Arab armies (Egypt, Syria, Transjordan, Lebanon and Iraq) immediately invaded Israel. The stated purpose of this invasion was to “push the Jews into the sea”, in other words, genocide. Assam Pasha, Secretary-General of the Arab League, declared their intentions: “This will be a war of extermination and a momentous massacre which will be spoken of like the Mongolian massacres and the Crusades. “What Hitler didn’t finish three years earlier, the Arabs would finish once and for all.”[x] A Nazi collaborator, Hajj Amin al-Husseini, led the Arabs of the former British Mandate of Palestine. He was charged at the Nuremberg trials before escaping in 1946. Al-Husseini actively supported Hitler’s aim to exterminate the Jews in World War II.

Despite the disadvantages in numbers, organization and weapons, the Jews began to take the initiative in the weeks from April 1 until the declaration of independence on May 14. The Haganah captured several major towns including Tiberius and Haifa, and temporarily opened the road to Jerusalem. Czechoslovakia was the only country willing to provide the Jews with weapons. They gave the Jews used World War I weapons. Because God wanted them to survive He allowed them to capture territory from which the Arab aggressors attacked. Jordan captured what is now referred to as the “West Bank” (their true Jewish names are Judea and Samaria) including the Jewish eastern half of Jerusalem (now known as “Arab East Jerusalem”). Egypt captured what is now known as the “Gaza Strip.” This was in ancient times known as the land of the Philistines. Both countries murdered or expelled every Jew who was living there at the time. During the nineteen years that Jordan and Egypt occupied those territories (now know collectively as the “Occupied Territories”), neither country was willing to create independent states for the remaining Arabs (now known collectively as the “Palestinians”) residing in those territories. Instead, those regions were plundered and allowed to rot. Jewish graves were desecrated, gravestones were used to pave roads and build latrines, and Jewish homes were given to Arabs.  Most of these Jewish refugees went to Israel, and in just a few years doubled Israel’s population. The Ashkenazi Jews of Israel absorbed Arabic-speaking brethren into society. By comparison, displaced Arabs were forced into refugee camps by their Arab brethren and most remained there throughout the nineteen years of Arab occupation. There was not an Israeli policy of expulsion of Arabs from Israel.

In 1949 Israel signed armistice agreements with Egypt, Syria, Lebanon and Transjordan, (which in April 1949 changed its name to Jordan). They won the war against all odds. At this time Jordan annexed Judea and Samaria. Only Britain and Pakistan recognized this annexation as legitimate. This region became a source of many terrorists’ attacks against Israel’s citizens. In 1945 there were about 870,000 Jews living in the surrounding Arab countries. The Muslims call them the Dhimmi. During 1947 and 1948 the Arabs persecuted these Jews. Their personal and real property were confiscated. Yemen Egypt, Libya, Syria and Iraq had anti-Jewish riots. Zionism was declared to be a capital crime in Iraq. Approximately 600,000 Jewish refugees left the Arab states and were welcomed into Israel by the Ashkenazi Jews living there at that time. The Jews became full citizens of Israel. Due to the wishes of their Arab leaders, the Arabs in Israel did not become citizens but remained in internment camps and remained “refugees.”

Having lost in battle, Palestinian Arab terrorist groups, called “Fedayeen”, began systematic raids against the Israeli civilian population. Thirteen hundred Israelis were killed and wounded by Arab terrorists between 1949 and 1956.[xi] The “Fedayeen” operated from bases located in and controlled by Egypt, Lebanon and Jordan.

On May 15, 1967 Egyptian President Nasser ordered a blockade of the Strait of Tiran. This blockade cut off Israel’s southern access to the Red Sea and beyond. By May 31,1967 Egypt had moved 100,000 troops, one thousand tanks, and five hundred heavy guns into the Sinai. By June 4, Arab forces outnumbered Israel three to one as they poised on Israel’s borders. This was Israel’s Six Day War and it was fought on three fronts, against three countries, in three overlapping stages. In the south, Israel engaged and defeated the Egyptians. In the central region, Israel engaged and defeated the Jordanians. In the north, Israel engaged and defeated the Syrians. In each of these theaters, Israel gained significant territory that would serve as its own buffers in future years.

On the morning of June 5,1967 the Israeli Air Force destroyed almost the entire Egyptian Air Force (more than three hundred planes) in less than three hours.  Israel’s armored divisions, under the leadership of General Ariel Sharon, also launched a lightning attack on the same day. More than eight hundred Egyptian tanks had been destroyed, and thousands of soldiers were taken as prisoners of war. Nasser later acknowledged that eighty percent of Egypt’s Russian-supplied military equipment had been lost in the Sinai debacle. Finally, at 8:00 p.m. on June 8, Nasser accepted a cease-fire. The Jews won again against all odds.

From 1948 to 1967, Jerusalem was a divided city. The Arab Legion of Jordan had occupied East Jerusalem, including the Old City, since the War of Independence. The Jordanian troops had decimated the Jewish Quarter of the Old City, blowing up its synagogues and destroying every vestige of Jewish life there. During the initial battles with Egypt, Israel actually notified King Hussein that it had no intention of attacking his country. Hussein, however, believed Nassar’s lies and joined the Arabs. When the Arab Legion began to shell Western Jerusalem, the Israelis swiftly counterattacked, with success. Paratroopers landed and attacked from the Mount of Olives, entering the Lion Gate from the east. Israel was careful to minimize the use of artillery, which could have made their attack much easier with less loss of life. This was done out of respect for the numerous holy sites within the ancient walls. By June 8, Israeli troops were gazing at Herod’s stones of the Western Wall. Although Jerusalem was the central prize, Israel also captured in those four fierce days the areas of biblical Judea and Samaria. (Now called the West bank) These are not only the sites of biblical Jerusalem, but also the ancient towns of Shechem, Shiloh, Bethel, Bethlehem, and Hebron.

Egypt’s ally in the north was Syria. From their heavily fortified bunkers and miles of trenches along the Golan Heights, Syrian gunners had harassed the Jewish farmers and fishermen of the Huleh Valley and Sea of Galilee for nineteen years. The problem for the Israelis was that the Syrians literally held the high ground, and their Russian sponsors had helped them to fortify it well. With Syria also threatening Israel’s destruction, the army saw an opportunity to end this threat to its northern citizens once and for all. The battle for the Golan was difficult. This was not a desert, like the Sinai, where tanks could maneuver easily. Furthermore, the Syrians had planted numerous mines to deter any Israeli response to its constant shelling. The Air Force prepared the way by landing paratroopers behind the Syrian lines. Finally, Israeli bulldozers were able to clear the way so the armored units could batter the Syrian troops and drive them deep into the Golan. Syria accepted a cease-fire on June 10, 1967. Again they won against all odds.

Although it was an amazing military victory, the Six Day War left more than seven hundred Israelis dead and more than twenty five hundred wounded. Although figures were never officially released, Arab casualties were conservatively estimated at fifteen thousand. The Six Day War established Israel as a major military power, but it unexpectedly cast it in the role of “occupier”, a burden that has proven hard to bear. Israel eventually returned the Sinai to Egypt in 1973, when Egyptian President Sadat acknowledged their legitimate existence. Israel remains in control of the Golan Heights, unwilling to see it return to a nest of bunkers and artillery positions. On the other hand, Israel is under great pressure to return most of the West Bank, those areas of biblical Judea and Samaria. Israel does not trust the Palestine Liberation Organization to oversee such a “Palestinian State” in light of its murderous record of terrorism.

            In March 1969, still humiliated by the 1967 defeat, Egypt launched a War of Attrition against Israeli forces in the Sinai with intense artillery fire against Israel’s “Bar-Lev Line” on the east bank of the Suez Canal. After large losses in May, June and July 1969, Israel responded with air raids into Egypt. Nasser, in response, appealed to the Soviet Union for aid and on March 19, 1970 Soviet missile batteries were installed in Egypt near the Canal. Moscow in addition to supplying weapons also participated in the war effort operating weapons for the Egyptians. Intense United States pressure led to a cease-fire on August 7, 1970 with plans to put into effect a United States plan for peace in the region based on land for peace. However, the cease fire, which called for a freeze on the situation in the Canal (no movement of either troops or military equipment) was breached by Egypt’s movement forward of forces on the same day it came into effect. Israel responded by suspending her participation in negotiations until the situation, which had prevailed on the eve of the signing of the ceasefire agreement, was restored. The peace plan was never implemented.

In an effort to force Israel to surrender captured lands, Egypt and Syria jointly attacked Israel on October 6, 1973, on Yom Kippur, the holiest day of the Jewish calendar. Other Muslim states contributed troops and financial support. Caught by surprise, Israel suffered severe losses in human life and equipment. Following an Egyptian refusal to accept a cease-fire and a Soviet airlift to the Muslim states, the United States sent an airlift to Israel enabling a recovery from earlier setbacks. One confirmed miraculous story demonstrating the providential nature of the Jewish victory merits inclusion.

During the Yom Kippur War a troop of Israeli soldiers found themselves in the middle of an area riddled with hundreds of Syrian placed land mines. When they discovered this, they quickly got on the ground and started slowly pushing their bayonets into the ground in order to identify the location of the mines. They then began the arduously slow and dangerous task of uncovering and unarmed the mines. They had no ideal how many there were or even exactly where they were. Suddenly a strong desert wind came up out of nowhere and the clouds in the sky cleared exposing a bright shining moon. The wind stopped just as suddenly as it started and when it was over, the soldiers discovered that all the land mines were exposed and brightly illuminated so they were able to walk around them and safely leave the minefield to successfully complete their mission.[xii] Israel won this war too. It was as the others against all odds.

After the Jewish victory Saudi Arabia in retaliation then led the Arab world in an oil embargo imposed on the United States and other western nations. This method of waging war would be and additional strategy for Israel’s enemies to attack them in the future.

In the years following the 1973 war, Israel’s enemies realized that they could not defeat Israel on the battlefield. Churchill realized this many years earlier as he wrote of the Jews military superiority when he was Britain’s Prime Minister in a memo to General Ismay on January 25, 1944. [xiii] Therefore they turned to diplomatic warfare and sought to weaken Israel’s international diplomatic position. Due to pressure from the Muslim world, most African and third world countries broke diplomatic relations with Israel. In 1975, the Soviet-Muslim-Third World bloc at the United Nations succeeded in passing the infamous “Zionism equals racism” General Assembly resolution.  This was an attempt to delegitimize the right of the Jewish people to return to their ancestral homeland. The resolution was not revoked until December 1991.

S.A.A. Maududi a Muslim wrote the following words in Jihad in Islam in 1991.

Islam wishes to destroy all States and Governments anywhere on the face of the earth, which are opposed to the ideology and program of Islam. Islam requires the earth – not just a portion, but the whole planet.” And that God’s Law (Shariah) should be enforced in the world “by force of arms.” Truth cannot be confined within geographical borders. “The allegiance of a Muslim does not rest on his domicile in the country which is his, but on the faith to which he belongs … wherever there is the rule of Islam, there is his own country.[xiv]

Conclusion

World War I helped the Zionist movement by transforming the possibility and desire for a Jewish State from the theoretical to a real possibility. It also let the Jews realize that the return to their homeland would be through bloody conflict. Turkey was a traditional British ally, and keeping its allies and colonies was of paramount importance to the British. That all ended when the Turks joined the side of Germany in World War I. British Prime Minister, H.H. Asquith, in November 1914 announced: “The Turkish empire has committed suicide.”[xv] When Turkey’s switched its alignment from Britain to Germany, Britain’s goal was the defeat of the Ottoman Turks and their empire in the Middle East. While this led to reestablishing the Jewish State, it also set forth the notion that there should also be a new Arab state as well, and this initiated Arab nationalism.

Theodor Herzl’s earlier efforts had given the Jews a twenty-year head start over the Arabs. Even before WWI began, Zionist leaders had been in touch with leading British policy-makers, and they discussed the possibilities the war would give them for having their own sovereign land.

World War I also introduced a significant amount of violence and extremism into the world, and these were an omen for the future of Israel. There was now no possibility of the Jews peacefully integrating back into the Middle East with the Arabs. The Arab Revolt in 1936 was encouraged and rewarded by the British who had supported local Arab leaders. The British had been drilling for oil in the Arab countries for more than thirty years and did not want to lose the inexpensive oil they took from this area. [xvi] This caused them to play both sides in this struggle. What had driven out the Turks and created the new Arab states could also be employed, in due course, to root out the Jews. This the Arabs learned from the British, so that in time, both within Palestine and across the Middle East as whole, Arab leaders faced with the choice of negotiation, or war would invariably choose war—and invariably lose.

In the wake of the war, extremist regimes seized power and ruled by force and terror—first in Russia, then in Italy, and finally in Germany. The transformation of Germany from the best-educated society in Europe into a totalitarian race-state was a bad omen for the Jews. Although the anti-Semites of Central Europe had always treated Jews with varying degrees of cruelty and injustice, up to and including murderous pogroms and expulsion, it was only with Hitler that actual extermination became a reality. The outbreak of World War II provided the charade, which allowed Hitler to implement an industrial grade, systematic genocide of the Jews.

The Holocaust destroyed one third of the world’s Jews. But it also united much of the rest of world Jewry behind the Zionist project, and brought into existence the American Jewish lobby, the prototype of all the great lobbies of the later 20th century. Since the Holocaust, it became clear that Zion had to be not merely a “national home” but a refuge, and a fortress. Finally, the Holocaust spurred the Jews (and the refugees who joined them) to create the military means to defend themselves. If World War I created the new Zion, it was World War II that made the Israeli army and the restored homeland possible.

Finally it is very clear that the Bible promises have been and are being realized regarding the Covenants and the prophecies.  The Nation Israel is back in the Land. They have fought several major military conflicts and won each one against all odds. They are there in the national unbelief regarding Jesus as their Messiah. They are there following judgment (Holocaust) and will be there until judgment (Great Tribulation) exactly as God said through Ezekiel, Isaiah and Zechariah. Divine providence returned them to the Land. It does not matter what their enemies or the naysayer’s claim, they are back in the Land and are victorious.

A clear acceptance of the Scriptures as they were intended to be read makes it easy to see God’s hand in the struggles of the Israelites to achieve a homeland. The wars Israel won in 1948, 1967 and 1973 are only explainable through Divine providence. It is further appropriate to observe that Bible believers that do see Israel’s presence in the Land as prophesied are biblically grounded. Believers that are biblically ignorant will not see God’s divine providence in protecting the Nation of Israel. A common excuse for introducing aberrant interpretations about Bible prophecy is the “it depends on how you view certain passages in Scripture” response. Readers do not decide an author’s intent, and they are obligated to use reading skills and correct understanding of the language to interpret what the author has written. God said the Jews would be back in their promised land following judgment and they have been. He said they would receive judgment yet to come and it will happen during the Great Tribulation. Christ told them that life would be difficult for them because they rejected Him and it will remain this way until they accept Jesus as their Messiah. But now the Land is theirs, and nobody will take it away because the great God of the universe has ordained it. Even so come Lord Jesus.


[i] Kershaw, Ian. Hitler in IV Volumes New York: W.W. Norton, 1998. Reprint Norwalk, CT: Easton Press, 2005, 139. pp. 232-233.

[ii] Noakes, Jeremy, and Geoffrey Pridham. Documents on Nazism 1919-1945, NY: Viking Press, 1974, 463-467 (accessed 8 July 2008) accessible at The Jewish Virtual Library https://World Warw.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/jsource/Holocaust/nurmlaw2.html; Internet, n.p.

[iii] Ibid; n.p.

[iv] Ibid; n.p.

[v] Shirer, William L. The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich: A History of Nazi Germany: II Vols. New York: Simon & Schuster, Inc., 1959. Reprint Norwalk, CT: The Easton Press, 1991,Vol I, 430.

[vi] Kershaw, Ian. Hitler in IV Volumes, New York: W.W. Norton, 1998. Reprint Norwalk, CT: Easton Press, 2005. Vol III, 245

[vii] Gilbert, Martin. The Illustrated Atlas of Jewish Civilization: 4,000 Years of Jewish History. New York: Macmillian Publishing Company, 1990, 175 

[viii] Zyklon B467 (accessed 8 July 2008) accessible at https://Worldwarw.jewishcirtuallibrary.org/jsource/Holocost/ Zyklon.html; Internet, n.p.

[ix] Laqueur, Walter, ed. The Arab-Israeli Reader: A Documentary History of the Middle East Conflict. New York: Bantam Books, 1969, 113.

[x] Sachar, Howard M.  A History of Israel from the Rise of Zionism to Our Time: 2nd Edition. New York: A Borzoi Book, 1976. Reprint Alfred A. Knoff, Inc., 1996, 333.

[xi] Ibid, 450

[xii] Ivy, Tom. Against All Odds, DVD, Public Performance Rights Questar, UPC/ISBN Number: 033937040344, October 10, 2006, Disc 1 Episode 1-3

 

[xiii] Churchill, Winston, S. Closing the Ring:. The Second World War. New York: Houghton Mifflin Company, 1953. Reprint Norwalk, CT: The Easton Press, 1989. 689

[xiv] Maududi, S.A.A. Jihad in Islam, Lahore 1991 (accessed July 20, 2008) https://www.peacefaq.com/jihad.html; Internet

[xv] Johnson, Paul. A History of the Jews, Harper & Row Publishers, New York, NY100220, 1978, pp. 423

[xvi] Longrigg, Stephen, Hemsley. Oil In The Middle East, Its Discovery and Development, Oxford University Press, London, 1954 pp. 18