By George! The Creation of Modern Israel By Ruth King
The liberal media and academic elite deride “Creationists”–those who deny the theory of evolution and believe that the world and all its creatures were created in six calendar days. However, they encourage Mideast “creationism”–namely, a belief that the Arab/Israel conflict occurred as the result of six calendar days in 1967 when a land grab by Israel established an unjust occupation of ancient Arab lands.
The combined attacks on Israel of five Arab states in 1948 are dismissed as ancient history. The Ottoman rule of Palestine, the geography of the Middle East, its divisions following World War 1 and the role of David Lloyd George and the Palestine Mandate are as irrelevant to these ignoramuses as the Peloponnesian wars.
Here are facts from the late Joan Peters’ From Time Immemorial:
“In the twelve and a half centuries between the Arab conquest in the seventh century and the beginnings of the Jewish return in the 1880’s, Palestine was laid waste. Its ancient canal and irrigation systems were destroyed and the wondrous fertility of which the Bible spoke vanished into desert and desolation… Under the Ottoman empire of the Turks, the policy of defoliation continued; the hillsides were denuded of trees and the valleys robbed of their topsoil.”
In a “Report of the Commerce of Jerusalem During the Year 1863,” it says the population of the City of Jerusalem is computed at 15,000, of whom about 4,500 are Moslem, 8,000 Jews, and the rest Christians of various denominations.
And here is Mark Twain’s description of the Galilee in Innocents Abroad.
“… these unpeopled deserts, these rusty mounds of barrenness, that never, never do shake the glare from their harsh outlines, and fade and faint into vague perspective; that melancholy ruin of Capernaum: this stupid village of Tiberias, slumbering under its six funereal palms…. We reached Tabor safely….We never saw a human being on the whole route.”
This was the state of the land under the Ottomans until its conquest by the British in World War 1 under the leadership of then Prime Minister David Lloyd George.
Schooled as a devout evangelical, Lloyd George was familiar with Jewish history. Indeed in a speech to the Jewish historical society in 1925 he said:
“I was brought up in a school where I was taught far more history of the Jews than about my own land. I could tell you all the kings of Israel. But I doubt if I could have named half a dozen of the Kings of England, and not more of the Kings of Wales….We were thoroughly imbued with the history of your race in the days of its greatest glory.”
At the turn of the century Lloyd George met Theodore Herzl in Manchester, home to a growing Zionist movement. Initially impressed by the British Colonial Office’s offer of a Jewish colony in Uganda, Lloyd George was persuaded by Chaim Weizmann’s argument that Palestine was the only viable home for a reborn Jewish Nation.
It was during Lloyd George’s tenure as Prime Minister, on November 2, 1917, that the Balfour Declaration was issued in the form of a letter from the United Kingdom’s Foreign Secretary Arthur James Balfour to Walter Rothschild, a leader of the British Jewish community, for transmission to the Zionist Federation of Great Britain and Ireland. It read:
“His Majesty’s government view 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.”
Many years later in 1939, in his Memoirs of the Peace Conference (Vol ll, Yale University Press) Lloyd George emphasized the central role of Weizmann:
“The fact that Britain at last opened her eyes to the opportunity afforded to the Allies to rally this powerful people to their side was attributable to the initiative, the assiduity and the fervour of one of the greatest Hebrews of all time: Dr. Chaim Weizmann. He found his opportunity in this War of Nations to advance the cause to which he had consecrated his life. Dr. Weizmann enlisted my adhesion to his ideals at a time when, at my request, he was successfully applying his scientific skill and imagination to save Britain from a real disaster over the failure of wood alcohol for the manufacture of cordite. In addition to the gratitude I felt for him for this service, he appealed to my deep reverence for the great men of his race who were the authors of the sublime literature upon which I was brought up. I introduced him to Mr. Balfour, who was won over completely by his charm, his persuasiveness and his intellectual power.”
On the Balfour declaration itself, he added:
”Palestine, if recaptured, must be one and indivisible to renew its greatness as a living entity. The next factor which produced a momentous change was the decision to come to terms with Jewry, which was clamouring for an opportunity to make Canaan once more the homeland of their race. There are more Irishmen living outside Ireland than dwell in the old country. Still, Ireland is the homeland of the Irish people. No one imagined that the 14,000,000 of Jews scattered over the globe could find room and a living in Palestine. Nevertheless this race of wanderers sought a national hearth and a refuge for the hunted children of Israel in the country which the splendour of their spiritual genius has made forever glorious. “
The Balfour Declaration was first betrayed by Winston Churchill in 1922, when all the land east of the Jordan River was ceded to create Trans-Jordan which became modern day Jordan ruled by the Hashemites who have no–repeat, no–historical claim to the area. This was followed by serial betrayals which culminated in shutting the gates to Palestine and trapping millions of Jews in Europe.
In God, Guns and Israel Jill, Duchess of Hamilton, argues that were it not for David Lloyd George there might never have been an Israel. “It is unlikely that the Jews would have been able to establish themselves in Palestine during the three decades after 1918 had it not been for David Lloyd George,” she says. “Quite simply, Israel might never have existed.”
Similarly David Semple writes in David Lloyd George and the Liberation of Jerusalem:
“Israel would not exist today were it not for the brilliant wartime leadership of David Lloyd George during the First World War. For it was Britain under the leadership of Lloyd George which created the Mandate of Palestine with a policy of Zionist nation-state building. And it was Lloyd George who made Britain the victorious power which could dictate the fortunes of the modern Middle East. For the Jewish people, the period of Lloyd George’s government from 1916 to 1922 was the best period of relations between Britain and the Zionist movement.”
His memory is a blessing.http://www.mideastoutpost.com/archives/by-george-the-creation-of-modern-israel-ruth-king.html
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