United Israel

Even though the Israeli celebration of Independence Day, based on the Hebrew calendar, was last week, there is something profound about May 14 on the Gregorian Calendar that really acts as a marker of great events of the last century.

Just to think, on this very date, in 1948 these great and momentous things happened. One very interesting fact is that if you follow an “observed” Jewish calendar for 1948 and don’t add the 13th month that year, it moves everything one month back–that is “Adar II becomes Nisan, Nisan becomes Iyyar, and Iyyar becomes SIVAN–which makes the establishment of the State of Israel fall on Sivan the 5th…Well that just happens to be the fixed date for Shavuot or Pentecost in Jewish tradition…

One can not help but think of Isaiah’s ancient query:

Is. 66:8 Who hath heard such a thing? who hath seen such things? Shall a land be born in one day? shall a nation be brought forth at once? for as soon as Zion travailed, she brought forth her children.

There is a nice set of article on the Aish HaTorah Web site dealing with the history of Israel. I found a very nice set of articles on the Web that talk POSITIVELY about Zionism and returning to the land of Israel. If you have some time read through some of these, they are really good, this is one of the BEST Web pages I have ever found and I can not recommend it highly enough for this day in history!

http://www.aish.com/holidays/Israel_Independence_Day/holiday_page.asp

In this day and time when “Zionism” is used by so many as some kind of ugly word, it is refreshing to capture some of the Spirit that the true “returnees to Zion” really had 60 years ago.

For those a bit “rusty” on the history, here is a crash course Crash_Course_in_Jewish_History:

Crash Course in Jewish History Part 65 - The State of Israel
by Rabbi Ken Spiro
After the British brutally turned away Holocaust survivors from Israel, the UN voted to partition the land.

The British broke promise after promise to the Jews while they created new Arab countries out of the land of the former Ottoman Empire. In addition, because of Arab revolts and pressure, the British even barred entry to the land of Israel to Jews fleeing the Holocaust. (See Part 64.)

Even when the full scope of the Holocaust was known, and thousands of Holocaust survivors were stranded in refugee camps (DP camps), the British refused to relent.

One of the most egregious of the British actions involved the refugee ship, Exodus, which the Royal Navy intercepted in 1947 in the Mediterranean Sea with 4,500 Jews aboard. The ship was brought into Haifa port under British escort; there the Holocaust survivors were forcibly transferred to another ship and returned back to Germany via France.

Abba Eban, who was then the Jewish liason to a special UN committee — called Special Commmitte On Palestine or UNSCOP — persuaded four UN representatives to go to Haifa to witness the brutality of the British against the Jews.

Historian Martin Gilbert includes Eban’s account of what happened there in Israel: A History (p. 145):

“[In Haifa] the four members watched a ‘gruesome operation.’ The Jewish refugees had decided ‘not to accept banishment with docility. If anyone had wanted to know what Churchill meant by a “squalid war,” he would have found out by watching British soldier using rifle butts, hose pipes and tear gas against the survivors of the death camps. Men, women and children were forcibly taken off to prison ships, locked in cages below decks and set out of Palestine waters.’

“When the four members of UNSCOP came back to Jerusalem, Eban recalled, ‘they were pale with shock. I could see that they were pre-occupied with one point alone: if this was the only way that the British Mandate could continue, it would be better not to continue it at all.’”

UN PARTITION OF PALESTINE

The British also wanted out of the problem. They had 100,000 soldiers/police trying to maintain control with a total population of about 600,000 Jews and 1.2 million Arabs. (Interestingly, they had the same size force controlling India with a population of over 350 million!)

And so it came to pass that the British turned the matter over to the UN which decided to end the British Mandate over what was left of “Palestine” (after the creation of the country of Jordan) and to divide the remaining land among the Arabs and Jews. The proposal called for the Jews to get:

a narrow strip of land along the Mediterranean coast, including Tel Aviv and Haifa

a piece of land surrounding the Kineret (Sea of Galilee), including the Golan Heights

a large piece in the south, which was the uninhabitable Negev Desert
The Arabs were to get:

the Gaza Strip

a chunk of the north, including the city of Tzfat (Safed) and western Galilee

the entire West Bank of the River Jordan and the hills of Judea and Samaria
Jerusalem was to be under international control.

On November 29, 1947, the United Nations voted for this partition plan. Of those voting, 33 nations voted yes, including USA and USSR; 13 mostly-Arab nations voted no; 11 nations abstained.

Hard-hearted to the end, the British did not vote yes; they abstained.

As disappointed as the Jews were with the portion allotted for the Jewish state, they felt that something was better than nothing after all the waiting and the pain.

However, the Arabs, always maximalist in their demands, rejected the UN resolution. The next day Arab rioting began, and two weeks later soldiers from surrounding Arab countries began arriving into Palestine.

The British, happy to be out of the situation, were packing up to go and turned their backs on what was going on. Writes David Ben Gurion in his Israel: A Personal History (p. 65):

“The British did not lift a finger to stop this military invasion. They also refused to cooperate with the UN committee charged with supervising implementation of the General Assembly resolution. At the same time, the Arabs living in the district destined to become part of the Jewish state began evacuating their homes and moving to the Arab states neighboring Palestine at the orders of the Arab High Committee.”

In the midst of confusion, the rioting continued with almost 1,000 Jews murdered by Arabs in the ensuing four months.

One of the worst incidents occurred on April 13, 1948. A convoy of 70 doctors and nurses making their way to Hadassah Hospital on Mount Scopus was ambushed by Arabs. This happened 200 yards of a British police station. After a seven-hour shoot-out, during which the British did nothing, all the doctors and nurses were killed. Afterwards, the Arabs mutilated their bodies.

JERUSALEM UNDER SIEGE

In all of this, the British encouraged the King of Jordan, Abdullah, to invade and annex the Arab sections to his kingdom. To Abdullah this was not enough. He wanted Jerusalem too.

As a result Jerusalem came under siege.

The focus of the struggle during April and May 1948 was the road to Jerusalem which passes through the mountains. The vehicles on that road are completely exposed to gunmen up above. It was on this road that all supplies to the Jews of the city had to come. But they could not get through.

Hunger reigned. The residents of the Jewish Quarter of the Old City were completely cut off.

And then an amazing incident happened. A young Yemenite Jew, who was not known for his shooting skills, almost accidentally killed three Arab men in the hills. One of these men was the Arab leader, Abdul Khader el Husseini. Demoralized, the Arab forces abandoned their positions to attend his funeral.

As a result a huge convoy of 250 trucks of food was able to re-supply the city. Writes Berel Wein in Triumph of Survival (p. 397):

“[On Shabbat, April 17, 1948] Jews left their synagogues and, with their prayer shawls still draping their shoulders, helped unload the convoy. The siege of Jerusalem was broken for the moment. The Arabs, however, mounted a strong counter-attack, and by the end of April once again cut the Jerusalem road… for the next seven weeks Jewish Jerusalem was isolated.”

A NEW STATE IS BORN

The official date given by the United Nations in their partition vote for the creation of the two new entities was May 15th, 1948.

Thus, May 14th was to be the last day of the British Mandate. At 4 p.m., the British lowered their flag and immediately the Jews raised their own.

It was a flag designed in 1897 by the First Zionist Congress. It was white (the color of newness and purity), and it had two blue stripes (the color of heaven) like the stripes of a tallit, the prayer shawl, which symbolized the transmission of Jewish tradition. In its center was the Star of David.

Thus on May 14, 1948 at 4:00 p.m., Hay Iyar, the 5th of Iyar, Israel declared itself a state.

After 2,000 years, the land of Israel was once more in the hands of the Jews.

David Ben Gurion read the Declaration of Independence over the radio:

“The Land of Israel was the birthplace of the Jewish people. Here the 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 the countries of the dispersion, never ceasing to pray and hope for their return and restoration of their national freedom.

“Accordingly we, the members of the National Council met together in solemn assembly today and by virtue of the natural and historic right of the Jewish people and with the support of the resolution of the General of the United Nations, hereby proclaim the establishment of the Jewish state in Palestine to be called Israel…

“We offer peace and amity to all neighboring states and their peoples and invite them to cooperate with the independent Jewish nation for the common good of all…

“With trust in the Rock of Israel, we set our hands to this declaration at this session of the Provisional State Council in the city of Tel Aviv on Sabbath Eve, 5th Iyar 5708, 14th day of May 1948.”

(Note that the Declaration of Independence of Israel — unlike the American Declaration of Independence — does not mention God. This is because the hard-line secularists that dominated the Jewish Agency opposed any such thing. “Rock of Israel” became a compromise.)

Everyone was dancing in the streets. But not for long.

Almost immediately five Arab countries declared war and Egypt bombed Tel Aviv.

65th Anniversary Annual Meeting
April 11-13, 2008
Doubletree Guest Suites/SouthPark
Charlotte, North Carolina
The 65th Annual Meeting of United Israel World Union will be held in Charlotte, NC, April 11-13th. We will gather at the lovely Doubletree Hotel in Southpark with our Sunday night program at the Jewish Community Center. There is no conference fee for attending our meetings.

Annapolis - 60 years to the day after Partition -

By Stan Goodenough - www.jnewswire.com

On Jewish calendar date 17 Kislev 5708 (the evening of November 29, 1947 in Israel), 46 countries voted on United Nations General Assembly Resolution 181 - the proposal to partition the Land of Israel (known then as Palestine) into two states, one Jewish, the other Arab.

Thirty-three voted in favor, 13 voted against. The Arabs rejected the outcome, immediately initiating hostilities that erupted into the War of Independence after Israel was established and recognized internationally six months later.

Next week, on 17 Kislev 5768, 60 years to the day after that UN vote, nearly 50 nations have been invited to Annapolis for the US-hosted International Conference on the Creation of Palestine - an Arab state the international community wants to see erected on the biblical heartland of the Jewish people.

Of these nations, only 15 are Arab states. Included among the rest are France, Germany, Greece, Italy, Spain, Portugal, the United Kingdom, Canada, Poland, Sweden, Norway, South Africa and India.

Observers have noted that this will indeed be a gathering of the nations of the world in a united stand against the rights of the Jews to their sacred soil.

The international community is virtually single-minded on this issue: the theft of Jewish lands for the establishment of a Palestinian state.

Not a single invited national representative nor journalist is expected to challenge this position at Annapolis on Tuesday.

“And I will bless those who bless you, and treat lightly those who treat you lightly, and in you shall all the nations of the earth be blessed.”

Israel the 100th smallest country (size of San Bernadino County), with less than 1/1000th of the world’s population, can lay claim to the following:

• The Middle East has been growing date palms for millennia. The average tree is about 18-20 feet tall and yields about 38 pounds of dates a year. Israeli date trees are now yielding 400 pounds/year and are short enough to be harvested from the ground or a short ladder.
• The cell phone was developed in Israel by Israelis working in the Israeli branch of Motorola, which has its largest development center in Israel.
• Most of the Windows NT and XP operating systems were developed by Microsoft-Israel.
• The Pentium MMX Chip technology was designed in Israel at Intel. Both the Pentium-4 microprocessor and the Centrino processor were entirely designed, developed and produced in Israel.
• The Pentium microprocessor in your computer was most likely made in Israel. Voice mail technology was developed in Israel.
• Both Microsoft and Cisco built their only R&D facilities outside the US in Israel.
• The technology for the AOL Instant Messenger ICQ was developed in 1996 by four young Israelis.
• Israel has the fourth largest air force in the world (after the U.S, Russia and China). In addition to a large variety of other aircraft, Israel’s air force has an aerial arsenal of over 250 F-16’s. This is the largest fleet of F-16 aircraft outside of the U. S.
• Israel’s $100 billion economy is larger than all of its immediate neighbors combined.
• Israel has the highest percentage in the world of home computers per capita. According to industry officials, Israel designed the airline industry’s most impenetrable flight security. US officials now look (finally) to Israel for advice on how to handle airborne security threats.
• Israel has the highest ratio of university degrees to the population in the world. Israel produces more scientific papers per capita than any other nation by a large margin - 109 per 10,000 people — as well as one of the highest per capita rates of patents filed.
• In proportion to its population, Israel has the largest number of startup companies in the world. In absolute terms, Israel has the largest number of startup companies than any other country in the world, except the U.S. (3,500 companies mostly in hi-tech). With more than 3,000 high-tech companies and startups, Israel has the highest concentration of hi-tech companies in the world — apart from the Silicon Valley, U.S.
• Israel is ranked #2 in the world for venture capital funds right behind the U.S. Outside the United States and Canada, Israel has the largest number of NASDAQ listed companies.
• Israel has the highest average living standards in the Middle East. The per capita income in 2000 was over $17,500, exceeding that of the UK. On a per capita basis, Israel has the largest number of biotech startups.
• Twenty-four per cent of Israel’s workforce holds university degrees, ranking third in the industrialized world, after the United States and Holland and 12 per cent hold advanced degrees. Israel is the only liberal democracy in the Middle East.
• Israel has the third highest rate of entrepreneurship — and the highest rate among women and among people over 55 - in the world.
• When Golda Meir was elected Prime Minister of Israel in 1969, she became the world’s second elected female leader in modern times.
• In 1984 and 1991, Israel airlifted a total of 22,000 Ethiopian Jews (Operation Solomon) at Risk in Ethiopia, to safety in Israel.
• When the U. S. Embassy in Nairobi, Kenya was bombed in 1998, Israeli rescue teams were on the scene within a day — and saved three victims from the rubble.
• Relative to its population, Israel is the largest immigrant-absorbing nation on earth. Immigrants come in search of democracy, religious freedom, and economic opportunity. (Hundreds of thousands from the former Soviet Union)
• Israel was the first nation in the world to adopt the Kimberly process, an international standard that certifies diamonds as “conflict free.”
• Israel has the world’s second highest per capita of new books.
• Israel is the only country in the world that entered the 21st century with a net gain in its number of trees, made more remarkable because this was achieved in an area considered mainly desert.
• Israel has more museums per capita than any other country.
• Israeli scientists developed the first fully computerized, no-radiation, diagnostic instrumentation for breast cancer.
• An Israeli company developed a computerized system for ensuring proper administration of medications, thus removing human error from medical treatment. Every year in U. S. hospitals 7,000 patients die from treatment mistakes.
• Israel’s Given Imaging developed the first ingestible video camera, so small it fits inside a pill. Used to view the small intestine from the inside, cancer and digestive disorders.
• Researchers in Israel developed a new device that directly helps the heart pump blood, an innovation with the potential to save lives among those with heart failure. The new device, synchronized with the camera helps doctors diagnose a heart’s mechanical operations through a sophisticated system of sensors.
• Israel leads the world in the number of scientists and technicians in the work force, with 145 per 10,000, as opposed to 85 in the U. S., over 70 in Japan, and less than 60 in Germany. With over 25% of its work force employed in technical professions. Israel places first in this category as well.
• A new acne treatment developed in Israel, the Clear Light device, produces a high-intensity, ultraviolet-light-free, narrow-band blue light that causes acne bacteria to self-destruct — all without damaging surrounding skin or tissue.
• An Israeli company was the first to develop and install a large-scale solar-powered and fully functional electricity generating plant, in southern California’s Mojave desert.
• All the above while engaged in regular wars with an implacable enemy that seeks its destruction, and an economy continuously under strain by having to spend more per capita on its own protection than any other county on earth