A Brief History...

January 8

A Brief History of the Return of the Jews to Their Ancient Homeland  by Bill Federer 

During World War I, Britain's war effort was hindered by their ineffective manufacturing of explosives. Britain's situation suddenly changed when a chemist made a breakthrough in synthesizing the needed solvent 'acetone' by using a bacterial fermentation process.

The chemist, whose Jewish family had immigrated from Russia, was Dr. Chaim Weizmann, born NOVEMBER 27, 1874. In gratitude for Dr. Chaim Weizmann's efforts, Britain's Foreign Secretary Arthur Balfour issued the Balfour Declaration in 1917, establishing a homeland for the Jews in their traditional location in the Middle East.

Balfour addressed a Jewish gathering, February 7,1918: "My personal hope is that the Jews will make good in Palestine and eventually found a Jewish state. It is up to them now; we have given them their great opportunity."

Also, during World War I, an obscure British lieutenant serving in Cairo, T.E. Lawrence, was sent off to assess if undisciplined Arab tribes were capable of helping to fight Ottoman Turks. Instead of simply reporting back, T.E. Lawrence took it upon himself to persuade Arabs to fight the Turks in exchange for promises of land, laying the groundwork for future land disputes after the Ottoman Empire fell.

The United States was enthusiastic in its support of Israel, as Democrat President Woodrow Wilson wrote to Rabbi Stephen A. Wise, 1918: "I think all Americans will be deeply moved by the report that...the Weizmann commission has been able to lay the foundation of the Hebrew University at Jerusalem."

Rabbi Stephen A. Wise described Woodrow Wilson: "He is one of the great presidents of American history."

Justice Louis Brandeis, who was nominated by Woodrow Wilson to the U.S. Supreme Court, told Reform Rabbis in April 1915: "The undying longing of Jews for Palestine is a fact of deepest significance; that it is a manifestation in the struggle for existence by an ancient people which has established its right to live, a people whose three thousand years of civilization has produced a faith, culture and individuality which enable it to contribute largely in the future, as it has in the past."

King Feisal ibn Husseini of Syria and Iraq wrote a letter, March 3, 1919, to Felix Frankfurter, March 3, 1919, who was later nominated to the U.S. Supreme Court by Franklin D. Roosevelt: "We feel that the Arabs and Jews are cousins in having suffered similar oppressions at the hands of powers stronger than themselves...We Arabs, especially the educated among us look with the deepest sympathy on the Zionist movement...We will wish the Jews a most hearty welcome home...With the chiefs of your movement, especially with Dr. Weizmann, we...continue to have the closest relations. He has been a great helper of our cause, and I hope the Arabs may soon be in a position to afford the Jews some return for their kindness...Our two movements complete one another. The Jewish movement is national and not imperialist. Our movement is national and not imperialist, and there is room in Syria for us both...People...less responsible than our leaders...have been trying to exploit the local difficulties that must necessarily arise in Palestine...to make capital out of what they call our differences."

Felix Frankfurter replied: "ROYAL HIGHNESS: Allow me...to acknowledge your recent letter with deep appreciation. Those of us who come from the United States have already been gratified by the friendly relations...between you and the Zionist leaders, particularly Dr. Weizmann...We knew that the aspirations of the Arab and the Jewish peoples were parallel, that each aspired to re-establish its nationality in its own homeland, each making its own distinctive contribution to civilization, each seeking its own peaceful mode of life...The Arabs and Jews are neighbors in territory; we cannot but live side by side as friends."

After World War I, Britain abruptly changed it's policy against a Jewish homeland with its White Paper of 1922, instigated, ironically, by anti-Zionist Jews.

Chiam Weizmann referred to these individuals, including Claude Montefiore, Lord Reading, Edwin Montagu and Lucien Wolf, in his autobiography, Trial and Error (1949): "Their secular representative, the secretary of the Conjoint Committee, was Mr. Lucien Wolf...in whom the opposition to Zionism was a mixture of principle and of personal idiosyncrasy...He resented the rise of what he called 'foreign Jews' in England, looked upon the Foreign Office as his patrimony - he was of an old Anglo-Jewish family - and put me down as a poacher...Zionism was in his view a purely East European movement... beneath the notice of respectable British Jews. It was...impossible for him to understand that English non-Jews did not look upon his anti-Zionism as the hallmark of a superior loyalty.

It was never borne in on him that men like Balfour, Churchill, Lloyd George, were deeply religious, and believed in the Bible, that to them the return of the Jewish people to Palestine was a reality, so that we Zionists represented to them a great tradition for which they had enormous respect..."

Chiam Weizmann continued: "I remember Prime Minister Lloyd George saying to me, a few days before the issuance of the Balfour Declaration: 'I know that with the issuance of this Declaration I shall please one group of Jews and displease another. I have decided to please your group because you stand for a great idea.'"

During World War II, millions of Jews were killed in Europe by the National Socialist Workers Party. Democrat President Franklin Roosevelt, who coined the name 'United Nations', explained that the goal of the new organization included protecting Jews, March 24, 1944: "The United Nations are fighting to make a world in which tyranny and aggression cannot exist...In one of the blackest crimes of all history - begun by the Nazis...the wholesale systematic murder of the Jews of Europe goes on unabated... Hundreds of thousands of Jews...are now threatened with annihilation as Hitler's forces descend...The United Nations have made it clear that they will pursue the guilty... All who knowingly take part in the deportation of Jews to their death...are equally guilty with the executioner."

On November 11, 1942, President Franklin Roosevelt complimented the Jewish Theological Seminary of America: "A victory of the United Nations is to be a world of enduring peace...founded on renewed loyalty to the spiritual values...In cooperation with Catholic, Jewish, and Protestant scholars...it will in time, I trust, become an increasingly powerful instrument for enlightening men of all faiths."

Near the end of World War II, February of 1945, President Franklin D. Roosevelt met at the Yalta Conference with British Prime Minister Winston Churchill and Soviet leader Josef Stalin.

Roosevelt, being in a feeble condition just two months before his death, capitulated to Stalin's demand that millions of Eastern Europeans be dominated by the totalitarian Union of Soviet Socialist Republics.

On his way home from the Yalta Conference, in declining health, Franklin Roosevelt met with the founder of Saudi Arabia, King Abdul Aziz ibn Saud on the USS Quincy in the Suez Canal, February 14, 1945.

The Saudi King slaughtered a goat on deck for the meal, then attempted to convince Roosevelt to abandon his plans of supporting the Jewish homeland.

As oil had been discovered by Standard Oil Company in Saudi Arabia a few years earlier in 1938, and an Arabian American Oil Company 'Aramco' had recently been formed, the Saudi King wanted from Roosevelt an oil-for-security agreement.

The Saudi King followed up with a letter to Roosevelt, who wrote back, April 5, 1945, promising not to recognize a Jewish State. One week later, Roosevelt died of his illnesses. The next President, Harry S Truman, immediately proceeded with plans to recognize the Israel as a nation. The United Nations Charter was signed June 26, 1945, by 51 member nations.

The United Nations, which had a goal of guaranteeing security for the Jews, made one of its first acts the recognition of the State of Israel in 1948. The negotiator of the Middle East Armistice Agreement was Ralph Bunche, the African American diplomat who received the Nobel Peace Prize for his efforts.

On November 29, 1948, Democrat President Harry S Truman wrote to Dr. Chaim Weizmann, the first President of Israel: "I remember well our conversations about the Negeb... I agree fully with your estimate of the importance of the area to Israel, and I deplore any attempt to take it away from Israel. I had thought that my position would have been clear to all the world, particularly in the light of the specific wording of the Democratic Party platform."

The 1948 Democrat Party Platform stated: "President Truman, by granting immediate recognition to Israel, led the world in extending friendship and welcome to a people who have long sought and justly deserve freedom and independence. We pledge full recognition to the State of Israel.

We affirm our pride that the United States under the leadership of President Truman played a leading role in the adoption of the resolution of November 29, 1947, by the United Nations General Assembly for the creation of a Jewish State.

We approve the claims of the State of Israel to the boundaries set forth in the United Nations resolution of November 29th and consider that modifications thereof should be made only if fully acceptable to the State of Israel.

We look forward to the admission of the State of Israel to the United Nations and its full participation in the international community of nations. We pledge appropriate aid to the State of Israel in developing its economy and resources.

We favor the revision of the arms embargo to accord to the State of Israel the right of self-defense."

President Truman concluded his letter to Israel's President Dr. Chaim Weizmann, November 29, 1948: "I have interpreted my re-election as a mandate...to carry out...the plank on Israel... In closing, I want to tell you how happy and impressed I have been at the remarkable progress made by the new State of Israel."

Dr. Chaim Weizmann had stated: "I think that the God of Israel is with us."