Nicholas Winton - Saved 699 israeli Child From Nazi

Nicholas Winton

Sir Nicholas George Winton MBE was a British humanitarian who organised the rescue of 669 children, most of them Jewish, from Czechoslovakia on the eve of the Second World War in an operation later known as the Czech Kinder transport. Winton found homes for the children and arranged for their safe passage to Britain. The world found out about his work over 50 years later, in 1988. The British press dubbed him the "British Schindler". 

Sir Nicholas Winton, who organised the rescue of 669 children destined for Nazi concentration camps, has died aged 106.

Sir Nicholas, then a stockbroker, arranged for trains to carry Jewish children out of occupied Prague.

The prime minister described him as a "great man" and the chief rabbi praised his "exceptional courage".

He died on the anniversary of the departure of a train in 1939 carrying the largest number of children - 241.

His son-in-law Stephen Watson said he died peacefully in his sleep at Wexham Hospital, Slough.

Sir Nicholas brought the children to Britain, battling bureaucracy at both ends, saving them from almost certain death, and then kept quiet about his exploits for a half-century.

He organised a total of eight trains from Prague, with some other forms of transport also set up from Vienna.

• Sir Nicholas was born Nicholas Wertheimer in 1909 to Jewish parents
• By 1938 he was a young stockbroker in London
• He dropped everything to go to Prague to help Jewish refugees fleeing Nazi occupation
• Sir Nicholas organised foster families for Jewish children in Britain, placing adverts in newspapers
• The 669 children travelled on eight trains across four countries
• Sir Nicholas's team persuaded British custom officials to allow all the children in despite incomplete documentation

Israel's Secret Weapon - Faith

Israel faith

“Blessed are you, Israel!
    Who is like you, 
  a people saved by the LORD?
He is your shield and helper 
   and your glorious sword.
Your enemies will cower before you, 
   and you will tread on their heights.” — Deuteronomy 33:29 

In Deuteronomy, after Moses had concluded blessing each of the twelve tribes of Israel, just prior to his death, Moses gave a general blessing to the entire nation. He said: “Blessed are you, Israel! Who is like you, a people saved by the LORD? He is your shield and helper and your glorious sword. Your enemies will cower before you, and you will tread on their heights.” 

The Jewish people have returned to their homeland, a feat never accomplished by any other nation, is nothing less than miraculous. As Moses said, 

              “Who is a like you, a people saved by the Lord?”

Blow the trumpet in Zion

Blow the trumpet in Zion !
Sound an alarm in My Holy mountain
Let all the inhabitants of the land tremble,
The day of YHWH  is coming,
Behold it is at hand ! SHABBAT SHALOM LEKULAM 

What proof do you have that Jesus was the Messiah?

This is not to say that all Jewish people rejected the claims of Jesus. Far from that being the case, all the first followers of Jesus were Jews. In fact, the rabbis of that time period and afterwards were well aware of the many Messianic prophecies which Christians claimed were fulfilled in Jesus. So for instance, although the Talmudic rabbis concurred that Isaiah 53 was a prediction of the Messiah, by medieval times the pressure from those who applied this prophecy to Jesus was so great that Rashi, that greatest medieval Biblical scholar, reinterpreted the chapter and said it referred to the nation of Israel. This interpretation is maintained today by many Jewish scholars, though it only dates back to the Middle Ages.

What, then, are some of the credentials of the Messiah?

Only a few can be listed below; there are many others. All of these passages were recognized by the early rabbis as referring to the Messiah:

• Messiah was to be born at Bethlehem: Micah 5:2 (Micah 5:1 in Hebrew Bible)
• Messiah would be from the tribe of Judah: Genesis 49:10
• Messiah would present himself by riding on an ass: Zechariah 9:9
• Messiah would be tortured to death: Psalm 22:1-31
• Messiah would arrive before the destruction of the Second Temple: Daniel 9:24-27
• Messiah’s life would match a particular description, including suffering, silence at his arrest and trial, death and burial in a rich man’s tomb, and resurrection: Isaiah 52:13-53:12

The Christian woman who declared war on Hitler

Irena Sendler was born in Poland into a Christian family in 1910. She lived just fifteen miles from the largest Jewish community in Poland and from an early age became familiar with the Jewish people. At the age of seven, her father, who was a doctor, contracted typhus and died. Many of his patients were Jews whom other doctors would not treat.

The Jewish community appreciated the work of her father and offered to pay for Irena’s education; her mother politely declined.

Attending the University of Warsaw, she experienced anti-Semitism when the university participated in the “ghetto-bench system”, where Jewish students were placed on the left side of lecture halls in seats designated for them only. She opposed this system and as a sign of protest defaced her grade card in public, resulting in a three year suspension from the university.

In 1939 Germany invaded Poland and the brutal treatment of Jews began. Irena did what she could by offering food and shelter. However, when the Warsaw Ghetto was created in 1940, Irena could no longer help the isolated Jews. The Ghetto was an area the size of New York’s Central Park, was surrounded by 10ft high walls with barbed wire on top and guarded by Nazi guards. Around 450,000 Jewish people were forced to live in this area.

The conditions in the ghetto were dire. Forced to live on just 180 calories per day, around 5,000 Jews died each month from starvation and disease.

It was at this time that Irena joined a small underground movement called Zegota, the Polish Council to Aid Jews, where she became the head of the children’s division. Using her social worker papers and the papers of a worker of the Contagious Disease Department (who was part of the Zegota) she gained access to the Warsaw Ghetto under the false pretenses that she was inspecting for disease.

Irena described the ghetto as “pure hell beyond description.” So disturbed by what she saw, she gathered some of her colleagues and told them, “Listen, we have to declare war on Hitler!”

Putting together a small group, Irena devised a plan to smuggle children out of the ghetto. Each time she entered the ghetto she begged mothers to give up their children.

They turned everyday items into smuggling tools, hiding children in coffins, potato sacks and even a tool box. The children who could speak good Polish were taught Christian prayers to be smuggled through a Church at the entrance to the ghetto, but this was risky as the Nazis guarded the entrance.

If a child pretended to be sick, or was genuinely sick, then Irena’s team could legally remove the child from the ghetto in the ambulance. They would also hide another child under the stretcher carrying the sick child.

Irena also kept her dog in the back of her truck which she trained to bark each time they passed through the ghetto gates. This had the double effect of keeping the guards at a distance and also covering up any crying or other noises that the children might make.

Every rescued child was housed by non-Jewish families and provided with new documentation and a new name. However, Irena kept the real names of the children and their location written on thin pieces of tissue and stored them in jars. She then buried these jars under a tree that only she knew the location of.

Irena (who was using the alias Jolanta) was arrested by the Gestapo on 20 October 1943 after her operation was discovered. She was placed in the notorious Piawiak prison where she was questioned and tortured. The Nazis broke both her legs and ankles. No matter how much they broke her body, they could not break her spirit. She never revealed the names or locations of any of the children or the Zegota.

She was eventually sentenced to death by shooting and sent off for execution. The following day her death was announced and posters were placed over the city. However, Irena was not dead. In fact, she read one of the posters herself. The Zegota had bribed her executioner, who instead of shooting her, helped her escape and faked her death.

During the remaining years of the war, she lived hidden, just like the children she rescued. When the war was finally over, she dug up the bottles and began the job of finding the children and trying to find a living parent.

Unfortunately, almost all the parents of the children Irena saved died at the Treblinka death camp. But Irena had already made each family who accepted a child promise that they would send the children to Jewish families when the war had ended.

When she counted all the names in her jars, there were over 2,500 children. 

With the exception of diplomats who issued visas to help Jews flee Nazi-occupied Europe, Irena saved more Jews than any other individual during the Holocaust. “Every child saved with my help is the justification of my existence on this earth and not a title to my glory,” she said.

Her fight for the Jews did not end with the war, she was also an advocate for Israel. In fact, in 1969 she was forced to retire early from Poland’s Ministries of Education and Health after she made public declarations of support for Israel during the 1967 Six Day War.

Irena Sendler was recognised by the State of Israel in 1965 as “Righteous among the Nations”. In her later years she also received the Order of the White Eagle, Poland’s highest honour, for her work saving the children.

Irena passed away in 2008 at the age of 98. A remarkable woman who declared war on Hitler… and won.

Israel—God Chosen People

The study of biblical prophecy has been my daily bread. My father was an evangelist who specialized in the area of Israel and Bible prophecy. Every night of the week, my  sister and I were in a church somewhere hearing our father expound on world events in the light of Bible prophecy. He would often sit us down and read from the newspaper and then say, “Girls, this is a fulfillment of Bible prophecy…let’s read the Bible and you will see.” We watched the entire 1967 Six Day War on television with the knowledge that we were witnessing something significant. Only afterwards did we realize that, at that time, we were watching the fulfillment of Luke 21:24b, which says, “And Jerusalem will be trampled under foot by the Gentiles until the times of the Gentiles are fulfilled” (NASB). June of 1967 was the first time since the dispersion in AD 70 that Jerusalem was under Jewish sovereignty.

We often heard my father talk about future events the Bible foretold. Little did we know that we would live to see many of them literally fulfilled in our lifetime. At Bridges for Peace, we have a little saying: “Why just read about Bible prophecy when you can be a part of it?” I consider it an awesome privilege to be alive today and even more so to be called to be an active participant
in the fulfillment of God’s prophetic Word. I am sure the prophets who recorded the Word of God would have loved to be in our shoes, but God in His infinite wisdom chose us to be the ones to partner with Him in these last days.

Frequently I meet with Christian groups visiting Israel. A number of times, a pilgrim has said to me, “Wouldn’t it have been wonderful to be here when Jesus and His disciples were here, in the days of the Bible?” I chuckle and think to myself, “Oh, but these are Bible days—these are the days when God is fulfilling His promises, written in the Bible for the nation of Israel, while the world watches.”

Israel is God’s object lesson to the world. It is on this small piece of ocean-front real estate that God is showing the world that He can be trusted to keep His Word. Think of the statistical improbabilities of all the following coming together to fulfill ancient prophecies.

The Ingathering after
a 2,000-Year Dispersion

There has never, in the known history of the world, been another people group who were dispersed to multiple locations for over 2,000 years and came back to their ancient homeland. Yet, in the late 1880s, we saw the stirrings of the Spirit of God, as the Jewish people began to arrive in what was then known as Palestine. It was as if God had placed a homing instinct in them set to go off at a certain time in history, and they were compelled to come home. God dispersed the people because of their sin, and now He is bringing them back, not because they have proved themselves holy, but because He is proving His faithful character to the nations of the world. (See Ezekiel 36:19–24).

Photo by Adherent My family became involved in this effort before the Iron Curtain fell. In those days, many Jewish people were refused permission to immigrate to Israel, and some were imprisoned. They were called refusniks or prisoners of conscience. One Christmas, my father came home a few days before the holiday and told my sister Sandy and I that this Christmas was going to be different. This year we were going to think about others instead of just thinking about our presents. He presented us with gaudy, cheap, star-of-David necklaces each with the name of a refusnik on it. It was a takeoff on the Vietnam POW (prisoner of war) bracelets that everyone was wearing in the United States in the early 70s. We prayed for our person regularly. My sister really took the project to heart and prayed diligently for the person on her necklace as well as the others. One of the names was Silva Zalmonson.

Some time later, while reading The Jerusalem Post International Edition, we saw a small story about her, saying that by a miracle, she had been released from prison and was now living in Israel. We were over the moon with excitement as we realized that our prayers had been answered. Later on a trip to Israel, my sister was able to meet with Silva and tell how she had prayed every day for her release. Silva cried and said that she had always wondered why she, one of the infamous Leningrad 11, was released and none of the others were. Now she knew why—it was the power of prayer. Since 1990, over 1,112,000 Jewish people have come home to Israel from the nations of their dispersion, and they are still coming. As of 2010, of the 5,700,000 Jews in Israel, around 1,720,000 came as immigrants, most of the remainder being children or grandchildren of immigrants.

National Identity

Rishon LeZion
Amos Meron/wikipedia.org The Jewish people were dispersed to over 100 nations throughout the world, and yet they maintained their Jewish identity and their heart connection to the Land of Israel. If you visit the Diaspora Museum in Tel Aviv, Israel, you will see exhibits that show common elements of Jewish practice, which could be found in every Jewish home, regardless of whether that home was in Europe, Asia, or Africa. I grew up in the United States. In comparison to the ancient world, the US is a youngster. My family’s ancestors (on my father’s side) have been in the US since before the Civil War, some since the days of independence—more than 200 years. But, when you ask my father what
nationality he is descended from, he will tell you that he is a mixed-breed. It is hard to find a European country from which he doesn’t have an ancestor. The United Sates has been called a melting pot, and my father is proof.

Compare our experience in the United States with the Jewish experience. For over 2,000 years, the Jewish people have resisted the melting pot temptation and remained a unique people. Over the long centuries of dispersion, they were not forgotten by God; He preserved them as a people.

A Nation Born in a Day

In spite of overwhelming odds against her, Israel became a nation on May 14, 1948. The next day, five hostile Arab armies attacked the fledgling state. With little ammunition, soldiers (many of whom were refugees just off the ships from Nazi-torn Europe), and an air force that consisted of a few small planes, Israel defeated her enemies. The Arab world was stunned, and the nations looked on in amazement. God was not surprised! This moment in history was foretold over 3,000 years earlier: “Can a land be born in one day? Can a nation be brought forth all at once? As soon as Zion travailed, she also brought forth her sons” (Isa. 66:8, NASB). On May 13, the State of Israel did not exist, and then the next day, she was a reality!

Dead Language Revived

The Jewish people came from over 100 nations and spoke a wide variety of languages. How do you create a nation when you can’t even communicate in a common language? Hebrew was nearly a dead language, only used for prayers and Bible reading. A visionary by the name of Eliezer Ben Yehuda, upon arriving on the shores of Palestine, refused to speak anything but Hebrew. His child was the first child in nearly 2,000 years whose native tongue was Hebrew. Eliezer was instrumental in Hebrew becoming a living language once again. Today, Hebrew is the native tongue to millions. A language that was only used for religious purposes is now used for the sacred and the mundane.

A Depleted, Tired Land Restored

Mark Twain visited the Land in the 1800s and described it in his book Innocents Abroad. He called it a “blistering, naked, treeless land.” He called the villages “ugly, cramped, squalid, uncomfortable and filthy.” Other descriptive phrases say “solitude to make one dreary; unpeopled deserts, rusty mounds of barrenness that never, never, never do shake the glare from their harsh outlines; this stupid village of Tiberias, slumbering under its six funereal plumes of palms; yonder desolate declivity where the swine of the miracle ran down into the sea and doubtless thought it was better to swallow a devil or two and get drowned into the bargain than have to live longer in such a place.”

Nachmanides, a Talmudic scholar, visited in 1267 and described Jerusalem as “deserted and laid waste and Judea was more destitute than Galilee.” George Sandys reported in 1610 that the “land is bare of trees. The country is a vast empty ruin.” Colonel C. R. Condor wrote in 1877 that “Palestine is empty. The population is not large enough to till the land.” In 1831, Michael Russell wrote in his book Palestine or the Holy Land that “Jericho, once famous for its palm and balsam trees, is treeless and almost deserted.”

Today, as you visit Israel, you will see a far different reality. The Land is being restored to its former beauty as prophesied:

•     “On that day I raised My hand in an oath to them, to bring them out of the land of Egypt into a land that I had searched out for them, flowing with milk and honey, the glory of all lands” (Ezek. 20:6).

•     “I will open rivers in desolate heights, and fountains in the midst of the valleys; I will make the wilderness a pool of water, and the dry land springs of water. I will plant in the wilderness the cedar and the acacia tree; the myrtle and the oil tree; I will set in the desert the cypress tree and the pine and the box tree together, that they may see and know, and consider and understand together, that the hand of the LORD has done this, and the Holy One of Israel has created it” (Isa. 41:18–20).

•     “The desert and the wasteland will be glad for them, and the desert shall rejoice and blossom as the rose; it shall blossom abundantly and rejoice, even with joy and singing. The glory of Lebanon shall be given to it, the excellence of Carmel and Sharon. They shall see the glory of the LORD, the excellency of our God” (Isa. 35:1–2).

gkuma/shutterstock.com There is a special connection between the fruitfulness of the Land of Israel and the Jewish people. The Land flourishes when the Jewish people live here and falls into desolation when they are gone. I believe that this land/people connection is a direct result of the special covenant that God made with the Jewish people.

God claims in Leviticus 25:23 that He is the owner of this Land. “The land shall not be sold permanently, for the land is Mine…” God chose to give the Land to the children of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob as an everlasting inheritance. “‘I will plant Israel in their own land, never again to be uprooted from the land I have given them,’ says the LORD your God” (Amos 9:15, NIV).

www.wikipedia.org Why did God make this unusual covenant between a people and a land? There is a good answer! God placed the Jewish people in Israel to be a witness of His character. In the ancient world, all the peoples had gods who they looked to for fertility, rain, crops, etc. Most of the peoples were polytheistic, praying to multiple gods, but God had revealed Himself as the One True God to Abraham and his descendants. Their presence in the Land of Israel as His worshippers was a constant witness to the peoples round about. Israel was the highway of the ancient world, forming a natural land bridge between three major continents. If you wanted to travel from Africa to Europe or Asia, you had to pass through Israel. To the east, the treacherous deserts made travel extremely difficult, and to the west was the Mediterranean Sea. Traders, armies and travelers all passed through Israel, and on their way, they heard about the miracle-working God of the Israelites. In this way, God caused His fame to spread throughout the ancient world. Only when the Land and covenant people are together in combination, do both flourish in accordance with God’s divine plan. The prophet Ezekiel confirms it is the return of the Jewish people to the Land of Israel that triggers the restoration of the Land. “But you, O mountains of Israel, you will put forth your branches and bear your fruit for My people Israel; for they will soon come” (36:8, NASB).

The Bible contains many beautiful prophecies concerning the Land that have seen their fulfillment in modern times:

The desert shall blossom as the rose (Isa. 35:1–2). Today, millions of flowers grown in the deserts of Israel are exported to Europe. Holland even imports tulips from Israel!

Israel will fill the earth with fruit (Isa. 27:6). Millions of fruit trees have been planted in Israel, reaping a huge export harvest every year. Around the world, people eat the juicy “Jaffa” orange.

Israel will become like the garden of Eden (Isa. 51:3).

Christians all over the world have become involved in the restoration of the Land of Israel through planting trees, praying for abundant early and latter rains and eating the produce of Israel.

Miracles in Battle

Israeli soldiers leave Lebanon
Photo by Ashernet There are many stories of miracles on the battlefield. Let me tell you one of them that we heard firsthand from a young Israeli man. My husband and I volunteered on a kibbutz (a collective community) for nearly a year when we first came to Israel. During that year, we met a young Israeli man named Ari. He was thoroughly secular in his lifestyle and was a difficult person to be around. One day, Tom asked him why he didn’t believe in God. Ari became indignant and protested, saying, “Of course I believe in God.” So, Tom asked him to explain.

Ari told a fascinating story of God’s miraculous protection of a group of soldiers. Ari was a commander of a group of 10 soldiers. They were in a canyon doing reconnaissance in southern Lebanon, when suddenly an enemy soldier popped from behind a rock and began to fire with a Kalashnikov automatic weapon. He was at point blank range, and there was no place to run. He emptied a clip into the group and started a second clip before one of the soldiers managed to shoot him. Shaken, the soldiers looked around, expecting to see their comrades lying dead on the ground. Instead, to their utter amazement, they were all standing, and not one had been hit by a single bullet. That is an absolute miracle! “So, how do you explain that, Ari?” Tom asked. “It was like angels were standing in front of each of us, batting the bullets out of the way. We all felt them whizzing by.” Ari went on to say, “How can I not believe in God after an experience like that?”

Future Miracles

I hope I have whetted your appetite a little. If God fulfilled all of these promises in the life of modern Israel, surely we can trust Him to fulfill the rest! There is more to come! It is God’s plan that the people of Israel know Him, love Him, and put their trust in Him. We have the awesome privilege to be part of what God is doing now and in the days to come. Consider a few marvelous prophecies to come:

“Then the eyes of the blind shall be opened, and the ears of the deaf shall be unstopped. Then the lame shall leap like a deer, and the tongue of the dumb sing. For waters shall burst forth in the wilderness, and streams in the desert. The parched ground shall become a pool, and the thirsty land springs of water; in the habitation of jackals, where each lay, there shall be grass with reeds and rushes. A highway shall be there, and a road, and it shall be called the highway of holiness. The unclean shall not pass over it, but it shall be for others. Whoever walks the road, although a fool, shall not go astray. No lion shall be there, nor shall any ravenous beast go up on it. It shall not be found there. But the redeemed shall walk there. And the ransomed of the LORD shall return and come to Zion with singing, with everlasting joy upon their heads. They shall obtain joy and gladness, and sorrow and sighing shall flee away” (Isa. 35:5–10).

“I will give you a new heart and put a new spirit within you: I will take the heart of stone out of your flesh and give you a heart of flesh. I will put My Spirit within you and cause you to walk in My statutes, and you will keep My judgments and do them” (Ezek. 36:26–28).

“‘But this is the covenant that I will make with the house of Israel after those days,’ says the LORD: ‘I will put My law in their minds, and write it on their hearts; and I will be their God and they shall be My people. No more shall every man teach his neighbor and every man his brother, saying, “Know the LORD.” For they all shall know Me, from the least of them to the greatest of them,’ says the LORD. ‘For I will forgive their iniquity, and their sin I will remember no more’” (Jer. 31:33–34).

“And so all Israel will be saved, as it is written; ‘The Deliverer will come out of Zion, and He will turn away ungodliness from Jacob [Paul quoting Isa. 59:20]; for this is My Covenant with them, when I take away their sins [Paul quoting Isa. 27:9]’”(Rom. 11:26–27).

Israel—God’s Miracle in the Making

Bridges for Peace blessing Israel for more than 50 years God’s Word resounds down through the ages with the promises for the restoration of Israel. God is bringing the people back from the nations of their dispersion, establishing the State of Israel, and restoring the Land. I am confident He will finish His work in such a way that the nations of the world will know that He is God.

Isaiah 62:10 is part of my own call from God. “Go through, go through the gates! Prepare the way for the people; Build up, build up the highway! Take out the stones. Lift up a banner for the peoples!” Truly God is using Christians today to assist in His great plans for Israel. No one knows at what speed the Lord will move to finish His plans. But this I know, there will be Christians ready and willing to assist in any way He asks. James said that faith without works is dead. My father paraphrased that statement and said, “Belief without action is deception.” We see God at work, and we believe He will finish what He started, so let’s partner with God in prayer and action to see His name glorified throughout the world.

ISRAEL’S RIGHT TO EXIST SPELLED OUT LOUD AND CLEAR

A brilliant and succinct dossier articulating the legal and historical background that is essential to understanding Jewish rights in the land. It is extremely important to save and share this material, as it provides data critical for properly defending Israel.

With the destruction of the Second Temple in 70 CE, the Second Jewish Commonwealth came to an end.  From then until modern times, what had been Judah, and was renamed Palestina by the Romans, was only an appendage to one empire or another, never an independent country.

San Remo:

Jewish legal rights in the land in modern times began with the San Remo Conference and resultant San Remo resolution, which has been called the Jewish Magna Carta.

For centuries, Palestine had been part of the (Turkish, Muslim) Ottoman Empire. With the end of WWI, the land of that Empire was taken by the Allies. Great Britain, France, Italy and Japan, with the US as observer, met in San Remo, Italy, to decide how it would be divided: Palestine was put under British Mandatory rule.

Below is an excellent 15 minute film about the discovery of the formerly classified minutes from the San Remo peace conference of April, 1920. This long hidden document explains the legal rights of the Jews as well as the Palestinians. By returning to the negotiating table and respecting historical facts and international law the film believes there can be real peace between Israel and the Palestinians.

Balfour Declaration:

At San Remo it was decided to incorporate the Balfour Declaration into Britain’s mandate.  The Declaration, in the form of a letter, was an endorsement by the British government of the establishment of a Jewish home in Palestine.  Written in 1917 by the British Foreign Secretary Lord Balfour, and sent to Lord Rothschild, it stated:

“His Majesty’s Government view with favour the establishment in Palestine of a national home for the Jewish people, , and will use their best endeavors to facilitate the achievement of this object.”

By “Right”:

In June 1922, Winston Churchill, who was then British Secretary of State for the Colonies, wrote in a policy paper that:

“…in order that this community should have the best prospect of free development and provide a full opportunity for the Jewish people to display its capacities, it is essential that it should know that it is in Palestine as of right and not on sufferance.”

League of Nations Formalizes Mandate:

In July 1922, the League of Nations, predecessor to the UN, formally adopted the British Mandate for Palestine — a legally binding document that was approved by all 51 members of the League of Nations.

It agreed that:

“the Mandatory [Britain] should be responsible for putting into effect the declaration originally made on November 2nd, 1917 [Balfour Declaration], by the Government of His Britannic Majesty, and adopted by the said Powers, in favor of the establishment in Palestine of a national home for the Jewish people…”

And it gave recognition to:

“the historical connection of the Jewish people with Palestine and to the grounds for reconstituting their national home in that country.”

The term “reconstituting” gave acknowledgement to the fact that there had been a Jewish nation in Palestine at an earlier time.

“Mandate” Explained

The mandatory system of the League of Nations was based on the principle of Allied administration of Mandate territories until such time as they were able to stand alone.  That is, it was understood at the beginning that the British would ultimately withdraw, leaving an established Jewish homeland.

Area of Mandate Palestine

The original area of Palestine, for which the British Mandate was assigned, included Transjordan (what is today Jordan, on the eastern side of the Jordan River).

Credit: Hebroots

In September 1922, very soon after the League of Nations had adopted the Mandate resolution, Britain assigned TransJordan to Hashemite Arabs from Saudi Arabia.  The Jewish part of the Mandate was thus reduced by over 70%.

Jews then had the right to settle anywhere in a 10,000 sq.mi. area between the Jordan River and the Mediterranean Sea.

Mandate Transfer to UN:

With the formal demise of the League of Nations in 1946, the United Nations was established to succeed it.  The UN assumed obligations of the League: Territories under Mandate were to have a “trusteeship system” applied — this was a continuation of the Mandate system of the League.

Article 80 of the UN declared that “nothing in the [UN] Charter shall be construed…to alter in any manner the rights whatsoever of any states or peoples or the terms of existing international instruments.”  This preserved the Jewish right to settle in Palestine.

Violence in Palestine:

From the time of the establishment of the Mandate for Palestine, Arab challenges to it were considerable,  and were often expressed violently.  This was in spite of the fact at that the same that the Mandate for Palestine was established for the Jewish homeland, Mandates for Syria, Lebanon and Iraq were established, all for Arab populations.  Arabs were, and still are, offended by the presence of a Jewish state.

Perhaps most grievous of all was the Hebron massacre of 1929: for three days Arabs went on a murderous rampage in the city, killing 67 Jews and destroying property. In the aftermath, the second holiest city of the Jews was left bereft of Jews for the first time in hundreds of years.  (Ultimately the British prevented Jews from living in the city because they said they couldn’t protect them.)

Partition of Palestine:

In 1947, the British, who no longer wished to contend with the situation, declared intention to pull out by mid-1948, and turned the Mandate back to the United Nations. A UN Commission considered the matter and recommended a partition of Palestine into one state for the Jews and one for the Arabs, with Jerusalem to be internationalized at first.

Credit: Wikipedia

This recommendation was placed before the General Assembly as Resolution 181, which was adopted on November 29, 1947 by a vote of 33 to 12, with 10 abstentions. The Arab nations voted as a bloc against.

It is imperative to note that General Assembly Resolutions carry no weight in international law.  This resolution was only a recommendation — it was not binding and it did not supersede the Mandate for Palestine in international law.

Legally, this plan would have had binding force only as an agreement between the two parties, i.e., the Jews of Palestine and the Arabs of Palestine.
However, while the Jewish population of Palestinian accepted the proposal, the Arab population did not: they rejected the entire resolution.  Thus the partition plan was aborted.

There is no way for Arabs today to re-instate this resolution or to claim that Jews have a right to only what was defined as a Jewish state by this aborted resolution.

Declaration of the Establishment of the State of Israel:

On May 14, 1948 (Hebrew date: 5th of Iyar 5708), the Jewish People’s Council gathered at the Tel Aviv Museum, and approved a proclamation, declaring the establishment of the State of Israel.

It asserted the natural right of the Jewish people to be like all other peoples, exercising self-determination in its sovereign state and proclaimed the establishment of a Jewish state named “the State of Israel.”

It is important to note that Israel’s legal legitimacy did not derive from the aborted partition plan — even though the state was founded on that portion of Palestine that Resolution 181 had allocated for a Jewish state.

It was established according to international norms: based on a declaration of independence by its people and on the establishment of an orderly government within territory under its stable control.

The portion of Palestine on which Israel was not established became unclaimed Mandate land.  Nothing in international law had superseded the status of this land as Mandate land.

War of Independence

Within a day of the establishment of the State of Israel, it was attacked by the states of the Arab League, with clear, openly stated, intention of destroying the new state.

When the war ended in 1949, Israel controlled more territory than it had when independence was declared.  Egypt controlled Gaza, and Jordan controlled Judea and Samaria (the West Bank).  Western Jerusalem was in Israel’s hands, and eastern Jerusalem in Jordan’s hands.

Credit: buildersofzion

Armistice agreements were signed between Israel and the Arab states with which it had been at war.  Armistice lines — temporary ceasefire lines — were defined by these agreements.  They are often referred to as the Green Line.

These armistice demarcation lines did not define a permanent border for Israel. The agreement between Israel and Jordan includes this phrase:

“The Armistice Demarcation Lines defined…in this Agreement are agreed upon by the Parties without prejudice to future territorial settlements or boundary lines…”
This is exceedingly important because the PLO/PA claims that this line is Israel’s “real” border and the line to which it must withdraw.  This is simply not the case.

Six Day War

From June 5 to June 10, 1967, Israel fought a defensive war against Arab forces from Egypt, Syria and Jordan.

When it was over, Israel had control of all of Jerusalem, which was united under Israeli sovereignty; the Golan Heights, to which Israeli civil law was applied; the Sinai, which was surrendered as part of the 1979 peace treaty with Egypt; Gaza, which was surrendered in the 2005 disengagement; and Judea and Samaria.

242

In November 1967, the Security Council adopted Resolution 242, which addressed the situation.

This resolution did not require Israel to withdraw to the Green Line.  Instead it acknowledged the right of every state in the area “to live in peace within secure and recognized boundaries free from threats or acts of force.”

Implicit here was the understanding that the Green Line did not represent a secure boundary.  Israel suffered from a lack of strategic depth within the Green Line — at its narrowest only nine miles wide — which invited attack and made defense in war time difficult. (This is why Israeli statesman Abba Eban referred to the Green Line as the “Auschwitz borders.”)

Thus this resolution called for Israel to withdraw from “territories occupied in the recent conflict.”  “Territories,” not “the territories” or “all territories,” meaning, withdrawal from some but not all of the area of Judea and Samaria.  There is a legal history of long debate over this wording, because of its significance.  Not full withdrawal because that would not leave Israel with a secure boundary.

Once again, then, we see that the claim of the PLO/PA that Israel “must” withdraw to the Green Line is not supported by the facts.

Lastly, the resolution called for “a peaceful and accepted settlement in accordance with the provisions and principles in this resolution.”  That is, it called for negotiations to determine the final border of Israel.

There was no requirement that Israel withdraw prior to negotiations. And those negotiations have never been held.  At the time of this resolution, it was assumed that negotiations would be with Jordan.  Today the situation has changed.

“Occupation”

There is nothing in Resolution 242 that forbids construction of settlements in Judea and Samaria by Israel.  As this issue is a critical one now, we need to look at this a bit closer:

Israel is not an “occupier” in Judea and Samaria.

The word “occupation” is bandied about regularly.  The PA/PLO have adopted the idea of Israel as “occupier” as a mantra and much of the world has accepted it.  But the facts tell us something else.

• Judea and Samaria were (and still are) unclaimed Mandate land, to which Israel has the strongest claim.
• Legally, occupation only occurs when one nation moves into the land of another. But there was no nation legally sovereign in Judea and Samaria before 1967 — Jordan’s presence there was not legal
• There are strong legal precedents for the claim that a war fought defensively permits retention of the land secured in that war.Wrote Steven Schwiebel, former judge of the International Court of Justice:

“…the Israeli conquest of Arab and Arab-held territory was defensive rather than aggressive conquest.

“…it follows that modifications of the 1949 armistice lines.. are lawful…whether those modifications are, in Secretary Rogers’s words, ‘insubstantial alterations required for mutual security’ or more substantial alterations – such as recognition of Israeli sovereignty over the whole of Jerusalem.”



• With all of the above, it should not be forgotten that areas over the Green Line, in eastern Jerusalem and Judea and Samaria, represent the very heart of Jewish heritage:  From the Temple Mount; to Hevron and the Cave of Machpelah, where the matriarch and patriarchs are buried; to Shilo, where the Tabernacle was brought.  How can Jews be “occupiers” in their own ancient land?

International Law

People have the impression that “international law” is a firmly defined body of law.  In point of fact, while some international law is established in formal documents, others aspects are very fluid.  Just as is the case with “occupation,” there is a tendency to politicize this term, so that Israel is forever accused of “violating international law.”  Be most cautious when hearing this.

There are, as well, instances in which “international law” is interpreted to mean one thing for Israel and another for other countries.

One fascinating example has to do with the Fourth Geneva Convention, Article 49(6), which says “the Occupying Power shall not deport or transfer parts of its own civilian population into the territory it occupies.”  You may have heard accusations that Israel is in defiance of this Article because of the “settlers.”

There are two obvious retorts to this: First, that Israel is not an occupier, and second, that Israel is not deporting or transferring parts of its own civilian population — the people go of their own volition.

Eugene Kontorovich, however, is currently doing research for a paper and has discovered something else:  There are many instances of movement of civilian population into occupied territory.  However, while international lawyers claim that Israel must actively oppose civilian migration, refuse to provide services to settlers, etc., in these other instances the reaction is much more tempered.  That is, the presumed requirements of “international law” are applied selectively to Israel.