Perspective: History of Israel
ISRAEL IN PERSPECTIVE
At the time of the Holocaust, the Land that is Israel was under British rule. After the atrocities of World War II countless Jews were left displaced. In November of 1947 the United Nations resolved to give the Jewish People a homeland of their own. The British withdrew on May 14, 1948 and the State of Israel was born.
The very next day, surrounding Arab nations joined forces and attacked the new state. Israel’s land holding was a fraction of a percent of Arab land holdings, yet the surrounding nations harbored hostility toward the Jewish People that demanded Israel not exist. Armies of Egypt, Jordan, Syria, Lebanon, and Iraq together outnumbered the one day old state sixty to one. The superior weapons, supplies and finances of these nations made for a dismal outlook for Israel.
But God
“Yet the God of Israel – the God who neither slumbers nor sleeps (see Psalm 121:4) – kept Israel,” writes Jonathan Bernis in his book, A Rabbi Looks at the Last Days. “Against all human odds the infant nation prevailed. With the establishment of the State of Israel, Jewish independence, lost two thousand years earlier, was renewed.”
The Land had been granted by the United Nations to Israel as a nation for themselves. They fought to keep it and won. The question now was about all the Arabs who had been living in that Land. What were they going to do? Where would they live?
Little known facts about Israel’s history
Two facts about this quandary are seldom circulated, but they are extremely important to understanding the current Middle East conflict.
- Israel had agreed to a partitioning of the Land, giving a portion of it to the people known as “Palestinians.” It was the surrounding Arab nations who refused this plan.
- The Jewish nation offered full citizenship to the Arabs living within the borders of the new state. This too was refused. “In truth,” Rabbi Bernis writes, “it was the Muslim countries who encouraged the Palestinian people (the Arabs living there to leave Israel and then refused to take them in, leaving them struggling for survival in squalid refugee camps.”
In 1967, Arab nations got together again to plan Israel’s annihilation. Syria announced: “Our forces are now entirely ready to…explode the Zionist presence in the Arab homeland.” Israel made a bold and powerful pre-emptive strike. Six days later Israel’s “resounding victory” brought them control of the Sinai Peninsula, the Gaza Strip, the West Bank, East Jerusalem, and the Golan Heights.
In 1978 tiny nation exchanged land for peace with Egypt, returning the oil rich Sinai Peninsula to them. In 2000 Israel, who only wants peace, offered to give the Gaza Strip and all but a small percentage of the West Bank into Palestinian control. The offer was utterly rejected. Following the rejection, Arabs accelerated their attacks on Israel with a new kind of warfare, suicide terrorists mingling among and killing Israeli citizens.
Israel’s history forgotten
Today’s Gazans consider Israel “occupiers” of their land. Hatred fills their veins and they are determined to “free Gaza.” Blind to historical facts, they blame Israel for their current distressed lives rather than placing the responsibility where it lies – with their own ancestors, fellow Muslims, and neighboring Arab nations who could have, and should have, taken them in 66 years ago. Unfortunately, world opinion follows along just as blindly. And, oddly, the United Nations has a record of bias against Israel as well.
Please pray
Please continue to pray daily – hourly – for those involved in this violent confrontation. Israel wants peace. Hamas wants Israel exterminated. Israel’s hand is forced and world bias doesn’t recognize it. Please pray for the world to see Israel’s plight 
and realize that the Palestinian condition has been brought on and perpetuated by their own hate crazed leadership. The more this situation is viewed accurately, the more innocent Gazans will be spared the abuse and oppression presently inflicted upon them by Hamas and other terrorist groups.
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