THE JEWISH HOMELAND IS BORN - The creation of Israel

Following the defeat of the Ottoman Empire in World War I, the British assumed control of Palestine. In November 1917, the British government issued the Balfour Declaration, announcing its intention to facilitate the "establishment in Palestine of a national home for the Jewish people." In 1922, the League of Nations granted Britain a mandate over Palestine which included, among other things, provisions calling for the establishment of a Jewish homeland, facilitating Jewish immigration and encouraging Jewish settlement on the land.

The Arabs were opposed to Jewish immigration to Palestine and stepped up their attacks against the Jews and British. Following an increase in Arab attacks, the British appointed a royal commission in 1936 to investigate the Palestine situation. The Peel Commission recommended the partition of the country between Arabs and Jews.

The Arabs rejected the idea out of hatred and refused, as they do now, any concession or compromise, while the Jews accepted the principle of partition.

At the end of World War II, despite British involvement in creating steps towards the establishment of the Jewish State and despite the fact that the Zionist movement was growing in Britain, the British government shamefully persisted in their immigration restrictions and Jews and Jewish survivors of the Holocaust were turned away from the shores of what was to become Israel. But thankfully the Jewish Agency and the Haganah continued to smuggle Jews into Palestine. 

The nation is born

On November 29, 1947, after much debate and discussion and after the UN took over, the UN recommended the partition of Palestine into two states ­ one Jewish and one Arab. The Jews again accepted the UN resolution while the Arabs yet again rejected it, again out of their inborn hatred and intolerance towards a Jewish Homeland.

Meanwhile, since the time of the British Mandate, the Jewish community in Palestine had been forming political, social and economic institutions that governed daily life in Palestine and served as a pre-state infrastructure. Zionist leader David Ben-Gurion (1886-1973) served as head of the pre-state government.

The British mandate over Palestine officially terminated at midnight, May 14, 1948. Earlier in the day, at 4:00 p.m., David Ben-Gurion proclaimed the creation of the State of Israel and became its first prime minister. Longtime advocate of Zionism in Britain Chaim Weizmann (1874-1952) became Israel's first president. On May 15, the United States recognized the State of Israel and the Soviet Union soon followed suit.

The fledgling State of Israel was faced with many challenges. While fighting a war of survival with the Arab states who immediately invaded the new nation, Israel had to also absorb the shiploads of immigrants coming in daily to the Jewish homeland. Many were penniless refugees from Europe broken in body and in spirit. They needed immediate health and social services in addition to acculturation to their new home.

To this day Israel has grown to be a world leader in technology, science, the arts, industry and commerce as well as a fledging democracy, in fact the only democracy in the middle east. Israel today is a world leader in medicine, young Israelis are IT champions and the young proud State is a strong ally to the rest of the democratic west in military co-operation and struggle. The sacrifice of Israelis has been tenfold in building what most democratic nations have taken centuries to accomplish. The growth of Israel to this status has been a hard struggle in the middle of fighting wars waged against Israel, combating terrorism from within and without the Israeli borders.

Israelis have so much to be proud of.