Debunking the Myth That Israel Is Illegally Occupying Its Land

Three White Papers

Early on, in 1922, Winston Churchill came up with a plan that he thought might work. When the Arabs demanded that he rescind the Balfour Declaration, he replied in his 1922 White Paper, that he could not do that. The Balfour Declaration stands. However, to appease the Arabs, he arbitrarily took the land under the British Mandate east of the Jordan River—76 percent of what had been promised as a homeland to the Jews – and ordered that Jews could no longer settle or live there. This was a betrayal of the full promise of the Balfour Declaration, but Churchill thought it worthwhile in that Britain could then reserve for the Jews the remaining 24 percent of Palestine, which was west of the Jordan River to the Mediterranean Sea. Churchill was seen as a friend to the Jewish people.

The Arabs gladly took the land on the east bank, but continued to launch terrorist attacks against the Jews over the remaining 24 percent meant for a Jewish homeland.

In response to the continuous violence, another White Paper in 1930 was written by the British government. It stated that it now seemed necessary to limit the number of Jews immigrating to anyplace in the Holy Land because they were taking jobs away from the Arab population. It is a well-known fact that everywhere the Jews lived, they built up the economy and actually gave Arabs new jobs. The truth is, where Jews lived, Arabs were also attracted to move in. But the British wanted to stop the Arab violence at all costs.

In 1939, at the beginning of the destruction of 6,000,000 Jews in Europe, the British sent out a third White Paper allowing only 10,000 Jews a year into Palestine for the next five years! After that, the Arabs would decide on whether more Jews would be allowed into Palestine. Thus, during WWII, the Jews were denied a safe haven from the Nazi butchers. The British sense of justice collapsed under the weight of Arab terrorism and obstinacy.

Jewish People Still Without a Home

Meanwhile, France gave Lebanon her independence in 1943 and Syria in 1946 while Britain gave Iraq her independence in 1932 and Jordan in 1946.

Still Israel was given no country of her own because of the constant violence of the Arabs who were determined that no Jews would create a state in the midst of “Arab territory.”

Finally Britain had had enough and threw up her hands, handed the mess over to the League of Nations and its successor, the United Nations.

UN Welcomes Israel as a Member State

The League and, after that, the UN upheld the Balfour concept, but divided what was left of the British Mandate into a small section for Israel, leaving room for another Arab state in the hill country west of the Jordan River (Judea and Samaria.)

Israel agreed to receive this tiny piece of land for her new state and Israel was granted her entry to the UN as an independent Jewish state in 1948. More than mystifying is the fact that after 6,000,000 Jews had been murdered in that very decade, Britain could not bring herself to cast her UN vote in favor of Israel. She was the only European state that abstained. Even Russia voted for Israel!

But every single Muslim nation in the UN in 1947 voted against Israel’s statehood. It was destiny that at that time the Muslim countries and their close allies did not yet have the majority vote in the UN General Assembly as they do today.

Israel accepted UN Resolution 181 and 273 (see second article.) and Founding Father David Ben Gurion declared Israel a free and independent state on May 14, 1948.

Five Arab Nations Invade Israel

The Arabs completely rejected the UN resolution and five Arab nations invaded Israel the next day, vowing to destroy the nascent state.

When the smoke cleared, the Jordanians had seized the West Bank area of Judea and Samaria and East Jerusalem for themselves and Egypt appropriated Gaza for themselves. They were able to do this because there was no “Palestinian people” or “Palestinian state.” The only rulers over Palestine for the last 500 years were the Ottoman Turks and the British.

A total of 4,000 Jews lost their lives in that war for independence, but Israel actually gained about 60 percent of what the UN had offered the Arabs for their state! The CIA did not believe Israel could possibly win. Israel only had some 20,000 to 30,000 irregulars for most of the war. Many of them were new immigrants and couldn’t even understand their commanders in Hebrew, while the Arabs had large regular armies. It was an absolute miracle.