Stand for Israel

Note: This is the first in the series of posts that bring you useful background information about Israel that will deepen your understanding of the Jewish state and the conflicts she faces, and help you discuss these issues.

However painful it is for American lovers of Israel to see and hear bile spewed on the Jewish state by people who misunderstand or twist the historical record or taking her actions completely out of context, we have it much better than European Zionists.

Americans remain stubbornly pro-Israel, despite the relentless drumbeat of anti-Zionists deeply hostile to the Jewish people’s historical narrative and unfairly critical of any efforts Israel makes to defend herself (and not always intentionally so — many activists who work against Israel’s interests simply don’t understand the history and current context of the the Arab-Israeli conflict). Not so in Europe, where the conventional wisdom openly questions Israel’s very right to exist.

 Last month, England’s Spectator published the entirety of a lecture by British historian Andrew Roberts in which he set out how the UK has deviated from its early crucial role in establishing a national Jewish homeland.

• For all the undoubted statesmanship implicit in Arthur Balfour’s Declaration of November 1917, promising “a National Home for the Jewish People” doesn’t mean that Britain has ever been much more than a fair-weather friend to Jewish national aspirations. 
• There was the notorious 1939 White Paper, which severely limited Jewish immigration into Palestine at precisely the period of their greatest need, during the Final Solution. A total upper limit of 75,000 Jewish immigrants was set for the fateful years 1940-44, a figure that was also intended to cover refugee emergencies. The White Paper was published on 9 November 1938, the very same day as the Kristallnacht atrocities in Germany. The Manchester Guardian described the White Paper as “a death sentence on tens of thousands of Central European Jews,” which in sheer numerical terms was probably an underestimation.
• In April 1948, Transjordan’s Arab Legion was actually commanded by a Briton, Sir John Glubb. On New Year’s Eve 1948, the British government actually issued an…
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