Israel uiz 2014 B O O K O N E T A B L E O F C O N T E N T S SECTION 1: JEWISH CLAIMS TO THE LAND OF ISRAEL 1.1 Hashem's promise to Avraham 2 1.2 Myths and Facts about the Jewish Claim to the Land of Israel 4 1.3 Jewish Presence throughout the Ages 8 1.4 The Jewish People's Connection with the Land of Israel 10 SECTION 2: THE PREHISTORY OF THE STATE OF ISRAEL (c. 1880 – 1948) 2.1 The Roots of Zionism 15 2.2 The Mandate for Palestine and the Pre-State Period 19 2.3 Arab-Jewish Conflict under the British Mandate 23 2.4 World War II and the Holocaust 26 2.5 The end of the British Mandate and the Partition Plan 28 SECTION 3: THE ESTABLISHMENT OF THE STATE OF ISRAEL: 1948–1967 Introduction 32 3.1 Israel's Declaration of Independence 32 3.2 Israel's War of Independence 1948 38 3.3 Jewish Exodus from Arab Lands 41 3.4 Israel's Early Years 46 3.5 Israel between 1957 – 1967 48 3.6 Israel's Six Day War 1967 51 SECTION 4: MULTIMEDIA VIDEOS 60 SECTION 5: MAPS 61 5.1 Map of Israel and surrounding countries 5.2 Regional map of Arab affiliated countries 1 SECTION 1: JEWISH CLAIMS TO THE LAND OF ISRAEL 1.1 HASHEM'S PROMISE TO AVRAHAM Abraham is introduced in the Bible when Hashem challenges him with three sweeping instructions which will alter his life and the lives of his family forever. 1.1.1 The First Promise God said to Abram, "Go from your land, from your birthplace, and from your father's house to the land that I will show you.” (Genesis 12:1) God is not like Charles Dickens. Dickens got paid by the word, and would be as verbose as possible. God is the exact opposite. God uses words sparingly throughout the whole Bible, thus His repetition of this command to Abraham is surprising. "Separate yourself completely, not just from your land, but from your birthplace, from your father's house." If you grew up in a specific house for a specific period of time that will always be home for you. When you think of home, no matter where you later live, no matter how comfortable you've been, you'll always think about your original home. There's a deep connection. So God is says to Abraham: "Separate yourself on this most basic emotional level." More importantly, from the macrocosmic, historical perspective, God is saying to Abraham, and therefore to the Jewish people: "Separate yourself completely and go in a different direction." The journey that God is directing Abraham to undertake is not just a physical journey, it's a journey through history that is going to be different from anyone else's. Abraham is going to become a father to a nation that is not reckoned among the rest of the nations, a nation that dwells alone. This is the first unique characteristic of Jewish history. 1.1.2 The Second Promise We learn in the next verse: "I will make you into a great nation, I will bless you and make your name great; and you will be a blessing." (Genesis 12:2) This verse conveys God's promise that He will be actively involved in Jewish history: "I will make you ..." Jewish people should not have come into existence. Abraham's wife Sarah was barren, Abraham would have died, and his mission should have died with him. But a miracle occurred. Thus we learn that the Jewish people come into being miraculously, they survive human history miraculously, outliving some of the greatest empires that ever were. This is because the Jews are a nation with a unique mission, a nation with a unique history. Things happen to the Jews that don't happen to other peoples. To live for 2000 years as a nation without a national homeland is unheard of. It's unique in human history. To re-establish a homeland in the place that was yours 2000 years before is also unique in human history. 2 1.1.3 The Third Promise "I will bless those who bless you, and curse those who curse you, and through you, will be blessed all the families of the earth." (Genesis 12:3) God is saying here to Abraham that he and his descendants -- the Jews -- will be under God's protection. The nations and peoples who are good to the Jews will do well. Empires and peoples that are bad to the Jews will do poorly. The entire world is going to be changed by the Jewish people. That is one of the great patterns of history. You can literally chart the rise and fall of virtually all the civilizations in the western world by how they treated the Jews: Antiochus, Spain's King Ferdinand, Joseph Stalin and others who tried to stamp out Judaism. Greece was sacked by the Romans; Spain's empire crumbled; the powerful Soviet Union was shattered into a cluster of impotent nations. Clearly history was not on their side. America on the other hand prospered. Part of this is supernatural, part of it is not. If a group of people lives within your country -- educated, driven, dedicated, loyal, creative, well-connected people -- and you're nice to them allowing them to participate and contribute in a meaningful way, your country will benefit. If you crush those people and expel them, you will suffer, because of the economic fallout. But, of course, there's much more going on than just that. A third pattern shows that the rise and fall of nations and empires will be based on how they treat the Jews, an amazing idea, and one you can clearly see in human history. You can also see the positive impact the Jews have had on the world. The most basic of all is the Jewish contribution to the values linked with democracy -- values that come from the Torah -- respect for life, justice, equality, peace, love, education, social responsibility etc. These three verses in Genesis show us the key underlying patterns of Jewish history. Abraham's journey is the paradigm. His personal life and the life of his immediate descendants will be a mini-version, a microcosm, of what Jewish history is all about. 1.1.4 The Promised Land God gave Abraham and his family the Land of Israel as a laboratory where his descendants were to create a model nation for the world. The Jewish story begins in the Book of Genesis, Chapter 12, when God first speaks to Abraham, and it continues through to the death of Jacob and Joseph. This segment is best described as the development of the "family" of Israel, which in the Book of Exodus becomes a "nation." Abraham was born in Ur Kasdim in Mesopotamia (today's Iraq). He then moved with his father to Haran (today's northern Syria/southern Turkey) where he was instructed to go to Canaan, the Promised Land, which will become the Land of Israel. God said to Abram: "Go from your land ... to the land that I will show you." (Genesis 12:1) 3 1.2 MYTHS AND FACTS ABOUT THE JEWISH CLAIM TO THE LAND OF ISRAEL MYTH “The Jews have no claim to the land they call Israel” FACT A common misperception is that all the Jews were forced into the Diaspora by the Romans after the destruction of the Second Temple in Jerusalem in the year 70 C.E. 1,800 years later, they returned to Palestine demanding their country back. In reality, the Jewish people have maintained ties to their historic homeland for more than 3,700 years. Jews were forced out of Israel, never having the power to return till much later. They never gave up hope of returning to Israel and Israel remained part and parcel of their culture. They prayed three times a day for a return and many laws, customs and holidays embrace ideas connected to living and growing the land of Israel. The Jewish people base their claim to the Land of Israel on at least four premises: 1) the Jewish people settled and developed the land 2) the international community granted political sovereignty in Palestine to the Jews 3) the territory which became Israel was captured in defensive wars 4) G-d promised the land to the patriarch Abraham Even after the destruction of the Second Temple in Jerusalem, and the beginning of the exile, Jewish life in the Land of Israel continued and often flourished. Large communities were re- established in Jerusalem and Tiberias by the ninth century. In the 11th century, Jewish communities grew in Rafah, Gaza, Ashkelon, Jaffa and Caesarea. The Crusaders massacred many Jews during the 12th century, but the community rebounded in the next two centuries as large numbers of rabbis and Jewish pilgrims immigrated to Jerusalem and the Galilee. Prominent rabbis established communities in Safed, Jerusalem and elsewhere during the next 300 years. By the early 19th century - years before the birth of the modern Zionist movement - more than 10,000 Jews lived throughout what is today Israel. The 78 years of nation-building, beginning in 1870, culminated in the re-establishment of the Jewish State. Israel's international “birth certificate” was validated by the promise of the Bible; uninterrupted Jewish settlement from the time of Joshua onward; the Balfour Declaration of 1917; the League of Nations Mandate, which incorporated the Balfour Declaration; the United Nations partition resolution of 1947; Israel's admission to the UN in 1949; the recognition of Israel by most other states; and, most of all, the society created by Israel's people in decades of thriving, dynamic national existence.