THE CREATION OF MODERN ISRAEL AND GOD’S PROVIDENCE

• First, a review of the importance of the Balfour Declaration of 1917.  Chaim Weizmann, a professor of chemistry at the University of Manchester, England, was a passionate believer in Zionism, the 19th century-early 20th century movement to reestablish a national state for the Jewish people in Palestine.  He developed a close friendship with two leaders of the British Parliament, Arthur Balfour and David Lloyd George.  Balfour was the last representative of England’s traditional landed class to lead England.  In 1914, Weizmann had an important discussion with Balfour, explaining that Jews have made a major contribution to the development of German culture but had to hide their Jewishness because of intense anti-Semitism.  Through this discussion, Balfour became a committed supporter of Zionism.  David Lloyd George, also a friend of Weizmann, was also a committed Zionist.  During World War I, Britain faced a possibility of running out of natural acetate, a key ingredient in the manufacture of munitions.  Chaim Weizmann invented a new process for extracting acetate from corn.  That saved the British army!  The gratitude of George and Balfour would not go unnoticed.  In 1916, David Lloyd George became Britain’s prime minister and Balfour became his foreign secretary.  As the British army fought the Ottoman Empire for control of Palestine, the British government issued the Balfour Declaration on 2 November 1917, to rally Jewish support for this effort.  The key paragraph of the Declaration read:  “His Majesty’s Government views with favour the establishment in Palestine of a national home for the Jewish people . . . and will use their best endeavors to facilitate the achievement of this object.”  This Declaration would play a major role in the eventual establishment of the state of Israel in 1948 and Chaim Weizmann would become Israel’s first president.  God used Weizmann, George and Balfour to accomplish His purposes in fulfilling Ezekiel 37!

• Second is the role of Winston Churchill.  A new book by Martin Gilbert, Churchill and the Jews, demonstrates the amazing and providential role that Churchill played in this saga.  In a recent review of this important book, Arthur Herman writes:  “By chronicling Churchill’s warm dealings with English and European Jews throughout his long career, and his heartfelt support of Zionism, Mr. Gilbert conveys Churchill’s deep admiration for the Jewish people and captures his crucial role in creating the state of Israel.  Churchill offers the powerful example of a Western statesman who—unlike the other statesman in his own time and ours—understood the malignant nature of anti-Semitism and did what he could to oppose its toxic effects.”  Churchill believed that Judaism was the bedrock of Western civilization’s ethics, morals and political principles.  He believed that it was wrong for Europe to reject the Jews, indeed “that corporate strength, that personal and special driving power” that Jews had brought for hundreds of years to Europe’s arts, sciences and institutions made them an essential element of Western civilization.  Churchill thereby believed that to deny them a national homeland was an act of immense ingratitude.  Therefore, he was a strong advocate of the Balfour Declaration.  Churchill was a close friend of Chaim Weizmann and declared that “The hope of your race for so many centuries will be gradually relaxed here [in Palestine], not only for your own good, but for the good of all the world.”  Churchill believed that Arab civilization would benefit greatly from contact with the Jews:  “I look on the Jews as the natural importers of western leaven so necessary for countries in the Near East.”  Herman writes that “It was Churchill, who, as colonial secretary, decided to separate Transjordan (modern day Jordan) from the rest of Palestine, assuming that Transjordan would become the site of the Arabs’ future state and that other parts of Palestine (including the West Bank of the Jordan River) would be open to Jewish settlement.”  Appalled at what Hitler was doing during the Holocaust, Churchill wanted a film that documented the atrocities committed against the Jews to be shown to every American serviceman before the invasion of Europe.  After World War II, Churchill declared that “. . . the coming into being of a Jewish State in Palestine is an event in world history to be viewed in the perspective of a thousand, two thousand, or even three thousand years.”  The creation of the modern state of Israel was just recompense for what the Jewish people had contributed for thousands of years to civilization.  It was just, right and honorable to do so!

• Finally, consider the role that Harry Truman played in recognizing the modern state of Israel in 1948.  In a recent book by Michael Beschloss, Presidential Courage, that role is documented.  Beschloss shows that Truman’s friendship with Eddie Jacobson, a clothing salesman from Kansas City, played a crucial role in Truman’s decision to recognize the state of Israel.  Jacobsen implored the President to back the UN committee’s proposal for Jewish and Arab states in Palestine, which Truman then did.  Further, Clark Clifford, who served in Truman’s State Department at that time, showed Truman several Old Testament passages that promised Jews “that someday they would have their own homeland.”  On 14 May 1948, David Ben-Gurion declared that after twenty centuries of wandering, there was now “A Jewish state in Palestine, to be called Israel.”  He went on, “The land of Israel was the birthplace of the Jewish people. . . Here they wrote and gave the Bible to the world. . . The Nazi Holocaust, which engulfed millions of Jews, proved anew the urgency of . . . lifting the Jewish people to equality in the family of nations.”  At 6:11 pm that evening, President Harry Truman signed a document authorizing recognition of this new nation.  Chaim Weizmann, the first President of Israel, publicly recognized the role that Eddie Jacobson, Truman’s old Kansas City friend, played in convincing Truman to recognize the new state.  Again, the Providence of God at work in history to accomplish His purposes.

See The One-Year Book of Christian History, edited by E. Michael and Sharon Rusten, pp. 614-615; Arthur Herman’s review of Gilbert’s book in the Wall Street Journal (8 November 2007); and Michael Beschloss, Presidential Courage:  Brave Leaders and How They Changed America, 1789-1989, pp. 196-234.