Translated material
Israel - 70 years
On Friday, May 14, 1948, at four in the afternoon, in the building of the Rothschild Boulevard in Tel Aviv, the state of Israel was proclaimed. It still wages the struggle for its survival
Photo: Alinari/Photas
The head of the Jewish agency for Palestine, David Ben-Gurion, read out the Declaration of Independence: “Forcibly expelled from their homeland, the Jewish people remained faithful to her ... The full consciousnesses of this historical connection, Jews from generation to generation made attempts to surrender to their ancient homeland. Recent decades have been marked by a mass return to their native land. These people became its defenders, the desert blossomed their labor, they revived the ancient language, built cities and villages, created a dynamic, developing society ... On this basis, we, representatives of the Jewish population, on the day of the British mandate, due to our natural and historical law and on the basis of the decision of the UN General Assembly, are proclaimed the creation of the Jewish state - the state of Israel ... ”
Ben-Gurion turned to the Palestinian Arabs and neighboring Arab states: “We call the sons of the Arab people living in the state of Israel, to observe the world and participate in the construction of the state on the basis of complete civilian equality ... Holding the hand of the world to all neighboring states and their peoples, we urge them to cooperate with the Jewish people ...”
Members of the National Council signed the Declaration of Independence and sang the national anthem-Ha-Tikwa. The whole ceremony took fifteen minutes.
There is only Syria
The first Israel was recognized by the United States. This happened just ten minutes after the proclamation of the Jewish state. But the Americans recognized Israel de facto, this assumed a lower level of diplomatic relations. The Soviet Union was the first to recognize the Jewish state in full, de jure, and provided full support to the young country.
The war for independence was won.
He was the first prime minister
Israel photo: dpa/Photas
In accordance with the resolution of the UN General Assembly, the state of Palestinian Arabs was supposed to appear near Israel. It is generally accepted that the Israelis did not allow the Palestinians to create their own state and seized their lands. In reality, the newly born Israel did not claim any extra square meter of land in addition to what was indicated by the UN decision. But another thing is no less important: the leaders of the Arab world themselves did not recognize the existence of the Arab people of Palestine. Even much later, Syria President Hafez Assad told the chairman of the organization of the liberation of Palestine (OOP) to Yasir Arafat: “You represent Palestine no more than us. There is no Palestinian people and no Palestinian community, but there is only Syria. You are an inseparable part of the Syrian people, and Palestine is an inseparable part of Syria ... ”
Even before the British departure, the destruction of Palestinian Jews was entrusted with the so-called Arab Liberation Army under the command of the Syrian Fauzi Al-Kaucchi. During the Second World War, he commanded the Arab units as part of the Wehrmacht. After the defeat of Nazi Germany, Fauzi fled to the Middle East to do the same thing - the destruction of the Jews.
On April 13, 1948, in Moscow, the Middle Eastern Department of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs drew up a certificate “On the Palestine’s position after the UN division of the country” for the authorities: “Armed speeches against Jews unfolded with renewed vigor in December 1947. The traitors and quisling from around the world began to flock to Palestine and took part in the fight on the side of the Arabs, among them Anders scum, Bosnian Muslims from the camps of displaced persons in Germany, prisoners of war, who fled from the camps in Egypt, “volunteers” from Francian Spain. The countries of the Arab League, fulfilling the decisions of the League Council, send armed detachments of the Arabs to Palestine. Arabs are received from the Arab countries that England supplies ... The Transiordan Arab Legion is the power inside Palestine, with the help of which King Abdallah intends to capture the country after the end of May 15 of the English mandate ... The defense of settlements is an almost overwhelming task for a semi -aligned Jewish police. Jews are deprived of assistance in people from outside, suffer heavy losses killed and wounded, which adversely affect the resistance of this small (only 640 thousand people) community ... "
USSR for Zionists
Home Israel Photo: Ap Photo
The fighting spirit of Jewish soldiers was very high. They knew that they could either win or die. They had nowhere to retreat or run. But they desperately needed weapons. The United States banned the sale of weapons to the Middle East. British and American intelligence agencies interfered with the purchases of weapons intended for Palestinian Jews. But England refused to join the embargo for the supply of weapons, citing major contracts with Arab countries that cannot be broken. So the Arab world continued to receive weapons in huge quantities.
Then the Zionists turned to the Soviet Union, the only state that supported them in everything. On February 5, 1948, the future Foreign Minister of Israeli Moshe Sherstok talked with the representative of the USSR at the UN Andrei Gromyko. Sherok asked for the Soviet leadership for help. By that time, Stalin had already ordered to arm Palestinian Jews so that they could create their own state. Therefore, Gromyko busily asked if the Jews had the opportunity to ensure unloading weapons if it was sold to them. Sherekok telegraphed Ben-Gurion: can he firmly tell Gromyko that the Jews take over unloading? A positive answer was received immediately.
To send weapons and equipment, one of the Czechoslovak airfields was allocated. It was mainly a German trophy weapon. First of all, artillery and mortars were sent. Then the old English spitfire fighters and the trophy German Messerschmitt-109 bought at cheap.
Weapons from Czechoslovakia arrived in time. On March 29, 1948, Palestinian Jews unpacked and gathered the first four trophy Messerschmitt. On this day, the Egyptian military column, including tanks, was only a few tens of kilometers from Tel Aviv. They started talking about the evacuation of the city. If Tel Aviv was lost, the case would be lost. There were no troops capable of covering the city. He sent everything that he had - these four planes. One of the battle returned from the battle. But seeing that the Jews had aviation, the Egyptians then stopped their offensive. To start new after a month and a half.
The war of destruction
On May 14, 1948, the Minister of Foreign Affairs of Egypt notified the chairman of the UN Security Council that the Egyptian army crossed the borders of Palestine in order to restore order there. On May 15, that is, the day after the proclamation of Israel, the armies of Egypt, Syria, Jordan, Iraq and Lebanon invaded Palestine from the north, east and south. On Saturday morning, Arab planes bombed a power station and airport in Tel Aviv. Forty -four inhabitants died. The Secretary General of the Arab League promised: "It will be a war on destruction and a grand mass."
The balance of power was such that the Arab countries did not doubt success: several hundred thousand Jews against tens of millions of Arabs. Arabs were sure that they would easily take all of Palestine and the question of creating a Jewish state would disappear by itself. But the Jews were not going to give up. To the surprise of the whole world, Jewish self-defense units repelled the attack and gradually prevailed in the First Arab-Israeli War. Arab armies were forced to retreat.
It is believed that the Middle East conflict arose due to the Palestinian problem, due to the fact that the Palestinian Arabs fled and lost their homeland. But the Arab countries launched a war against Israel long before the mass flight of the Palestinians and were not guided by concern about the situation of the Palestinian Arabs. The then Prime Minister Iraq Nur Said said: “We crush Israel and destroy any place where the Jews will try to find asylum. In the meantime, the battles have not ended, the Arabs must transport their wives and children to safe places. ”
So Palestinian refugees appeared. The Arab leaders convinced the Palestinian Arabs to leave the territory of Israel, promising to quickly destroy the Jews - and then everyone could return to the liberated lands.
“In April 1948,” recalled Golda Meir, who eventually became the head of the Israeli government, “I stood for hours on the coast and literally begged the Haifa Arabs not to leave. I will never forget this. We said: “Do not run away! You will incur poverty and humiliation on this. Stay in your and our city! ” Arabs fled because their leadership convinced that it would be the smartest. They fled, because they were afraid to death, no matter how they were considered by the traitors of the "Arabic case." It really was a tragedy. ”
Fifth column
Having lost the first war with Israel, the Arab countries were satisfied with the fact that they had divided the lands on which the UN proposed to create a state of Palestinian Arabs. Thus began the tragedy of the modern Middle East. The gas sector passed to Egypt, the western bank of the Jordan River went to Jordan. Egypt and Jordan ruled these lands for nineteen years, until the six -day war of 1967, but it never occurred to them to transfer these territories to the Palestinians to control themselves.
The Soviet mission in Lebanon on April 14, 1949 reported to its curator, Deputy Minister of Foreign Affairs Valerian Zorin: “Arab countries insist on the return of all Arab refugees not because there are nowhere to place them in the rest of the Arab countries or in the Arab part of Palestine, but because they want to have a kind of fifth column on the territory of the Jewish state, which in the case The resumption of hostilities will subsequently be able to provide serious support to the Arab offensive. ”
For the same reasons, Arab politicians did nothing to help Palestinian refugees. They kept the Palestinians in distress for propaganda purposes. On December 4, 1955, the ambassador in Egypt reported to Moscow: “The requirement of the complete repatriation of the Palestinian refugees is aimed at creating a strong Arabic minority in Israel, which can have a certain influence on the policy of the Israeli government. However, it should be noted that the Egyptian government is currently not interested in resolving the Palestinian problem and does not want to negotiate with Israel. ”
Rich Arab countries for six decades hold the Palestinians in the situation of refugees, cultivating their hatred of the Jewish state. Back in 1959, the UN Secretary General Dag Hammarscheld proposed a joint efforts to relocate refugees from the camps, to give them the opportunity to start a new life. The Arab countries protested, and the UN Secretary General was forced to abandon his idea.
How many wars and what sacrifices could be avoided if the Arab rulers showed less selfishness! If in 1917 they did not mind the declaration of the British Foreign Minister Lord Balfur, then the small Jewish population of Palestine would have received only a small autonomy. Jews in the Middle East would be forced to be content with the regulations of the national minority in the Arab state, as Christians-Maronites in Lebanon. If, before the Second World War, the Arabs agreed with the British proposal to create a tiny Jewish state and a large Arabic in Palestine, Israel, which would receive a few square kilometers, would be generally invisible. And of course, the Palestinian state could appear sixty years ago, in May 1948 ...
First published in NT No. 19 of May 12, 2008