Israel & The Nations - Britain

Britain is a dying empire. Her rapid decline is a forewarning of the cataclysm that is yet to come. Those with a sense of nostalgia call her Great Britain, but she is no longer great--she is now just a part of Europe. Some call the whole of the British Isles the "United Kingdom," but Northern Ireland fights and Scotland desires, to secede from what was placed upon them by force.

Britain was a mighty power that reached to the ends of the earth, but she made the same mistake that so many other great world powers had made before her--she touched the apple of God's eye  (Zech 2:8)

Britain's Role

Great Britain continued its limitations on Jewish immigration throughout the 1930's. With the outbreak of World War II in 1939, Jews found themselves trapped on the European Continent. The British quotas actually served as a means to enable Adolp Hitler, and Nazi Germany to wreak havoc upon the remaining Jewish residents of Eastern Europe. After the surrender of Germany in 1945, the world was exposed to the horrific atrocity of the Holocaust. Nearly 6 million Jews, including about 1.5 million children were exterminated under the brutality of Hitler's Final Solution of the Jewish problem.

Faced with the realization that not enough had been accomplished to rescue European Jewry, the world moved to expedite a solution to the enmity the Jews faced in the world. The establishment of an independent state in the land of Palestine became the focus of the Zionist movement. Unfortunately Great Britain once again caved in to the Arab demands to limit Jewish immigration to Palestine. Finally, after succumbing to the pressures of the Middle East, Britain referred the controversy of a Jewish State to the United Nations. On November 29, 1947 the United Nations General Assembly voted by a 2/3 majority to again slice up the original British Mandate. The 1947 UN Partition Plan became the designated area allotted to become the new Jewish state.

While Transjordan gained independence from Great Britain in 1946, Israel would not see its independence recognized until May 14th 1948; and then it would loose another 50% of territory. The UN Partition Map of 1947 attached shows that Israel would receive only the area shown in Brown, while the area shown in gray was reallocated to the Arabs, with the city of Jerusalem being designated as an "international zone". The Jews accepted this revision of the Balfour Plan and British Mandate. The Arabs, although having sided with the loosing Nazi-Axis powers in WII, and being benefactors of most of the partitioning, totally rejected the UN Plan.

The Balfour Declaration

His Majesty's Government views with favor the establishment in Palestine of a national homeland for the Jewish people, and will use their best endeavors to facilitate the achievement of this objective, it being clearly understood that nothing shall be done which may prejudice the civil and religious rights of existing non-Jewish communities in Palestine, or the rights and political status enjoyed by Jews in any other country.