The following extract is from the writings of Derek Prince who lived in Israel for many years including just before nation of Israel was born in 1948. Derek had married Lydia Christensen who had adopted 8 girls while living in Jerusalem. He gives eyewitness report of what the English did and did not do when United Nations voted to partition Palestine.
What took place started the decline of the UK based on not supporting the creation of the Jewish state. The facts speak for themselves and today nothing has changed.
Derek served in the English military and was a fellow of Cambridge University and had a family that had served in India.
Derek writes:- Effects of Partition
On November 29, 1947, the United Nations voted to partition Palestine into two separate states, one Jewish and one Arab. From this point on, the situation in Jerusalem degenerated rapidly into a state of undeclared war. Jews and Arabs were no longer willing to live side by side. The city was split up into a number of armed camps, some controlled by Jews and others by Arabs.
Officially, the British were still responsible for the maintenance of law and order. The military forces they had at their disposal were more than sufficient to enable them to carry out their task effectively.
To my dismay, they chose not to do this. Instead, they openly tolerated— and even at times supported—the looting and murder carried out by armed bands of Arabs against Jews. They also used their military superiority to prevent the Jews from acquiring the weapons they needed to defend themselves. With my firsthand knowledge of the methods of the British Army, I could come to only one conclusion: My country’s official representatives in Palestine at that time were doing everything in their power, short of open war, to prevent the emergence of the state of Israel.
One major element in the “security forces” under the direction of the British was the Arab Legion. This was the official military force of Transjordan (later renamed Jordan)— trained, equipped, financed and commanded by the British. So far as the Jewish people were concerned, however, the Arab Legion offered them no security whatever. On the contrary, it was the most powerful of the various Arab forces aligned against them.
On the evening of December 12, 1947, through a conversation providentially overheard by one of our girls, we learned that a truck full of armed soldiers from the Arab Legion was making preparations to attack our house. Since we had no protection against this kind of “security,” our whole family simply filed out into the dark, deserted streets of Jerusalem. After wandering for two hours, we found refuge for the night in an American Christian mission. In the morning, the Muslim Arabs in the neighborhood of this mission sent word to the missionary in charge that if he continued to harbor our Jewish girls, they would burn the building down. Twenty-four hours later, we again found ourselves refugees in the streets of Jerusalem.
For the next two months, we lived the life of refugees, until we were eventually invited to move into a large mission building in the main Jewish area of Jerusalem. The missionaries who had occupied it were leaving the country and wished us to take charge of the building in their absence.
There we remained through the months that saw the birth of the state of Israel.
Jerusalem Besieged
By this time, the Jewish area of Jerusalem had become a city under siege. All communication with the Arab communities that lay to the north, east and south had ceased.
To the west, roving, semimilitary bands of Arabs had cut the route to Tel Aviv and the coastal area.
The British did nothing to restrain these Arab bands. Instead, they used their forces to prevent the Jews from taking any effective steps to reopen the road between Tel Aviv and Jerusalem. Consequently, the area in which we lived was deprived of almost all food supplies and was on the verge of starvation.
On May 14, 1948, the British forces finally withdrew from Palestine, and the state of Israel was officially proclaimed. The very next day, all the surrounding Arab nations declared war on Israel and commenced full- scale military operations against it, with the declared intention of destroying the new state. A total of more than 40 million people, with modern, well-equipped armies, were thus at war with a tiny, newborn nation of less than 640,000 people, whose volunteer army had been assembled at 48 hours’ notice, with no equipment except a random assortment of light arms.
On May 17, the Arab Legion started to shell the Jewish section of Jerusalem with heavy artillery. The first shell exploded only yards from the building in which we were living. A large, jagged fragment flew through an open window, passed directly between two of our girls and battered a hole about two inches deep in the opposite wall. Both girls were knocked down by the blast. When the shell fragment was cool enough to handle, I picked it up and examined it. It consisted of nearly half the base of the shell. Neatly imprinted on it were the words “Made in Britain.”
The Arab Legion continued their shelling of Jerusalem for almost a month, as casualties mounted among the civilian population. The Arabs made no attempt to confine their fire to what might have been considered military objectives. They rained shells at random on hospitals, churches and diplomatic buildings, even though these were marked clearly with the appropriate insignia.
Early in June, the United Nations succeeded in imposing a temporary cease-fire in Palestine. For four weeks this halted full-scale fighting, although sniping and sporadic minor clashes continued. I took advantage of the cease-fire to write a letter to the vice chancellor of Cambridge University (who happened to be a personal friend), in which I described events in Palestine as I had witnessed them over the past six months. I asked him to use his good offices to bring the situation to the attention of both the government and the press.
My letter closed with this summary:
What I have written above, I have written out of a profound conviction . . . that deserves to be plainly stated and widely known…
I can sum up my conclusions in four sentences:
- Since November 1947, the British Government has systematically resisted the implementation of the United Nations decision concerning Palestine and the setting up of a Jewish state.
- Within Palestine, the present policy of the British Government is calculated to increase the possibility of prolonged and heavy fighting.
- Outside Palestine, the effect of British policy is to undermine the United Nations Organisation.
- The indiscriminate shelling of Jerusalem, continued for twenty- seven days and nights, is—in all but name—a British military operation.
In closing, let me give utterance to two questions that now form themselves daily in my mind: Do the people of Britain know what is being done in their name in Palestine? If so, are they satisfied about it?
At this stage, however, all regular mail service out of the country had ceased; and by the time my letter reached the vice chancellor, it was too late for him to make any effective use of the information.
A Nation Born in a Day
When the four-week cease-fire ended, full-scale fighting resumed immediately. In the intervening period, both Jews and Arabs had consolidated their positions and brought in additional supplies. There had also been another kind of change in the situation, however— one that could not be explained merely in terms of military supplies or strategy.
It was one of those intangible, indefinable factors in human affairs that are not recorded in official histories. Yet its effect was decisive. From the new perspective I had gained since coming to Israel, I saw it as the outworking of the most powerful force in human affairs—the prophetic Word of God. By all accepted standards, the odds against Israel were still overwhelming. Yet I watched in awe as the tide of war turned against the Arab armies— slowly at first, but unmistakably. By the end of 1948, virtually all the invading Arab armies had been forced to withdraw, and the state of Israel was established within borders somewhat larger than those originally proposed by the United Nations.
Undoubtedly, further conflicts and tremendous sacrifices still lay ahead; but one fact of paramount importance overshadowed all else: The state of Israel had been born and had survived.
Once again, I found in the words of one of Israel’s prophets a summary of the events I had witnessed. The account, written thousands of years earlier, could not be surpassed for its vividness, or for the way it focused precisely on those features that were unique:
Isaiah 66:8 “Who has ever heard of such a thing?
Who has ever seen such things?
Can a country be born in a day
or a nation be brought forth in a moment?
Yet no sooner is Zion in labor
than she gives birth to her children.”
That was exactly what I had been permitted to see with my own eyes! On one day—May 14, 1948—Israel was born as a complete nation, with its own government, armed forces and all necessary administrative functions.
True, everything had been improvised hastily and on a small scale. Yet all the necessary ingredients were there to make Israel a sovereign nation within its own borders. So far as I knew, such an event was without parallel in human history.
Our final year in Jerusalem, 1948, was fraught with much hardship and danger, but we all survived without personal injury. Toward the end of that year, Lydia and I moved with our family to Britain. In retrospect, we recognized that all we had gone through was a small price to pay for the privilege of witnessing perhaps the most important fulfillment of biblical prophecy since the first century.
Retrospect from Britain
In my native land once again after an absence of seven years, I reflected further on the role Britain had played in the closing period of the mandate in Palestine. I am British by birth and grateful for my heritage. It gives me no satisfaction to record the misdeeds of Britain’s official representatives. Nevertheless, I believe it is important that the facts be stated clearly, because there are significant lessons to be learned—lessons that could benefit other nations and governments today.
As indicated in the previous chapter, the people of Britain made a unique contribution to the establishment of the state of Israel. For more than three centuries, Christians in Britain had nourished a vision, based on the Bible, that God desired to make of the Jewish people a sovereign nation once again in their own land.
Politically, this vision found expression through such men as Lord Shaftesbury and Lord Balfour. In 1917 it was the Balfour Declaration, made on behalf of the British government, that set into motion the political processes that issued in the establishment of the state of Israel 31 years later. It was the British government, too, that took then decisive step of placing before the United Nations the future of Palestine. After all this, it amounted to inconsistency and hypocrisy of the highest order for the same British government to attempt to undermine the decision of the United Nations by resisting the establishment of the state of Israel. Such conduct tarnished the reputation of Britain and proved to be the first stage of a prolonged national decline.
This shift in British policy at a crucial moment in the history of the Middle East came about without any official decision of the British Parliament and without the majority of the British public’s being aware of what was taking place. What were the factors that contributed to such a shift? Two were clearly discernible.
First, there were calculations—never publicly formulated—of economic and political expediency. As early as 1939, it had become clear that the world would soon face a shortage of oil. At the same time, the economies of all the developed nations were becoming more and more dependent each year on ever-increasing supplies of oil. A major share of the world’s store of oil was controlled by the Arab nations of the Middle East. The disavowed goal of British policy was to continue offering lip service to the Balfour Declaration, but at the same time to gain favor with the Arabs by underhanded activities aimed at sabotaging the emerging Jewish State.
Second, latent elements of anti-Semitism were festering among the British and surfaced at this juncture. As with the calculations concerning oil, these anti-Semitic sentiments were not, for the most part, given official expression (although some utterances by military commanders must be excepted). Nevertheless, sentiments of this kind influenced critical decisions on policy and, still more, the practical application of policy.
The people who yielded to such sentiments—and gave such direction to British policy regarding the Middle East—overlooked one important fact: There is a moral and spiritual force at work in the destinies of nations. The responsibility of government goes beyond mere calculations of economic or military expedience. To sacrifice moral and spiritual principles on such an altar will never serve the best interests of any nation. Ironically, the calculations that prompt this kind of conduct ultimately yield results opposite to those intended.
An illustration of this principle comes from Exodus. The Israelites were aliens in Egypt, their fate determined largely by the pharaoh who occupied the throne. At a certain point, a new and despotic king came to power with a new “Jewish policy.” He proclaimed it as follows:
Exodus 1:9–10 “Look,” he said to his people, “the Israelites have become much too numerous for us. Come, we must deal shrewdly with them or they will become even more numerous and, if war breaks out, will join our enemies, fight against us and leave the country.”
This new king reversed the policy of his predecessors and oppressed the Israelites. The record goes on to show, however, that his “shrewd dealing” could not ultimately prevent the outworking of God’s purpose for Israel. It only proved disastrous for Egypt. Such is the end of “expediency” that opposes the revealed purposes of God. A single verse in Proverbs succinctly states the futility of opposing the purposes of God: “There is no wisdom, no insight, no plan that can succeed against the LORD” (Proverbs 21:30).
Likewise, a single verse in Job reveals that the destiny of every nation is determined ultimately by God: “He makes nations great, and destroys them; he enlarges nations, and disperses them” (Job 12:23).
For any nation or government, it is expedient to gain the favor of almighty God, but it is extremely inexpedient to incur His disfavor.
Living as a Christian in this World 