How and why was the State of Israel established? A Brief History of Israel.

Among the historical accomplishments of the 20th century, the most significant is the act that became crucial for the Jewish people: after two thousand years of dispersion around the world, on May 14, 1948, the UN decreed the creation of the State of Israel.

It seems that there will be readers, even quite knowledgeable ones, who would be interested in learning (or remembering) about the events in the Middle East that unfolded around the creation of the Jewish state and its struggle for existence. Moreover, many people know the foreign policy situation that prepared this act, and they know much less about the behind-the-scenes diplomacy that took place in those years on the sidelines of the UN.

On November 29, 1947, the UN General Assembly approved a plan to create two independent states in Palestine - Jewish and Arab.

Initially, the Soviet leadership was in favor of creating a single Arab-Jewish state, but then inclined to believe that the division of the mandated territory would be the only reasonable option for resolving the conflict between the Yishuv (this term was used to refer to a more or less organized Jewish community in Eretz Israel since the destruction Jerusalem in 70 and before the creation of the state Israel in 1948. In the Talmud Yishuv was the name of the population in general, but also the Jewish population of Eretz-Israel)and the Arabs of Palestine.

How the State of Israel was created, this is our article.

“The Jewish state was created not by the United States, but by the Soviet Union. Israel would never have appeared if Stalin had not wanted it .... " (L. Mlechin “Why did Stalin create Israel”).

The existence of Israel from the very moment of its proclamation to this day is not only a “stumbling block” for many political forces and countries, an irritant and an object of enduring hatred for many Arabs, but also an amazing fact of our time, the likelihood of which was negligible.

After the end of the Second World War and the new redivision of the world, when the pretty battered states came to their senses, they were not up to the problems of the Jewish people, and even more so - not up to the arrangement of the "Jewish home" in Mandatory Palestine. At that time, the "factor of Zionism" lost its relevance and weight.

"Spiritual" Zionism (ahad-hamism) collapsed, as its guide W. Churchill [ 1 ] was removed from the post of prime minister of England, and the new prime minister, together with Foreign Minister E. Bevin, were implacable opponents of this idea. "House of Rothschild" - Great Britain ceded the role of a superpower to America, simultaneously losing its colonies and oil Saudi Arabia.

Theodor Herzl

“Political Zionism” (herzlism) rested on the enthusiasm of illegal immigrants, and most importantly, on fanaticism and heroism, backed up by guerrilla warfare, of such leaders as D. Ben-Gurion and M. Begin; their faith in the implementation of the ideas of T. Herzl (1897 - 1904, founder of the political Zionism , Chairman of the World Zionist Organization, supporter of the re-creationJewish statehood), which at the time seemed to most to be nothing more than a daring scam.

The United States, which received all possible dividends from the war, saw in the newly created UN the prototype of the World Government and used nuclear blackmail to impose the New World Order of the Anglo-Saxons, did not consider political Zionism a significant force (not to be confused with the Jewish world - our comment). In their essentially fascist project of the New Order, there was no place for an independent Jewish state because the “white Protestants” considered themselves descendants of the “ten lost tribes” of the old Israel, and America - the “New Israel”, and not only because of the “streams Arab oil.

The dream of Dr. Herzl and his followers became a reality, his prophecy came true exactly 50 years later thanks to the unexpected, “cunning” move of the “old-timer anti-Semite” Joseph Stalin, his determination and active consistency. This move, which broke the plans of the Anglo-Saxons, became a saving "straw", which was seized on by the "cosmopolitans" - Ahad-Khamites (Ahad-ha-Am or Asher Gunzberg, 1856-1927, or Jewish Hitler, this ancient Hebrew word means "United among the People". He believed that Palestinephilism could not bring economic and social deliverance to the masses of the people, and preached emigration to America. In his opinion, Palestine should become the "spiritual center" of the Jewish people, from which the emanation of a revived Jewish culture would come. He believed that only what is written in Hebrew can be attributed to Jewish culture. Anything written in other languages ​​\u200b\u200bcannot be attributed to it (including Yiddish, which he considered jargon). He is credited with authoring a book known titled "Protocols of the Elders of Zion". If this book takes place, it must be the product of a person who is fanatically fascinated by the idea of ​​Jewish Nationalism or, more precisely, Judaism in its nationalistic sense.

It is widely believed that the state of Israel arose in this territory only in 1948. In order for readers to have a general idea of ​​the milestones in the formation of this state, it is worth recalling the chronological time order of the formation of the state of Israel.

Israel has appeared on the world map three times.

FirstIsrael arose after an invasion led by Joshua and existed until the early 6th century BC, when it was divided into two different kingdoms during the Babylonian conquests.

Secondtimes Israel appeared after the Persians defeated the inhabitants of Babylon in 540 BC. However, the situation of the country changed in the 4th century BC, when Greece conquered the Persian Empire and the territory of Israel, and once again in the first century BC, when the region was conquered by the Romans.

The second time Israel acted as a small participant within the major imperial powers, and this position lasted until the destruction of the Jewish state by the Romans.

ThirdThe emergence of Israel began in 1948, like the previous two, it goes back to a collection of at least some of the Jews who were dispersed after the conquests around the world. The founding of Israel took place in the context of the decline and fall of the British Empire, and therefore the history of this country, at least in part, should be understood as part of the history of the British Empire.

For the first 50 years, Israel played an important role in the confrontation between the US and the Soviet Union, and, in a sense, it was a hostage to the dynamics of these two countries. In other words, as in the first two cases, the emergence of Israel takes place in a constant struggle for its sovereignty and independence, among imperial ambitions.

We omit the period of the Egyptian pharaohs, Roman legionaries and crusaders, and begin the chronological description from the end of the 19th century.

Year 1882. Start first aliyah(waves of Jewish emigration to Eretz-Israel).
Settlers

In the period up to 1903, about 35 thousand Jews fleeing persecution in Eastern Europe moved to the province of the Ottoman Empire of Palestine. Huge financial and organizational assistance is provided by Baron Edmond de Rothschild. During this period, the cities of Zichron Yaakov are founded. Rishon Lezion, Petah Tikva, Rehovot and Rosh Pina.

Year 1897. First World Zionist Congress in Basel, Switzerland. Its goal is to create a national home for the Jews in Palestine, which at that time was under the rule of the Ottoman Empire.

Congress opening

At this conference, Theodor Herzl is elected president of the World Zionist Organization.

It should be noted that in modern Israel there is practically no city where one of the central streets would not bear the name of Herzl. It reminds us of something...

Herzl holds numerous negotiations with the leaders of the European powers, including the German Emperor Wilhelm II and the Turkish Sultan Abdul-Hamid II, in order to enlist their support in creating a state for the Jews. The Russian emperor informed Herzl that, apart from prominent Jews, he was not interested in the rest.

Year 1902. The World Zionist Organization establishes the Anglo-Palestinian Bank, which later became the National Bank of Israel (Bank Leumi).

The largest bank in Israel, Bank Hapoalim, was established in 1921 by the Israeli Union of Trade Unions and the World Zionist Organization.

Year 1902.The Shaare Zedek Hospital is founded in Jerusalem.

former building Shaare Zedek hospital in Jerusalem

The first Jewish hospital in Palestine was opened by the German doctor Chaumont Frenkel in 1843, in Jerusalem. In 1854, Meir Rothschild Hospital was opened in Jerusalem. Bikur Holim Hospital was founded in 1867, although it existed as a medical clinic since 1826, and in 1843 it had only three chambers. In 1912, Hadassah Hospital was founded in Jerusalem by a one-shift women's Zionist organization from the United States. Assuta Hospital was founded in 1934, Rambam Hospital in 1938.

Year 1904. Start second aliyah.

Winery in Rishon Lezion 1906

In the period up to 1914, about 40 thousand Jews moved to Palestine. The second wave of emigration was caused by a series of Jewish pogroms in the world, the most famous of which was the Kishinev pogrom of 1903. The second aliyah organized the kibbutz movement.

Kibbutz- an agricultural commune with common property, equality in labor, consumption and other attributes of communist ideology.

Year 1906. Lithuanian artist and sculptor Boris Schatz founds the Bezalel Academy of Arts in Jerusalem.

Bezalel Academy of Arts

Year 1909. The creation in Palestine of the paramilitary Jewish organization Ha-Shomer, the purpose of which, as it is believed, was self-defense and protection of settlements from raids by Bedouins and robbers who stole herds from Jewish peasants.

Year 1912. In Haifa, the Technion Technion (since 1924 - the Technological Institute) is founded by the Jewish German Ezra Foundation. The language of instruction is German, later Hebrew. In 1923, Albert Einstein visited and planted a tree there.

In the same 1912Naum Tsemakh, together with Menachem Gnesin, gathers a troupe in Bialystok, Poland, which became the basis of the professional Habim Theater created in 1920 in Palestine. The first theatrical performances in Hebrew in Eretz Israel date back to the period of the first aliyah. On Sukkot 1889 in Jerusalem, the Lemel school hosted the play Zrubavel, O Shivat Zion (Zrubavel, or the Return to Zion) based on the play by M. Lilienblum. The play was published in Yiddish in Odessa in 1887, translated and staged by D . Elin).

Year 1915. On the initiative of Jabotinsky and Trumpeldor, a "Mule Driver Detachment" is being created as part of the British army, consisting of 500 Jewish volunteers, most of whom are immigrants from Russia. The detachment takes part in the landing of British troops on the Gallipoli peninsula on the shore of Cape Helles, losing 14 dead and 60 wounded. The detachment is disbanded in 1916.

Hero of the Russo-Japanese War Joseph Trumpeldor

Year 1917. The Balfour Declaration is an official letter from the British Foreign Secretary, Arthur Balfour, to Lord Walter Rothschild, in which, in particular, the following was said:

“His Majesty's Government are considering with approval the establishment in Palestine of a national home for the Jewish people and will make every effort to contribute to the achievement of this goal; it is expressly understood that no action shall be taken which might infringe the civil and religious rights of the existing non-Jewish communities in Palestine, or the rights and political status used by Jews in any other country....".

After the defeat in the First World War, the Ottoman Empire lost its power over Palestine (the territory that came under the rule of the British crown).

In 1918, France, Italy and the United States supported the declaration.

Soldiers of the Jewish Legion near the Wailing Wall in Jerusalem in 1917

Year 1917. On the initiative of Rotenberg, Jabotinsky and Trumpeldor, the Jewish Legion is being created as part of the British army.

Year 1919. third aliyah. Due to the British violation of the mandate of the League of Nations and the imposition of restrictions on the entry of Jews, until 1923, 40,000 Jews moved to Palestine, mainly from of Eastern Europe.

Year 1920. Creation of the Jewish military underground organization Hagan in Palestine in response to the destruction of the northern settlement of Tel Hai by the Arabs, as a result of which 8 people died, including the war hero in Port Arthur Trumpeldor.

Naharaim hydroelectric power plant

Year 1921. Pinchas Rutenberg (revolutionary and colleague of Pope Gapon, one of the founders of the Haganah Jewish self-defense units) establishes the Jaffa Electric Company, then the Palestinian electrical company, and since 1961 the Israel Electric Company.

Territories covered by the British Mandate

Year 1922. Representatives of the 52 countries that were members of the League of Nations (precursor to the UN) formally endorse the British Mandate for Palestine. Palestine then meant the current territories of Israel, the Palestinian Authority, Jordan and parts of Saudi Arabia.

It is noteworthy that by the "Palestinian Administration" the League of Nations meant the Jewish authorities and generally did not mention the idea of ​​​​creating an Arab state in a mandated territory, which also includes Jordan.

Year 1924. fourth aliyah. In two years, about 63 thousand people move to Palestine. Emigrants are mainly from Poland, since by that time the USSR was already blocking the free exit of Jews. At this time, the city of Afula was founded in the Israel Valley on the lands purchased by the American Company for the Development of Eretz Israel.

Year 1927. The Palestinian pound is put into circulation. In 1948, it was renamed to the Israeli lira, although the old name Palestine Pound was present on the banknotes in Latin script.

Sample banknote of the time

This name was present on the Israeli currency until 1980, when Israel switched to shekels, and from 1985 to this day, a new shekel has been in circulation. Since 2003, the new shekel has been one of the 17 international freely convertible currencies.

Year 1929. Fifth Aliyah. In the period up to 1939, in connection with the flowering of Nazi ideology, about 250 thousand Jews moved from Europe to Palestine, 174 thousand of which in the period from 1933 to 1936. In this regard, tensions between the Arab and Jewish populations of Palestine are increasing.

Year 1933. Egged, the largest transport cooperative to this day, is being created.

Soldiers of the Jewish Brigade in Italy in 1945

Year 1944. The Jewish Brigade is created as part of the British Army. The British government initially opposed the idea of ​​creating Jewish militias, fearing that it would give more weight to the political demands of the Jewish population of Palestine.

Year 1947. April 2nd. British government refuses from the Mandate for Palestine, arguing that it is unable to find an acceptable solution for the Arabs and Jews and asks the UN to find a solution to the problem.

Year 1947. November 29th. The United Nations adopts a plan for the partition of Palestine (UNGA resolution No. 181). This plan provides for the termination of the British mandate in Palestine by August 1, 1948 and recommends the creation of two states on its territory: Jewish and Arab. Under the Jewish and Arab states, 23% of the mandated territory transferred to Great Britain by the League of Nations is allocated (for 77%, Great Britain organized the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan, 80% of whose citizens are the so-called Palestinians). Under the Jewish state, the UNSCOP commission allocates 56% of this territory, under the Arab - 43%, one percent goes under international control. Subsequently, the section is adjusted taking into account Jewish and Arab settlements, and 61% is allocated for the Jewish state, the border is moved so that 54 Arab settlements fall into the territory allocated under the Arab state. Thus, only 14% of the territories allocated by the League of Nations for the same purposes 30 years ago are allocated for the future Jewish state.

The Jewish authorities of Palestine gleefully accept the UN's plan for the partition of Palestine, Arab leaders, including the League of Arab States and the Arab High Council of Palestine, categorically reject this plan.

Partition plan for Palestine on the eve of the War of Independence, 1947

Year 1948. May 14th. The day before the end of the British Mandate for Palestine, David Ben-Gurion proclaims the creation of an independent Jewish state on the territory allocated according to the UN plan.

Year 1948. May 15th. The Arab League declares war on Israel and Egypt, Yemen, Lebanon, Iraq, Saudi Arabia, Syria and Trans Jordan attack Israel. Trans-Jordan annexes the West Bank of the Jordan River, and Egypt annexes the Gaza Strip (territories allocated for an Arab state).

Year 1949. In July, a ceasefire agreement is signed with Syria. The War of Independence is over.

This is some prehistory of the creation of the State of Israel. As you can see, the process of its formation was long and it did not arise from scratch. And now let's dwell on some points that will help to understand how and why this state could arise, who defended the right of the Jews to a sovereign state, why the fight against cosmopolitanism was waged in the USA.

On November 29, 1947, the General Assembly of the United Nations approved a plan to create two independent states in Palestine - Jewish and Arab.

Documents show that of all the great powers at that time, the Soviet Union took the most definite and clear position on the question of the division of Palestine.

Initially, the Soviet leadership was in favor of the creation of a single Arab-Jewish state, but then inclined to believe that the division of the mandated territory would be the only reasonable option for resolving the conflict between the Yishuv and the Arabs of Palestine.

Defending resolution No. 181 at the Second Special Session of the UN General Assembly in April 1948, A.A. Gromyko emphasized:

“The partition of Palestine makes it possible for each of the peoples inhabiting it to have their own state. It thus makes it possible to radically regulate once and for all relations between peoples.

Both the USA and the USSR voted for Resolution No. 181 in November 1947. The position of the USSR remained unchanged. The US sought to delay and modify the text of the resolution before the vote. The “adjustment” of the US Middle East policy took place on March 19, 1948, when, at a meeting of the UN Security Council, the American representative expressed the opinion that after the end of the British mandate in Palestine, “chaos and major conflict” would arise, and therefore, he said, the United States believed that temporary guardianship should be established over Palestine. Thus, Washington actually spoke out against Resolution No. 181, which it voted for in November.

Soviet representative S.K. Tsarapkin in 1948 opposed:

“No one can dispute the high cultural, social, political and economic level of the Jewish people. Such people cannot be patronized. Such a people has every right to its own independent state.”

A. Gromyko (sitting)

The Soviet position has always remained unchanged. So, even before the second decisive vote on November 29, 1947, Minister of Foreign Affairs A.A. Gromyko came up with a clearer proposal:

“The essence of the problem is the right to self-determination of hundreds of thousands of Jews and also Arabs living in Palestine… their right to live in peace and independence in their own states. We must take into account the suffering of the Jewish people, to which none of the states Western Europe could not help during their struggle against Hitlerism and with Hitler's allies in protecting their rights and their existence ... The UN must help every people to obtain the right to independence and self-determination ... "[2],

“... The experience of studying the question of Palestine has shown that Jews and Arabs in Palestine do not want or cannot live together. A logical conclusion followed from this: if these two peoples inhabiting Palestine, both having deep historical roots in this country, cannot live together within the boundaries of a single state, then nothing else remains but to form two states instead of one - Arab and Jewish. In the opinion of the Soviet delegation, no other practically feasible option can be invented ... "[3].

At this crucial moment Great Britain took a consistently anti-Jewish position. Forced to renounce the Mandate for Palestine, it voted against Resolution No. 181 and then essentially pursued an obstructionist policy, creating serious obstacles to the settlement of the Palestinian problem. Thus, the British government did not comply with the decision of the UN General Assembly to open a port for Jewish emigration in Palestine on February 1, 1948. Moreover, the British authorities detained ships with Jewish emigrants in the neutral waters of the Mediterranean Sea and forcibly sent them to Cyprus, and even to Hamburg.

On April 28, 1948, speaking in the House of Commons of the British Parliament, Foreign Minister E. Bevin stated that, in accordance with the Transjordan Treaty concluded in March, Great Britain

"will continue to provide funds for the maintenance of the Arab Legion, as well as send military instructors."

Why did the USSR defend the right of the Jews to their own statehood and why did the USA want to at least delay the adoption of Resolution No. 181?

The USSR wanted to remove imperialist Great Britain from the Middle East, to strengthen its position in this strategic region (more on that later).

And now it is worth explaining the US position on the Jewish question in a little more detail.

First, it is necessary to clarify what "cosmopolitanism" is. Probably, many of us have ever heard such words as "cosmopolitanism", "cosmopolitan", but does everyone understand their meaning correctly? In some countries, the concept of these terms is somewhat distorted, at different times the meaning of this view of the world was perceived and interpreted differently.

Marginal notes. What is cosmopolitanism?

The meaning of the term "cosmopolitanism" is to be found in the Greek language, where kosmopolites is a citizen of the world. That is, a cosmopolitan is a person who considers his homeland not a particular state or region, but the planet Earth as a whole. At the same time, cosmopolitans tend to deny their national identity, such a person sees himself as a citizen of the whole world, and perceives humanity as one big family.

In our opinion, it is important to think not only for your country and your people, but for the entire planet, because no matter how many peoples inhabit it, how many borders are drawn, the Earth is our common home, but at the same time you need to have your own national identity , remember your roots and take care of your small Motherland.

There is an opinion that the US government, long before the events of the 1940s, took an unambiguously pro-Zionist position on the Palestinian issue. This is not true. In fact, the United States showed serious hesitation in its approach to solving this problem due to strong pro-Arab and anti-Jewish sentiments in ruling circles countries.

There were also anti-Semitic sentiments in the United States at that time. There was an anti-Semitic campaign in the press by Henry Ford, who replicated the “Protocols of the Elders of Zion” all over America (whether they exist or not, let the experts say, but the text has been circulating around for a long time and excites the minds).

Anti-Jewish sentiment intensified when in 1947 the famous "Hollywood Ten" of film writers and directors was accused of "anti-American activities" - eight of them were Jews. And although they were accused of communist propaganda, but Jewish origin also played a role. So in the United States, in their own way, they also fought against “cosmopolitanism”, which was often expressed in the behavior of Jews who historically did not have their own small homeland, and therefore were more reminiscent of the mafia, against which there was a struggle, both in the USA and in the USSR.

Therefore, two powerful lobbies clashed with the United States: oil monopolies with multibillion-dollar investments in Arab countries oh, and the Jewish financial lobby, which exists not only in the USA. The White House is facing difficult choice. The US presidential election is approaching. The five million Jewish electorate could not be ignored.

On the eve of the historic UN vote, Jews handed a petition to Truman, unambiguously demanding the creation of a Jewish state in Palestine. Under the petition - 100 thousand signatures of Jews - prominent statesmen and public figures.

And, finally, the US could not afford to remain isolated when it became clear that at the UN General Assembly the majority of countries would vote for Resolution 181.

The British Mandate officially ended at midnight, 12:00 noon, 14 May 1948. At 4 pm in Tel Aviv, at a meeting of members of the Jewish National Council, the establishment of the State of Israel was proclaimed.

On May 15, the Arab League declared that "all Arab countries from this day on are at war with the Jews." On the night of May 14-15, Egypt, Iraq, Jordan, Syria, Lebanon, Saudi Arabia and Yemen invaded Palestine from the north, east and south, and King Abdullah hurried to issue new banknotes with his portrait and the inscription: “Arab Hashemite Kingdom” .

Israel's foreign policy situation at the time was complex: a hostile Arab encirclement, an unfriendly British stance, erratic support for the United States, and a deteriorating relationship with the Soviet Union despite its support.

In 1947, Great Britain's referral of the question of Palestine to the discussion of the United Nations provided the USSR with an opportunity for the first time not only to express its point of view on the question of Palestine, but also to take an effective part in the fate of Palestine. The Soviet Union could not but support the demands of the Jews to create their own state on the territory of Palestine.

When discussing this issue, Vyacheslav Molotov, and then Joseph Stalin, agreed with this decision. On May 14, 1947, Andrei Gromyko, the permanent representative of the USSR to the UN, voiced the Soviet position. At a special session of the General Assembly, he, in particular, said:

“The Jewish people suffered in the last war exceptional disasters and sufferings. In the territory dominated by the Nazis, the Jews were subjected to almost complete physical extermination - about six million people died. The fact that not a single Western European state was able to protect the elementary rights of the Jewish people and protect it from violence by fascist executioners explains the desire of the Jews to create their own state. It would be unfair not to take this into account and to deny the right of the Jewish people to realize such an aspiration."

Now it is worth dwelling on such an issue, which liberals sometimes interpret based on their convictions, including because of their negative attitude towards the USSR and Stalin, as the Jewish question during the years of Soviet power.

The Jewish Question and Stalin

The legal and social status of Russian Jews radically improved precisely after October revolution In 1921-1930, the revolution provided an opportunity for Jews to move to Moscow and other large cities of the USSR, since the Pale of Settlement was abolished. So in 1912, 6.4 thousand Jews lived in Moscow, in 1933 - 241.7 thousand. The population of Moscow grew during these years from 1 million 618 thousand to 3 million 663 thousand. In other words, the Jewish population of Moscow grew 17 times faster than the population of other peoples and nationalities.

The Soviet leadership did not prevent Jews from entering key positions in the state. In particular, from the memoirs of Academician Pontryagin (mathematician, 1908-1988), one can learn that in 1942, 98% of graduates of the Physics Department of Moscow State University were Jews. After the war, a certain graduate student complained to Pontryagin that "Jews are being wiped out, last year 39% of Jews were admitted to graduate school, and only 25% this year."

Stalin and the Jews during the Great Patriotic War

The Soviet Union saved millions of Soviet Jews from the Nazi genocide. The Jewish problem, imperceptible to the majority of the country's population in the conditions of the general tragedy of the war and the death of millions of Russians, Ukrainians and other representatives of the Soviet peoples on the battlefields, became especially acute in early 1943. After winning in Battle of Stalingrad The troops of the Red Army, advancing to the west, discovered the monstrous facts of the complete extermination of Jews in the territories previously occupied by the Germans. Jews were simply shot and killed in special vans - "gas chambers". The concentration camps for the elimination of Jews - Majdanek, Auschwitz and others were filled mainly with Jews brought from Western countries, as well as Polish Jews. Soviet Jews who fell into the occupation were liquidated on the spot. This practice began in the Baltic States and Western Ukraine as early as July 1941. But still, about 70 percent of the Jews who lived in Ukraine, Belarus, Moldova and other areas were able to escape by leaving for the eastern regions of the USSR. There were also hundreds of thousands of Jewish refugees from Poland, Rumania, Bessarabia and Hungary and from some other European countries.

The European Jews, physically exterminated by Hitler, had at that time no other refuge than the USSR, even if they managed to escape from the Nazi genocide. The American government refused to issue visas to Jewish refugees and did not meet the minimum quotas for Jewish emigration that were introduced in 1933-1939 at the beginning of the Nazi anti-Semitic campaign. Britain prevented the arrival of Jews in Palestine, which was a British mandated territory. The British and American press wrote very little about the extermination of Jews in Europe during the war years.

It was the USSR that allowed the Jews to fulfill the dream of several generations - to create the state of Israel: in 1948, the Jews of the USSR and the whole world had a second homeland (which, at the same time, did not at all contribute to the growth of their patriotism towards the USSR). Stalin was a supporter of the creation of the State of Israel. Even more can be said - without Stalin's active support for the project of creating the state of Israel on the territory of Palestine, such a state would not currently exist. Hasidic rabbi Aaron Shmulevich wrote:

“We must not forget about the role of the USSR and Stalin in the creation of the State of Israel. Only thanks to the support of the Soviet Union, the UN adopted a resolution on the creation of the state.

“Since Stalin was determined to give the Jews their own state, it would be foolish for the United States to resist!” - concluded US President Harry Truman and instructed the "anti-Semitic" State Department to support the "Stalinist initiative" in the UN.

In November 1947, it adopted resolution No. 181 (2) on the creation of two independent states on the territory of Palestine: Jewish and Arab immediately after the withdrawal of British troops (May 14, 1948).

marginal notes

For: 33

Australia, Belgium, Bolivia, Brazil, Belarus, Canada, Costa Rica, Czechoslovakia, Denmark, Dominican Republic, Ecuador, France, Guatemala, Haiti, Iceland, Liberia, Luxembourg, Netherlands, New Zealand, Nicaragua, Norway, Panama, Peru, Philippines, Poland, Sweden, Ukrainian SSR, Republic of South Africa, USA, USSR, Uruguay, Venezuela.

Against: 13

Afghanistan, Cuba, Egypt, Greece, India, Iran, Iraq, Lebanon, Pakistan, Saudi Arabia, Syria, Turkey, Yemen.

Abstained: 10

Argentina, Chile, China, Colombia, El Salvador, Ethiopia, Honduras, Mexico, Great Britain, Yugoslavia.

The supporters of the partition managed to collect the two-thirds of the votes necessary for this. The Soviet Union gave its three votes in support of the resolution (in addition to the USSR, Ukraine and Belarus, represented in the UN as separate delegations, participated in the vote), as well as Poland and Czechoslovakia thanks to what is also a success of Soviet diplomacy. The five votes of the Soviet bloc played a decisive role in this final vote, which is the decisive role of the USSR and personally I.V. Stalin. At the same time, the USSR managed to negotiate with the United States, which also voted in favor of the formation of a Jewish state. Jerusalem and Bethlehem, according to the UN decision, were to become a territory under international control. [6].

On the day the resolution was adopted, hundreds of thousands of Palestinian Jews, distraught with happiness, took to the streets. When the UN made a decision, Stalin smoked a pipe for a long time, and then said:

"That's it, now there will be no peace here" [ 4 ]

“Here” is in the Middle East, apparently, his words turned out to be prophetic.

The Arab countries did not accept the UN decision. They were incredibly outraged by the Soviet position. The Arab communist parties, which are accustomed to fighting against "Zionism - the agents of British and American imperialism," were simply confused, seeing that the Soviet position had changed beyond recognition.

For this purpose, a government "for the Jews of Palestine" was prepared in the USSR. Solomon Lozovsky, a member of the Central Committee of the All-Union Communist Party of Bolsheviks, a former deputy people's commissar for foreign affairs, director of the Soviet Information Bureau, was to become the prime minister of the new state. Twice Hero of the Soviet Union, tanker David Dragunsky was approved for the post of Minister of Defense, Grigory Gilman, a senior intelligence officer of the USSR Navy, became Minister of the Navy. But in the end, a government was created from the international Jewish Agency, headed by its chairman, Ben-Gurion (a native of Russia); and the “Stalinist government”, which was already ready to fly to Palestine, was dissolved.

On the night of Friday, May 14, 1948, to the salute of seventeen guns, the British High Commissioner for Palestine sailed from Haifa. The mandate has expired.

David Ben-Gurion, future prime minister, proclaims Israel's independence under a portrait of Theodor Herzl.

At four o'clock in the afternoon, the State of Israel was proclaimed in the museum building on Rothschild Boulevard in Tel Aviv (Judea and Zion also appeared among the variants of the name; and herethere is one oddity: in the past of the Jews, a state called Judea existed for a thousand years, but a state called Israel - only 100, such a “strange” matrix). Future Prime Minister David Ben-Gurion, after persuading frightened (after the US warning) ministers to vote for the declaration of independence, promising the arrival of two million Jews from the USSR within two years, read out the Declaration of Independence prepared by "Russian experts".

On May 18, the Soviet Union was the first to recognize the Jewish state de jure. On the occasion of the arrival of Soviet diplomats, about two thousand people gathered in the building of one of the largest cinemas in Tel Aviv, Esther, and about five thousand more people stood on the street who listened to the broadcast of all the speeches. A large portrait of Stalin and the slogan "Long live friendship between the State of Israel and the USSR!" were hung over the presidium table. The working youth choir sang the Jewish anthem, then the anthem of the Soviet Union. "Internationale" was already sung by the whole hall. Then the choir sang "March of the Artillerymen", "Song of Budyonny", "Get Up, Huge Country".

Soviet diplomats stated in the UN Security Council: since the Arab countries do not recognize Israel and its borders, Israel may not recognize them either.

Documents, figures and facts give a certain idea of ​​the role of the Soviet military component in the formation of the State of Israel. Nobody helped the Jews with weapons and immigrant soldiers, except for the Soviet Union and the countries of Eastern Europe. Until now, in Israel one can often hear and read that the Jewish state survived the "Palestinian war" thanks to "volunteers" from the USSR and other socialist countries (is that a question).

Although he did everything to ensure that within six months the mobilization capabilities of sparsely populated Israel could "digest" a huge amount of supplied weapons. Young people from the "nearby" states - Hungary, Romania, Yugoslavia, Bulgaria, to a lesser extent, Czechoslovakia and Poland - made up the conscript contingent that made it possible to create a fully equipped and well-armed Israel Defense Forces.

In Palestine, and especially after the creation of the State of Israel, there were exceptionally strong sympathies for the USSR as a state that, firstly, saved the Jewish people from destruction during World War II, and, secondly, provided enormous political and military assistance to Israel in his struggle for independence.

In Israel, they loved “comrade Stalin” as a human being, and the vast majority of the adult population simply does not want to hear any criticism of the Soviet Union.

“Many Israelis idolized Stalin,” wrote the son of the famous intelligence officer Edgar Broyde-Trepper. “Even after Khrushchev’s report at the 20th Congress, Stalin’s portraits continued to adorn many government institutions, not to mention kibbutzim.”

The political nature of Stalin's attitude towards Jewish problems is evident from the fact that he showed himself to be an active supporter of the establishment of the State of Israel. Even more can be said - without Stalin's support for the project of creating a Jewish state on the territory of Palestine, this state could not have been created in 1948. Since Israel could actually appear only in 1948, since it was at that time that the British mandate to rule this territory ended, Stalin's decision against Great Britain and its Arab allies was of historical significance.

Israel's pro-American orientation was all too clear. new country was created with the money of wealthy American Zionist organizations, which also paid for the weapons that were purchased in Eastern Europe. In 1947, many in both the USSR and Israel believed that the USSR's position in the UN was determined by moral considerations. Gromyko briefly became the most popular person in Israel.

Golda Meir

Even Golda Meir in 1947 and 1948 was convinced that Stalin was helping the Jews out of some lofty moral considerations:

“The recognition of the Soviet Union, which followed the American one, had other roots. Now I have no doubt that the main thing for the Soviets was the expulsion of England from the Middle East. But in the fall of 1947, when the debates were taking place in the United Nations, it seemed to me that the Soviet bloc was supporting us also because the Russians themselves had paid a terrible price for their victory, and therefore, deeply sympathizing with the Jews who had suffered so hard from the Nazis, they understood that they deserved their own state." [ 5 ]

In reality, in Stalin's opinion, the creation of Israel at that time and for the foreseeable future corresponded to the foreign policy interests of the USSR. By supporting Israel, Stalin drove a wedge into relations between the US and Great Britain and between the US and the Arab countries. According to Sudoplatov, Stalin foresaw that the Arab countries would subsequently turn towards the Soviet Union, disillusioned with the British and Americans because of their support for Israel. Molotov's assistant Mikhail Vetrov retold Stalin's words to Sudoplatov:

“Let's agree to the formation of Israel. It will be like an awl in the ass for the Arab states and make them turn their backs on Britain. Ultimately, British influence will be completely undermined in Egypt, Syria, Turkey and Iraq." [ 7 ]

Stalin's foreign policy forecast was largely justified. In the Arab and many other Muslim countries, the influence of not only Britain but also the United States was undermined. But what is the political course chosen by Israel?

The latter was inevitable. More and more democratic politic system Israel and its pro-Western orientation, which did not meet the hopes of the Stalinist leadership. In 1951, a correspondent for the Novoye Vremya magazine visited Israel. He wrote:

"Three years of Israel's existence cannot but disappoint those who expected that the emergence of a new independent state in the Middle East would help strengthen the forces of peace and democracy."

And in 1956, in the journal International Affairs, it was said:

"Israel unleashed a war against the Arab countries literally the day after the English flag was lowered in Jerusalem on May 14, 1948 and the formation of the State of Israel was proclaimed."

And the United States concluded with Israel "Agreement on Mutual Security Assistance". And they provided Israel with a loan of 100 million dollars, which indicated that the young state had contact not only with American Jews, but also with the government of this country.

It became increasingly clear that Israel's future would depend more and more on friendly relations with the United States. But, on the other hand, it was necessary to maintain positive relations with the USSR. Not only the government, but also a significant part of the population of the revived Jewish state were interested in developing economic, cultural and military cooperation with a powerful state, which also had great authority in the world after the victory over Nazi Germany.

D. Ben Gurion

On the occasion of the 35th anniversary of the October Revolution, Prime Minister Ben-Gurion sent congratulations addressed to Stalin. On November 8, 1952, the House of Friendship between Israel and the USSR was solemnly opened in Tel Aviv.

US Secretary of State John Foster Dulles, in a personal conversation with British Ambassador MacDonald in November 1948, said:

“England has proven to be an unreliable guide in the Middle East — her predictions have so often failed. We must strive to maintain Anglo-American unity, but the United States must be the senior partner."

It was this division of roles that developed in the future - the United States gradually became the "guide" in the Middle East.

In December 2012, the most influential Henry Kissinger said that America had overstrained itself, and in ten years there would be no Israel... But one can guess that “the West has betrayed the Jews” for a long time, and the US policy on the Jewish issue has always been ambivalent.

In a very controversial but very curious book by D. Loftus and M. Aarons "The Secret War Against the Jews" (1997), America is accused of Nazism, large-scale secret games, where the Jews are "a bargaining chip." Here is just one sentence from this book:

"The mighty world powers are constantly hatching secret plans aimed at the complete or partial destruction of Israel" ...

And what was and is the position of the USSR / Russia?

Now let's look at our then Motherland. USSR -the only one in the worldthe state of that time, where in the Criminal Code there is an article for anti-Semitism. By the end of the 1920s, Jewish collective farms and state farms, schools and theaters were operating in the country, and there were national Jewish territorial units at the level of local self-government.

For Stalin, the Jews are the equal people of the USSR, like all others, worthy of earning happiness by their labor (whatever our liberals say today).

As early as March 28, 1928, the Presidium of the Central Executive Committee of the USSR adopted a resolution "On assigning to KOMZET for the needs of the continuous settlement of free lands by working Jews in the Amur strip of the Far Eastern Territory." And on May 7, 1934, the Jewish Autonomous region, apparently in response to the introduction of the ardent anti-Semite Hitler into the game, knocking out provocative "trump cards" from some of the Zionists. Those. for the first time since biblical times, the Jews received their public education(before that, we recall that all Jewish self-government for centuries was limited to the borders of the ghetto!). At the height of the Holocaust of 1944-45, intelligence reports began to fall on the table to Stalin that, thanks to Oppenheimer (an American scientist), the United States would receive an atomic bomb within the next year. And for Joseph Vissarionovich, the question

“How to keep the US and the West from aggression against the USSR against the backdrop of a nuclear monopoly?” has become extremely important. As Vladimir Ilyich said, "delay in death is like ..."

Not to fully use the Jewish factor, which the USSR successfully used throughout the Great Patriotic War, would have been an unaffordable luxury for Stalin. He was well aware that until the situation of mutually assured destruction, the West would not give up its attempts to conquer Russia, and immediately after the Second World War, the Third World would begin, first “cold”, and then “strange”. He moved his Jewish divisions into the cover forces from the Third World War ... This is how the state of Israel was formed, to which our country always treats with respect.

Igor Kurchatov (1903 - 1960)

And in 1949, thanks to our scientists, headed by Kurchatov, under the leadership of Beria, the first nuclear bomb appeared, the project of which was laid back in 1940. This is how Russia's nuclear shield was created, which to this day is the guarantor of our security and sovereignty.

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It is safe to say that if Harry Truman had not been the head of the United States after the Second World War, the history of Israel would have been different, and the very emergence of this state would have been in question. Truman, who became in April ...

It is safe to say that if Harry Truman had not been at the head of the United States after the Second World War, the history of Israel would have been different, and the very appearance of this state and tours to Israel in the fall would have been in question. Truman, who unexpectedly became the most powerful man on the planet in April 1945, did the almost impossible to create a Jewish state. It is no coincidence that Israel is still the only country besides the United States where you can find not only monuments to Harry Truman, but also schools, hospitals and libraries named after him. In the historical memory of the Israelis, Truman is on a par with the founders of the nation and the country. “These Israelites,” he himself later admitted, “put me on a pedestal next to Moses.”1 However, the role of Truman, the details of his political struggle for the creation and legitimization of the Jewish state are still little known.

The conflict in Palestine was long history. When Truman became president, Palestine was a British protectorate, separated from the Ottoman Empire at the end of World War I and administered by London under a League of Nations mandate. Adopted in 1917, the Balfour Declaration, named after the Minister of Foreign Affairs of England, recognized Palestine as the homeland of the Jews and fixed their right to organize their own state there. During the First World War, the declaration was approved by all the great powers. In 1922, it was approved by the League of Nations, which transferred Palestine to the protectorate of Great Britain. On the basis of this declaration, the British authorities already in the 1920s and 1930s allowed Jews to establish their settlements there. However, the declaration provoked sharp opposition from the Palestinian Arabs, who at the time of its adoption did not yet have their own state.

The British government soon found itself between a rock and a hard place - the Muslims of Palestine who lived on its territory, and the Jews who hoped to move there and form Israel. Although the Jewish population of Palestine grew from 80,000 to about 500,000 between the two wars, the Arabs did everything to prevent the implementation of the declaration. However, the Second World War, the horrors of the Holocaust, the appearance in different countries a huge number of Jewish refugees finally exacerbated the Jewish question - so much so that it required an urgent solution. At the same time, the Zionist movement took on an increasingly militarized, aggressive form. Armed Jewish units began to engage in constant skirmishes with both Palestinian and British forces.

In 1942, at the Zionist conference in New York, it was decided to seek the immediate establishment of a Jewish state on the territory of all Palestine and the unrestricted immigration of Jews from all over the world there. This could not but cause the growing bitterness of the Arabs, who in 1945 created the Arab League of Nations, the main goal of which was to prevent the emergence of a Jewish state on the territory of Palestine. After the 1945 parliamentary elections in England, the situation became even more complicated. Winston Churchill, who publicly declared: “I am a Zionist!”, was replaced as prime minister by Clement Attlee, whose government immediately began to develop plans to withdraw from Palestine and Greece and transfer control there to the hands of the UN.

From the very beginning of his tenure in the Senate in 1935, Truman supported the Zionist movement. In 1944, he promised to "help fight for the creation of a Jewish homeland in Palestine"2. With his arrival in White House his position has not changed. Already on the eighth day of his presidency, April 20, 1945, Truman met with Rabbi Wise. The President said that he was well aware of both the Jewish and Arab points of view on the problem of Palestine, as well as what happened to the Jews during the Second World War. The United States, Truman said, would do everything in its power to help the Jews find a homeland.

By this time, the Zionist movement had become an influential political force in America, which neither the president nor other politicians could ignore. In 1946, at a meeting with American "Middle Eastern" diplomats who warned Truman about the decline in US prestige in the area due to the White House's obvious sympathies for Zionism, the president said: "I beg your pardon, gentlemen, but I have to take into account hundreds thousands of those who stand behind the success of Zionism. There are not hundreds of thousands of Arabs among my voters.”3 Jews made up a significant number of Truman's supporters in the state of Missouri, from where he was elected to the Senate, there were a lot of them in the state of New York, which gave 45 electoral votes in the presidential election, they largely depended on the financial and political support of the Democratic Party, they played a large role and in means mass media countries.

It should be noted that Truman's religious consciousness, as well as his knowledge of ancient history, further inclined him towards the idea of ​​creating a Jewish state on the territory of Palestine. Truman later admitted that he had always been interested in the history of Palestine and knew that this region was at one time one of the main world centers. However, “the Arabs have never been able to make the region as strong and influential in the world as it was before, although there were still some opportunities for this.” Truman believed that “under the leadership of the Jews, an excellent industrial system could be created, and the productive possibilities of the region could be used by both Jews and Arabs”4.

US leaders were not yet ready, however, for a radical solution to the question of Palestine. When Churchill announced at the Potsdam Conference that he would be glad if the United States were willing to replace England as the main power in the region, Truman quickly replied: "No thanks." During the first three years after the end of the World War, the conflict in Palestine was a classic example of failure in international politics United States, which was carried out by the State Department without taking into account the nuances of the internal situation in the country. For Truman himself, the struggle to create Israel has also become a struggle over who determines the foreign policy of the United States - the president of the country or professional officials and diplomats of the State Department. Already in a conversation with Rabbi Weiss, Truman complained that officials "advise me to be as careful as possible, they say that I do not understand anything that is happening in Palestine and that I should leave everything to the so-called 'experts'... Some 'experts' State Department think they should make policy. But as long as I'm president, I'll make the policy, and their job is just to implement it. Those of them who don't like it can quit anytime they want."6

Truman himself was under intense pressure from the Jewish American lobby, in which Eddie Jacobson, an old friend of the president and his former partner in Truman and Jacobson (a haberdashery in Kansas City), played an important role. However, the President tried to act reasonably. In a letter to Senator Joseph Ball in the fall of 1945, he admitted: “I tell the Jews directly that if they are ready to provide me with five hundred thousand soldiers to wage war against the Arabs, we can satisfy their desires, otherwise we will wait for the negotiations for the time being. I don't think you and other members of the Senate would be inclined to send half a dozen divisions to Palestine to maintain a Jewish state. I'm trying to turn the world into safe place for the Jews, but at the same time I do not want to go to war against Palestine. At a government meeting on July 30, 1946, Truman, angered by the growing criticism of American Jews against him, even exclaimed: “Jesus Christ, when he was here on Earth, could not satisfy them. So who can expect me to do it better than Him!?”8.

Finally, Truman settled on a position that US Deputy Secretary of State Dean Acheson described as follows: “first, the immediate emigration to Palestine of one hundred thousand displaced Jews from Eastern Europe; secondly, the complete rejection of political or military responsibility for this decision”9. That is, it was a position within the limits of the “de facto” principle. On October 4, 1946, speaking on Yom Kippur, Truman declared that "the United States will support the establishment of a viable Jewish state that controls its emigration and economic policy in the appropriate area of ​​Palestine"10. In the eyes of many, this meant Truman's direct support for the Zionist movement. Indeed, most Zionists believed that the US policy towards Palestine coincided with their policy. When they found differences, they immediately accused the White House of a pro-Arab position. The Arabs also believed that Truman stood on the positions of Zionism and treated him with undisguised aggressiveness. However, “our policy,” said Truman, “was neither Jewish nor Arab, but simply American policy. It was American, as it was aimed at a peaceful solution to problems in this difficult region. It was American because it was based on the desire to end human tragedy and see promises kept.”

The pressure on the President also increased within the country. In the second half of 1947 alone, Truman received more than 135,000 letters, telegrams, and petitions in support of the creation of a Jewish state in Palestine. In November 1947, Truman secretly met with the most respected leader of Zionism, the 74-year-old scholar Chaim Weizmann, who had just lost his re-election as chairman of the World Zionist Congress. Weizmann was one of the creators of the Balfour Declaration, they already knew Truman and felt mutual sympathy. Truman believed that "Weizmann was a remarkable man, one of the most wise people, who I have ever met, a real leader, one of a kind... He devoted his life to two things - science and Zionism. He was a man of colossal achievements and exceptional personal qualities.

At the meeting, Weizmann told Truman about his vision of how the Jews would revive Palestine and turn it into a prosperous industrial power, how they would develop the desert. The new Jewish state, he said, will be an example for the entire region. The guest showed the president maps that offered possible plans for the division of Palestine and talked about how he plans to arrange Agriculture in the new state. Truman, who spent many years of his life on a farm in Missouri, was not only keenly interested in these plans, but also promised Weizmann his support. Immediately after the meeting, the president instructed the American delegation to support the project of dividing Palestine into two parts in the UN.

Truman's only concern was that such a division could be used by the Soviet Union to strengthen its position in the region. Weizmann disagreed: “There are fears that the implementation of our project in Palestine can somehow be used as a channel for the penetration of communist ideas into the Middle East. Nothing is further from the truth. Our emigrants from Eastern Europe are precisely the people who are leaving the communist areas. Otherwise, they wouldn't leave at all. If there had been a serious attempt by the Soviets to spread communist influence through our emigration, they could easily have done so in previous decades. But every election shows that communism has achieved very little popularity in our society. Educated peasants and skilled workers aspire to high standards of living that will never be accepted by the communists. The danger of communism exists only in the illiterate and impoverished strata, unable to resist it on their own.

By this time, the British administration of Palestine had become the main target of the Zionist movement. Violence increased, events took on an uncontrollable character. On July 22, 1946, Jewish terrorists blew up the British military center located in the King David Hotel in Tel Aviv; 91 people were killed. In early 1947, under the influence of world public opinion and pressure from the United States and European countries, England allowed Jewish refugees from Europe to move to Palestine. No longer able to control the situation and maintain order, London announced that it would terminate its mandate from May 15, 1948. The Arab people immediately publicly declared that this day would be the beginning of the "protection of the rights of the Arabs." The UN immediately created a special commission to consider the Palestinian question and, under pressure from the United States, on November 29, 1947, adopted a decision providing for the division of Palestine into Arab and Jewish parts.

The leaders of Zionism quickly saw in this decision their final victory. However, the Arab leaders, who disagreed with the UN, launched direct military action, trying to prevent the Jews from establishing control over the part of the territory of Palestine they had received. The conflict was becoming more and more acute, by the beginning of 1948, Arabs and Jews were openly fighting each other. London openly waited for the end of its mandate and let everything take its course. Truman wrote that the situation was very difficult: “The Jews were for division, but not all Jews. The Arabs were against separation, but they did not agree on how much they were against it. The British, apparently, had only one thing in mind: they were simply eager to wash their hands of the whole affair. The practical implementation of the UN resolution on the partition of Palestine became increasingly problematic.

At the same time, in the Truman administration itself, the voices of the opponents of separation were increasingly heard. Secretary of Defense James Forrestal, for example, took every opportunity to criticize the UN decision. “You just don't understand,” he said, “that forty million Arabs will push four hundred thousand Jews into the sea. And that's the whole point. Oil – we must be on the side of oil”13. In addition to oil, the US military tried to convince the president that it was impossible to send US troops to Palestine in the event of a full-scale armed conflict there. Almost all diplomats, as well as employees of the State Department, as the president himself admitted, were against even the very idea of ​​\u200b\u200bcreating a Jewish state in Palestine. Their main argument was that for many years England managed to maintain its position in the region only by relying on the Arabs. Now that England is leaving and transferring all responsibility for the situation there into the hands of the United States, Washington must do the same, because if you do not make friends with the Arabs, they will go over to the camp of the Soviet Union. Truman did not agree with this logic, but it was very difficult to overcome the opinion of the country's foreign policy elite.

Truman's positions were greatly weakened by the fact that the most popular politician of the time, the hero of the recent war, the 68-year-old US Secretary of State, General George Marshall, was opposed to the creation of a Jewish state in Palestine. According to the US military, the likelihood of a military conflict in Europe was growing every day. In this situation, Marshall was concerned about the possibility of unimpeded access to Middle Eastern oil. Therefore, more and more often in the documents of the State Department slipped the idea that it is necessary to postpone the practical implementation of the UN decision. The policy brief, which Truman received from his newly created Central Intelligence Agency, also suggested that the division of Palestine would not solve the region's problems, as the White House hoped for. All this caused considerable concern among the Jewish lobby in the United States, which further increased pressure on the president. At the beginning of 1948, with a request for new meeting Chaim Weizmann approached the President. However, under these conditions, Truman decided not to meet any more with the leaders of Zionism, because such meetings could be misinterpreted by the American and world public.

It was a difficult time for Truman. An election was approaching, which he, by all accounts, should have lost. The president had to keep up with the rapidly changing situation in Europe, the day before he spoke at a joint session of Congress, where he asked deputies to expedite the approval of the Marshall Plan and the universal military training program. Tensions in American-Soviet relations grew rapidly. For the first time in March 1948, Truman openly called the Soviet Union the only country blocking the establishment of peace: “Since the end of the war, the Soviet Union and its agents have been destroying the independence and democratic character of a number of countries in Eastern and Central Europe. This is a ruthless course, and it is clear that the USSR is striving to extend it to the still free countries of Europe. As a result, a critical situation has developed in Europe today... I believe that we have reached a point where the position of the United States must be clear and precise. There are moments in history when it is more important to act than to wait. We must be prepared to pay the price for peace, otherwise we will surely have to pay the price of war.”14 It seemed that the world was moving towards a new bloody battle.

Truman's popularity was rapidly declining. According to Gallup polls, the president's approval rate dropped to 36 percent in 1948. Newspapers and magazines published sarcastic materials, proving that Truman could not cope with the situation either in the country or in the world. Nation magazine, for example, rhetorically asked, "Should Truman be in the White House?" The New Republic put the phrase on the cover: "Truman should retire." The New York Times wrote that Truman not only does not have the qualities necessary for a president, is not only too shallow and colorless, but even has difficulty understanding printed text. “The influence of the current president on affairs is weaker than any other president in modern history,” the newspaper concluded. Did not strengthen the position of the president and the split in his foreign policy team.

March 13, 1948 Eddie Jacobson visited the White House. It was a rare meeting now between two best friends. Truman loved and appreciated Jacobson very much, in his memoirs he wrote that "it would not be easy to find a truer friend"15. However, at the very beginning of the meeting, Truman warned his friend that he did not want to hear a word about Palestine and admitted that he was very angry with the Zionist leaders, who constantly criticize his policies and speak disrespectfully of the president personally. They, Truman said, “almost made me as anti-Semitic as a person can be.” Truman's old friend just started crying in the Oval Office. Chaim Weizmann, he said, is his personal hero all his life: “He is the greatest living Jew. He may be the greatest Jew that ever lived. He is old and very sick. He traveled thousands of miles to talk to you, Harry, and you refuse this meeting. It is not like you. I thought, Harry, you could handle what they put on you." Truman could not see his friend's tears, he turned in his chair to the window, looked for a minute at the Rose Garden in the courtyard of the White House, turned to Jacobson and said: “You won, you bald son of a bitch. I will meet him."

Truman later acknowledged that Eddie played a truly decisive role in developing his position on the Jewish question. Jacobson, in his more than 30-year friendship with Truman, had never asked his powerful friend for anything before, and now that he finally made a request on behalf of the Zionist movement, Truman could not say no to him. The President called the State Department and said he wanted to meet with Weizmann. “You should have heard,” Truman recalled, “how they screamed. The first thing they told me was that Israel is not a country and has no flag at all and they have nothing to hang. I told them that Weizmann was staying at the Waldorf-Astoria Hotel and they always hang something there when distinguished foreign guests stay. Find out what they posted there for Weizmann and use it.”

On Thursday, March 18, 1948, a decisive meeting took place between Weizmann and Truman. It lasted 45 minutes. Flags were not required, since the meeting was of a secret nature, the guest was escorted to the White House through a side entrance. As Truman later recalled, the conversation went well. The US President said that he wants a fair solution to the issue, moreover, without bloodshed. “I explained to him the basics of my policy on the Jewish question and that my main interest was to see the establishment of justice, but without bloodshed. When Weizmann left my office, I felt that he fully understood my policy, and I, in turn, understood what he wanted. Truman said he was of the opinion that with the political division of Palestine into two states, an economic union could be created and both countries could work side by side to develop the region. The main thing is to prevent bloodshed. “Obviously, little good can be said about the solution of the problem,” the US President noted in this regard, “if it involves the destruction of hundreds of thousands of lives in order to save another hundreds of thousands of lives”19.

Truman firmly promised Weizmann that the United States would support the idea of ​​dividing Palestine in two. However, the very next day, the US representative to the UN Security Council, Warren Austin, issued a statement about the need to postpone the implementation of the plan for the division of Palestine, and instead establish direct international control there. Truman was very angry that in the eyes of the leader of world Zionism he appeared as a deceiver and even sent a special envoy to Weizmann with explanations that the position of the State Department and Austin's speech at the UN did not correspond to the views of the President of the country20. In his diary that evening, Truman angrily wrote: “Today the State Department just pulled the carpet from under my feet ... I learned this morning that they have revised my Palestinian policy, and this is the first time I hear about it from the newspapers! Damn it!!! I now look like an insincere liar... Never in my life have I been in such a situation. There are people at the third and fourth levels of the State Department who have always wanted to cut my throat. Finally they succeeded… “21. He called his closest adviser Clark Clifford and said in his hearts: “Did I promise Chaim Weizmann support?! Now he will consider me an asshole!”22.

Truman's envoy brought back a reply from Weizmann, in which he wrote that he had full confidence in the American president, that the division of Palestine was inevitable, moreover, that it had actually already taken place. The choice for the Jews in the current situation, Weizmann wrote, is a choice “between statehood and destruction. History and Providence, Mr. President, have placed the decision of this matter in your hands, and I am sure that you will resolve it in accordance with moral laws.

The idea of ​​international control over Palestine, proposed by the State Department, caused a hugely skeptical reaction from the Pentagon. According to US Secretary of War Forrestal's calculations, such control would require the presence in the region of at least 100,000 UN-flagged troops, of which at least 47,000 would have to be provided by the United States. This, according to the military, exceeded the country's capabilities in the face of the growing likelihood of a military conflict with the USSR in Europe. In addition, it was unclear how the American public would react to the inevitable death of its soldiers in Palestine, where the United States has no vital geopolitical interests.

Truman remained true to his word. On the evening of April 11, he invited Eddie Jacobson to the White House and asked him to "very clearly and clearly" but secretly confirm to Weizmann that he would secure the recognition of the new Jewish state by the United States. Later, Eddie will write that it was clear that Truman was wholeheartedly for such a confession that the President of the United States finally decided on this issue. If Truman was ready for some time to discuss the project of establishing a UN mandate over Palestine, it was only to postpone for a while the decisive division of it into two parts in order to better prepare this division. He understood that such a discussion would be perceived by both Arabs and Jews as Washington's rejection of the idea of ​​creating an independent Jewish state in Palestine.

Meanwhile, the situation continued to worsen. By the spring of 1948, Jews had established control over some Arab areas. The leaders of the Jewish armed detachments, or, as they called themselves, the provisional government, decided to proclaim on May 15, 1948, as soon as the mandate of England ended, an independent state and appeal to the countries of the world with a call to recognize it. In turn, the Arabs actively developed plans for the administration of all of Palestine, and prepared armed formations. The military units of the Arab states surrounding Palestine gradually moved to its territory. On May 8, Truman's adviser Clark Clifford told the president that the likelihood of a practical creation of Jewish and Arab states in the very near future was very high, and the United States should be prepared to act quickly in the new conditions. Truman could not entrust this to the State Department, so he asked Clifford, his domestic policy adviser, to prepare preliminary materials on the possible US reaction to the declaration of a Jewish state.24

On May 12, a decisive meeting of the American leadership on the issue of Palestine took place. On behalf of the supporters of the recognition of the new state, Clifford spoke, who called on the United States to recognize it as soon as possible if a new Jewish state was proclaimed - most importantly, before the Soviet Union did it. Clifford even suggested publicly announcing the readiness of the White House to recognize the new state even before its official proclamation. It will be an act in line with the president's policy and understanding of humanism, Clifford said. The 6 million Jews murdered by the Nazis were the victims of the biggest genocide in history, and every thinking person should take at least some responsibility for the surviving Jews, who, unlike all other Europeans, have nowhere to go. There is no real alternative to the division of Palestine, there is no alternative to Washington's recognition of the new state, Clifford said. The US State Department's delay will not be understood by Jews around the world. “Regardless of what the State Department or anyone else thinks, the fact is that there will be a Jewish state. To think otherwise is simply unrealistic,” he concluded.

Secretary of State George Marshall spoke out very harshly against it. He was already very dissatisfied with the fact that, behind his back, the presidential adviser on domestic policy was preparing materials on such an important foreign policy issue. It was the sharpest speech of General Marshall in his life. It was also the sharpest disagreement with the president that Truman had ever heard from his inner circle. the main idea Secretary of State was that the interests domestic policy should not determine the direction of foreign policy.

If, said Marshall, looking directly into Truman's face, he would follow Clifford's advice, Marshall himself would run against Truman in the next November presidential election. According to the recollections of those present, after the Secretary of State's speech, there was a long and heavy silence. Truman showed no emotion. Finally, he raised his hand and said softly that he fully understood the political risk of any decision that he had to take on this issue, but he himself would judge the extent of such risk25. The President then suggested that the discussion of this issue be revisited the next day. When everyone left the office, Truman looked at Clifford and said: "Let's not assume that everything is already lost for now."

The next morning, reporters bombarded Truman with questions about whether or not the United States would recognize the new Jewish state in Palestine. “I will cross the bridge,” he replied, “only when I reach it.” Truman was afraid to say more, because George Marshall could resign today, which would be a huge problem for the president in the months before the new elections. Without Marshall, victory on them seemed much less real, and even if he opposed Truman, there would be nothing to count on. The President hoped that Marshall would analyze the current situation again and again and, perhaps, change his mind. On the evening of May 14, the US Secretary of State called the US President and said that although he could not support the position that the President had decided to take, he would not publicly oppose it. “That,” Truman said, “is all we need.”26

By order of Truman, Clark Clifford, together with representatives of the Jewish Agency in Washington, began to urgently prepare documents for the recognition of the new state. When they began to find out what documents and papers were needed for this, it turned out that no one knew this. The situation was unique - it was necessary to prepare the recognition of the state, which did not exist yet. Finally, some documents were prepared, but the name of the country remained empty in them - no one yet knew what the new state would be called.

At five forty-five in the evening on May 15, information was received in the US capital that at midnight, Palestinian time, that is, in 15 minutes, the creation of Israel, the first Jewish state in two thousand years, would be proclaimed. The history of Palestine has changed dramatically once again. Eleven minutes after the proclamation, Truman signed a statement on the actual - "de facto" - his recognition and ordered that his delegation to the UN be immediately informed about this. The American delegation, having received a telegram from Washington, decided that this was someone's joke, and everyone began to laugh, but then, when it turned out that this was all serious, the intensity of indignation at the president's decision reached the point that the delegates began to discuss the possibility of collective resignation. Future Secretary of State Dean Rusk, at Marshall's request, immediately flew to New York to talk them out of it. However, the most famous member of the delegation, the widow of President Franklin Roosevelt, Eleanor Roosevelt, resigned, and the head of the US delegation to the UN, Warren Austin, simply left his office, leaving no information about where he would be. Many expected that George Marshall would also resign, but he stopped all talk on this topic, saying that a responsible politician cannot resign just because the president, who, according to the Constitution of the country, has the right to decide, has accepted such . However, from that day until the end of his life, Marshall never spoke to Clark Clifford again. He resigned in January 1949 after Truman's victory in the presidential election, citing poor health.

In Washington, at 2210 Massachusetts Avenue, where the Jewish Agency was located, a blue and white flag with a Star of David in the center was raised. In New York, real festivities and celebrations took place on the streets of the Bronx and Brooklyn. Synagogues throughout the country held special services. Chaim Weizmann became the president of Israel, David Ben-Gurion became the prime minister, and the first (unofficial) ambassador of the new state to the United States was Eddie Jacobson.

Although, as modern historians write, the president's foreign policy advisers did not allow him to directly become the father of the new Jewish state, he certainly became its "midwife". Israel's Chief Rabbi Isaac Halevi Herzog called the US President and said, "Mr. President, God placed you in your mother's womb to make you an instrument for the rebirth of Israel after two thousand years." Truman's aide, who was present at this conversation, noted that "tears rolled down the president's cheeks."27 On May 25, Chaim Weizmann again visited the White House - this time as the President of Israel and received all the honors that are due to the head of an independent state. On the threshold of the White House, he handed the sacred Torah to the smiling Truman.

The United States was the first to recognize Israel, which ensured the new state's rapid and successful recognition by most countries in the world. Later, Truman was accused of many other UN member countries recognizing Israel under his pressure. “I never agreed with such a practice,” he defended himself after his resignation, “when the strong force the weak to follow their will, both among people and among countries.

We helped Greece. In fact, we practically ensured the independence of the Philippines ... However, we did not make these countries our satellites and did not force them to vote with us on the issue of the division of Palestine or any other issue. A policy that deserves to be called American will never treat other countries as satellites. Democratic countries respect the opinions of others, this is the basis of their structure. However strong or weak, rich or poor, these others may be.”

However, if the United States recognized Israel "de facto", the USSR immediately decided not only on the actual, but also the full recognition of the new state, that is, "de jure". The proclamation of Israel led to a new round of military clashes, which went down in history as the first of the five future Arab-Israeli wars. Already on the first day of the existence of the new state, Syria and Lebanon attacked it, a day later - Iraq. However, when Israel was already under attack by the Arabs, the Truman administration refused for many months to lift its arms embargo on Israel and insisted at the UN that the solution of the Jewish question should be carried out through diplomatic means, through negotiations and compromises on the part of both Jews and Arabs. .

The recognition of Israel was such a controversial decision of Truman that it not only did not bring him domestic political benefits, but even complicated the position of the president in the 1948 elections. Truman was accused of the fact that the recognition of Israel was not the policy of the United States, but the policy of the Democratic Party and the personal opinion of the president. In the midst of the campaign, speaking in New York, Truman said that “Israel should not be mentioned as a political topic in the campaign at all. My personal responsibility then was that, firstly, our policy towards Israel coincided with our foreign policy in the world as a whole, and secondly, I sought to build in Palestine a strong, prosperous state, free enough and strong enough, to support and protect itself."

Truman never repented of the decisions he once made. He never regretted that he insisted on the immediate recognition of Israel. For him, it also meant a final decision as to who determines the foreign policy of the United States. In his memoirs, Truman later wrote: “The difficulty with many career government officials is that they begin to see themselves as the people who make policy and run government. They look down on elected officials as temporary figures. Every president in our history has faced the problem of how to ensure that professional officials do not ignore his policies.

Too often professional officials carry out their own views instead of carrying out the policies of the administration... Some presidents have solved this problem by creating their own small state department. President Roosevelt did so and personally contacted Churchill and Stalin directly. I didn't want to follow this method. It is the State Department that was created to deal with foreign policy operations, and it should deal with them. But I wanted to make it completely clear to everyone that it is the President of the United States, and not the second or third echelon of State Department officials, who makes policy. Truman succeeded, now he completely concentrated the development of foreign policy in his own hands.

On January 25, 1949, the first democratic elections were held in Israel, and only after that the United States recognized the new state "de jure". In his letter to President Weizmann, Harry Truman, who himself had just won an extremely difficult presidential election, wrote in part: “I understand my victory as a mandate from the American people to put into practice the platform of the Democratic Party, including, of course, support for the State of Israel.”29 Since then, support for Israel has become one of the permanent elements of US foreign policy, and Israel has become a reliable ally of the United States and the countries of Western Europe. As for Harry Truman himself, today, after half a century, Americans confidently include him among the most outstanding presidents of the country in its entire history.

When it comes to how the state of Israel was formed in the 20th century, the opinion is often expressed that all this was possible only thanks to the help of the USSR and the USA. In order to understand this difficult issue, it is necessary to touch on all the milestones in the formation of this state, without going into its ancient history, in which until now there are few reliable historical sources, but there are plenty of various kinds of falsifications. When the state of Israel was formed, the main stages of preparation for its creation will be described below. When considering this issue, the events of the late nineteenth and first half of the twentieth centuries were analyzed.

First wave of emigration

Balfour Declaration

Great Britain considered itself entitled to dispose of the destinies of peoples. Its military and economic power underpinned its political strategy. The Ottoman Empire, which included Palestine, was among the "losers" in the First World War. Its territory was now claimed by the victors. They started to cut political map Middle East on your own. The states of Iraq and Syria were formed. The Kurds never received their statehood. Based on political ambitions, the British government considered it right to send some kind of "warning message" to the Jews.

On November 2, 1917, a letter was published from the British Foreign Secretary addressed to Lord Rothschild as head of the Zionist Federation in England. It was a letter about the creation of a Jewish national home, which, however, should in no case violate any rights of the local Palestinians. According to one of the most prominent British politicians - Lloyd George, it was a pragmatic deal to persuade the communities to cooperate.

Britain, which was at the head of the allies, wanted to receive support from the United States. Knowing about the influence of the Jewish communities in America on the government, the British offered to help in the formation of Israel as a "hearth" (not even autonomy).

Fight for survival

The Balfour Declaration contributed to the growth of emigration. The local Arab population viewed the settlers as invaders. Therefore, outbreaks of violence periodically occurred. Initially, this found expression in the usual predatory raids on peaceful Jewish farmers. Murders, robberies, violence prompted emigrants to recall their experience of self-defense while living in other states. Ha-Shomer can be considered the first paramilitary Jewish organization. Former underground revolutionaries offered worthy resistance to the Bedouin robbers. But the organization was not numerous, and the conflict was gaining momentum.

British government opposition

England was not interested in increasing emigration to Palestine, so she looked through her fingers at the Arab pogroms. To top it off, the government issued a law in world historiography known as the "White Book". Its essence is to limit the flow of refugees. Thus, Her Majesty's Government doomed the Jews to certain death in the fascist concentration camps, "not noticing" the manifestation of Palestinian aggression towards the IDPs. The Jews were persistently looking for a way out of the vicious circle.

Haganah

The transformation of individual self-defense units into a monolithic powerful underground organization was dictated by the need for survival. The first settlers naively believed that by leaving the hostile European society, they would move away from anti-Semitism. In fact, there was a movement "from the fire to the frying pan." The more difficult the situation, the more disciplined the Haganah became. However, a split occurred among them: one part helped the British in the fight against fascism, and the second, using terrorist methods, fought the British.

One thing was clear: it was necessary to attract new allies to our side in order to effectively solve the problem. Therefore, all aspirations were turned towards the USSR and the USA, in the hope that Israel would be formed as a country.

The fate of the peoples of the East interested America to a lesser extent than the presence of oil reserves in these territories, so the choice of an ally in the person of the USSR was obvious. It should be noted the far-sightedness of the leader Stalin in resolving this issue. The Israelis were given captured German weapons and Messerschmitt aircraft (which surpassed British aircraft in terms of technical characteristics). Ultimately, it was their air strikes that became the turning point in the fight for Tel Aviv. The Arabs were stunned by the appearance of aviation, so their offensive was stopped, although, with all the forces available at that time, the city could not have offered worthy resistance. In the future, the tightened reserves strengthened " weak spots» on the defensive.

What year was the state of Israel formed?

The decision to grant the status of independence to the country of the Jews was made in several stages. First, a UN resolution was adopted on the division of the land of Palestine in 1947 and the loss of Britain's mandate in this territory. The English troops were to leave the land within the next six months. It was decided to take advantage of this circumstance in the Provisional Government of Israel and proclaim the independence of the Jewish state on May 14, 1948. Only eight hours remained before the expiration of the British Mandate. The answer to the question in what year Israel was formed as a state recognized in the international arena is obvious. The first country to declare this de jure was the USSR, although de facto, 10 minutes after the proclamation, the United States declared this.

Acquired in 1948, when Ben Gurion announced to the whole world the proclamation of an independent sovereign state of Israel.

Ben Gurion read this statement in the museum building on Rothschild Street in Tel Aviv. Israel's independence was proclaimed one day before the end of the British mandate to rule Palestine.

Then, when Israel was created, it was written in the Declaration of Independence that in November 1947 the UN General Assembly adopted a resolution according to which the Jewish independent state of Israel was created in Eretz Israel.

The same declaration of the United Nations stressed that, like any other people, the Jewish people can be independent, have the right to freedom and independence, as well as to sovereignty in their independent and sovereign state.

Immediately, the sovereign independent state of Israel opened its borders to the repatriation of the Jewish people from all countries of the world, and the only goal is to unite all Jews scattered around the world. The Declaration on the Founding of Israel also stated that the new state would make every effort to develop the new Jewish state and the welfare of the Jewish people. The main postulate of the declaration was the words that from now on the political structure of the State of Israel is aimed at the development and preservation of such main democratic foundations as freedom and justice, peace and tranquility, and will also fully comply with all the teachings of the Hebrew prophets.

The main state principles will be: the full rights of the citizens of the country, both in political and public matters, regardless of their religion, gender and race. The Declaration on the founding of Israel stated that every citizen of the State of Israel would be guaranteed freedom of speech, freedom of religion, freedom of conscience, the right to speak their native language, the right to a good education, to the preservation of culture and , to dignified development.

And yet, the Declaration clearly stated that the new state would sacredly preserve the monuments of all three religions on the territory of Israel, and would also adhere to and abide by the principles of the UN Charter.

Immediately in 1948, after the declaration of independence of the State of Israel, it was announced that the new independent state would be ready to cooperate with the United Nations, with its bodies and representative offices on the implementation of the resolution adopted by the UN General Assembly in November 1947 .

And, besides, the new state will take all possible steps to implement the economic unity of Israel.

At the same time, when Israel was created, after the announcement of the formation of a new Jewish state, an appeal was put forward to the Arab population living in Israel to maintain peace and take part in the construction and revival of a new sovereign state, which will be based on equality. Everyone living in Israel was promised equal representation in all institutions and organizations of the state.

In the year of the declaration of independence of the State of Israel, Israel extended its hand for good-neighborly relations with all neighboring states, their peoples, appealed to cooperate with the people of Israel, with the people who had been moving towards independence on their land for so long.

The declaration also said that Israel would definitely contribute to the speedy development of the Middle East.

The first state that accepted Israel de facto was the state - the United States of America. President Truman announced this on May 14, 1948, immediately after Ben Gurion's Declaration of Independence. The country that was the first to recognize Israel de jure was the Soviet Union. This happened in May 1948, after the founding of Israel and the declaration of sovereign Israel. A year later, the sovereign independent state of Israel became a member of the United Nations.

The creation of Israel was painful and rather difficult. After the proclamation of the Declaration of Independence, on the second day of the existence of a new independent state, the armed armies of the Arab states entered its territory: Syria, Transjordan, Saudi Arabia, Lebanon, Yemen, and Egypt. They started the war against Israel. The purpose of the attack was one - the destruction of the Jewish state, since the countries of the Arab world did not recognize the new state of Israel.

The Israeli army won its independence with honor, in the future the war of 1948 will be called the War of Independence. It should be added that the Israelis not only defended their independence, but also conquered part of the Arab lands, thereby expanding the territory of Israel. The war ended in June 1949, only a year later a peace treaty was signed, which stated the cessation of hostilities.

In a difficult time, a time of war, the formation and creation of Israel as a state took place. the Hagan organization that existed in a semi-underground position became, and in 1948 Ben Gurion, who became the first prime minister in the history of an independent state, signed a decree on the creation of the Shai special service, the main function of which was to conduct all types of intelligence: counterintelligence, intelligence.

In the future, three intelligence departments were produced from one service at once: military intelligence, political and counterintelligence. All three special services were created in the new state on the basis of the British special services. Today, these special services have names - the Israeli Military Intelligence Service AMAN, the Shabak General Security Service - this is how counterintelligence began to be called, and Mossad - this is the name political intelligence has.

When Israel was created, the political and state structure of the country was established.

The head of state of Israel is the President. He is elected by the members of the Knesset for seven years by secret ballot. The first president of the new state of Israel was Chaim Weizmann. According to the President of Israel does not have the authority of power, rather is a representative figure in the political hierarchy. The President is a symbol of the state, his task is to perform representative functions. What can a president do in Israel? In addition to representative functions, he approves the new composition of the government after the next elections, and also provides amnesty to convicts.

When Israel was founded, the Knesset was the supreme legislative body. This is a parliament, which consists of 120 deputies, elected by party lists, through direct voting. The first Knesset started working after the first elections in 1949. The central executive body is the government. At the head of the government is the prime minister, who is actually the head of the state of Israel. The first prime minister was Ben Guriron.

supreme body judiciary state - the Supreme Court, which in Israel is called the Supreme Court of Justice. All major government and government agencies and organizations are located in.

executive branch during the creation of Israel, it was also determined - these are the mayors of cities who are elected locally by direct voting. And yet, it is not separated from the state, and therefore in the cities there are also religious councils, consisting of the clergy of Israel. The services provided by religious councils relate mainly to religious rites and services, the conclusion of act states: marriage, divorce, birth or death.

In the last century and today, military conflicts between the Arab population of the eastern coast of the Mediterranean Sea (Palestine) and the Jews living there (Israel) do not stop. And how was Israel formed and why is this state so unloved by the Arabs today?

How Israel was formed, a bit of history

The first Hebrew tribes, whose people, according to the Holy Scriptures, descended from the twelve sons of the biblical patriarch Jacob, come to the eastern Mediterranean coast from the south around the 12th century BC. A little later, these lands were conquered by the Philistines, who called them Palestine. A long war breaks out between the Jews and the Philistines.

In order to more effectively resist the Philistines, in the 11th century, the Hebrew tribes formed the Israel-Jewish state under the rule of the king. Later it breaks up into the Kingdom of Israel, which lasted until 722 BC, and the Kingdom of Judah, which ceased to exist in 586 BC.

The lands of Palestine were constantly attacked by close and distant neighbors. In the 1st century BC, they were conquered by the mighty Rome, during the Middle Ages they were controlled by the Arabs, the European crusaders, or the Mamluk Egyptians. In the XVI century, Palestine was occupied by the Ottoman Empire and these lands remained under the rule of the Turks until the First World War.

How modern Israel was formed

To late XIX century, many Jews settled around the world, and the Jewish bourgeoisie turned to them with an appeal to return to the lands of Palestine. Many responded, and by the year the First World War began (1914), the number of Jews living in Palestine was already 85 thousand people.

During the Second World War, as a result of Hitler's anti-Semitic policy, Jews massively left the territories he had conquered, and in 1948 there were already 655,000 of them living in Palestine.

On November 29, 1947, the United Nations (UN) adopted a historic decision to form two independent (sovereign) states on the land of Palestine - the Jewish (Israel) and the Palestinian Arab state. As a result, by 1951 the number of Jews living in their historical homeland - the territory of Palestine - reached 4,350,000.

The UN “allocated” 11.1 thousand square kilometers to the Arabs, and 14.1 to Israel. The newly created government of Israel was not satisfied with this, and during the Arab-Israeli war of 1948-49, Israel seized 6.7 thousand square meters. kilometers of Arab lands where Jewish settlements were established. The Arabs of Palestine were left with only the territory around the city of Gaza and the lands on the west bank of the Jordan River. This is the main reason for the numerous Arab-Israeli military conflicts that continue today.

After Israel was formed, its population was constantly growing, the economy was developing, and by 2011, 7.6 million people already lived on the territory of the country, equal to 22 thousand square kilometers. people, and the volume of the country's gross domestic product was equal to 207 billion dollars.