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Comment by arken | Hacker News Reader

That doesn’t mean the British state played no role. Are you saying the Balfour Declaration had no impact on developments in the region from 1917-1947?

I’m not saying the formation of Israel was 100% the result of intentional British foreign policy. Foreign policy is messy and inconsistent. The various actors in the region were seeking different things at different times.

Yes the British were in some cases trying to disarm Jewish militants, but in many cases they were also the ones who had handed out the arms in the first place (eg. The Jewish Brigade).

I don’t see how you can dispute that this a messy, contested historical saga with many factors to consider.

I urge you to read more widely on this topic. If you’re so certain that your position is the correct one, you stand only to confirm your existing beliefs.

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> Are you saying the Balfour Declaration had no impact on developments in the region from 1917-1947?

Not much, no. It was largely a symbolic act. Actual British policy remained hostile to the establishment of a Jewish state in Israel.

The fact is, that besides this exceptional, purely symbolic act, the British Empire as a foreign power did all it could to prevent the successful establishment of a Jewish nation in Israel.

> The Jewish Brigade

The Jewish Brigade was part of the British Army, a brigade of Jewish volunteers.

It is true that some individuals who served in that brigade ended up joining Israeli groups that eventually formed the IDF, but these were individual acts by individuals, and by no means an expression of a policy by the British Empire or any other foreign power.

> I urge you to read more widely on this topic.

I'm not sure well read you are on the topic, when your only example of a "foreign power" helping the nation of Israel in its inception is... the Jewish Brigade.

Did you know it was a brigade of individual volunteers within the British Army? If you did, I don't think you'd cite it as an example.

You didn't cite any other example, either.

https://sofrep.com/news/orde-wingate-special-night-squads-id...

From your link:

> In September of 1936, Wingate was posted to Palestine as an intelligence officer with the British Mandate. His obsession with the Bible had a profound effect on his views during this posting, turning him into an ardent Zionist and supporter of the idea of a Jewish state.

So this is yet another example of individual actions based on his personal convictions, not of the British Empire acting at the state level.

Compare that to the British official support of other military and paramilitary groups, such as the Arab Legion:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arab_Legion

These examples shows substantial evidence for the British Empire itself formally supporting groups that _fought_ Israel. Indeed the Arab Legion was among the chief military forces to attack Israel in 1948:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Bagot_Glubb

> During the 1948 Arab–Israeli War, the Arab Legion was considered the strongest Arab army involved in the war.[3] Glubb led the Arab Legion across the River Jordan to occupy the West Bank (May 1948). Despite some negotiation and understanding between the Jewish Agency and King Abdullah, severe fighting took place in Kfar Etzion massacre (May 1948), Jerusalem and Latrun (May–July 1948).

John Bagot Glubb was a British officer in official capacity leading a force trained and commanded by other British officers to a fight against Israel.

It certainly appears that it was individual action instead of state policy, but it did occur with state sanction:

> Wingate quickly conceived of a joint military unit, staffed by both colonial and local Jewish troops, to protect Jewish and British interests, and took the idea to Lieutenant-General Archibald Wavell, the commander of British forces in Palestine. Wavell, intrigued, granted Wingate his permission to set up such a unit. Wingate then pitched the unit to the Jewish Agency and directly to the Haganah (“the defense”), the pre-state Israeli military. The Agency, which originally opposed the idea, eventually had a change of heart, and in June of 1938, the Plugot Ha’Layla Ha’Meyuchadot, the Special Night Squads, were born.

And it sounds like even if it went against the letter of state policy, it certainly fulfilled the spirit of it, at least in other areas of colonial control:

> The SNS fulfilled a dual purpose that likely aided its establishment within a colonial administration opposed to the idea of a Jewish state in Palestine: Though it indeed fought against armed Arab insurgents who rose up in increasingly violent acts against British forces and against the Jewish yishuv (the settlement in Palestine), the unit’s stated purpose Wingate may have given to his superiors was to protect the oil pipelines of the Iraq Petroleum Company. The southern of two pipelines (the “TAPline”) which spanned Iraq to the Mediterranean ran for over 1,000 km from Mosul to Haifa, on the coast of British-controlled Palestine, and moved over 4 million tons of oil per year (between two lines) prior to the Second World War. This line was increasingly being bombed and sabotaged by Arab bands throughout the revolt, and as it ran through the Lower Galilee on its course to the sea, Wingate could easily patrol its length with the SNS from his base in Ein Harod.

From your quote just now

> Wingate quickly conceived of a joint military unit, staffed by both colonial and local Jewish troops, to protect Jewish and British interests

The SNS were founded to "protect Jewish and British interests" which were attacked by the Arabs under the British Mandate. At no point did the British government start any group, or take any action, to aid the creation of Israel as a independent nation.

At most, you can claim that they sometimes tried to defend the Jews under their mandate from violent Arab attacks. Which makes sense, given that these Jews were under British mandate, supposed to be protected by the British, and massacres of Jews reflected poorly on the Brits.

Compare that to the official British government's actions in creating the nation of Jordan and founding the Arab Legion, and it's clearly much easier to argue that the British Empire helped create and support the nation of Jordan, while doing nothing for Israel, and in fact creating, training, and commanding one of the major military forces which attacked it after inception.

Just curious since you seem knowledgeable on the topic. 1) who allowed Jews to migrate into british mandate before the creation of the state?

2) since the british did not opposed jewish state, why did they allow it to form?

3) what's your take on the right to return?

1) who allowed Jews to migrate into british mandate before the creation of the state?

Jews lived in the area continuously for thousands of years before, so some Jews already lived in places like Jerusalem long before the mandate begun. Even modern Jewish immigration to Israel happened before the Mandate, which only begun in 1923.

The Brits tried to limit Jewish immigration into the territory of Israel. The Jews responded by organizing illegal immigration:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aliyah_Bet

Though generally the Brits were pretty effective in blocking these efforts, as soon as they left in May 15th 1948, large waves of Jewish immigrants (especially refugees) flowed into the newly-established Israel.

2) since the british did not opposed jewish state, why did they allow it to form?

It wasn't really their choice. The Brits had a mandate in Israel for a specific purpose. They tried to follow an agenda that suited them, and did not include helping the Jewish minority establish their own country, but instead aligned them with the Arab majority in the region - with the obvious goal of gaining and maintaining influence in the region by this choice.

The Jews understood that very clearly, and launched an insurgency campaign to rid themselves of the hostile and indifferent Brits:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jewish_insurgency_in_Mandatory...

This conflict soured relations between Israel and the UK for decades, arguably to this day.

The Jews accomplished their goal: the British mandate terminated and the Brits had to leave. However, the UK remained bitter towards the Jews and Israel, which reflected in its policy. The UK organized, armed, trained, and in some cases directly commanded Arab military forces that become major foes of Israel, notably the Arab Legion:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1948_Arab%E2%80%93Israeli_War

It also abstained in the crucial vote that legitimized the ultimate creation of Israel:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_Nations_Partition_Plan_...

3) what's your take on the right to return?

The "right of return" is a unique invention with no historical precedent. Ethnic groups got into conflicts since the dawn of humanity, and frequently one would displace the other. Nations won territories from each other in armed conflict.

There was never a "right of return" in any of these cases. Refugees are resettled in available locations.

The refugees in this case are deeply hostile to the nation of Israel and in particular to its Jewish population. That's why they became refugees in the first place.

The idea to try to simply resettle them among the Jews they hate has no precedence in human history. In Israel's case, it will lead to the Jews becoming (again) a persecuted minority, and end their independence. There's no reason to assume an Arab majority will treat the Jews any better than they treated them before 1948 and the decades of conflict that followed - and they already tried to destroy them in 1948.

The Middle East is also not a place where minorities are treated very kindly in general. Neither ethnic minorities, nor religious minorities - and the Jews are both.

TL;DR the "right of return" is an invention by the "social justice" crowd to promote a policy that sounds just and reasonable but is without precedent in human history, and is designed to make the Jews of Israel into a persecuted minority, subject to the same violent attacks they've been suffering for centuries - while stripping them of the protection of having their own state and military force.

Interesting I just find it ironic that israel have the law of return that allowed my friend Dan who has basically 0 material tie to that many to emigrate to israel but banished my friend Ahmed who still have the photos and records of their house and farm land. I'm not saying this right or wrong but to me it's so extremely unfair especially coming from the people who experienced the holocaust.

The British government opposed the creation of the State of Israel and its armies fought alongside the armies of Egypt, Syria, Lebanon, and Jordan during the 1948 war in an attempt to destroy the state. The US disavowed the 1948 partition plan, which in part led to the Arab and British invasion. The country that provided military support to the nascent Jewish state was not the capitalist West that had previously exerted military authority over the region: it was the USSR under Stalin, as part of an effort to destabilize the British. The USSR was in fact the first country to recognize the State of Israel (ironically, given later alliances in the Middle East). https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Soviet_Union_and_the_Arab%E2...

I urge you to read more widely on this topic. If you're so certain that your position is the correct one, you stand only to confirm your existing beliefs.

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