By David R. Parsons, ICEJ Senior Vice President & Spokesman

The uneasy ceasefires with Iran and Hizbullah allowed Israelis to relax a bit this week to mark 78 years since their national rebirth in 1948. Looking back at those momentous days nearly eight decades ago, it is strange how many still believe the lie that Israel is a “Western colonialist implant” in the Middle East. This is a total fabrication made up after-the-fact by the Kremlin’s propaganda machine, when in truth the Soviet Union was doing more than any Western country back then to assist with the birth of a Jewish state in hopes it would fall into Moscow’s orbit. Instead, the new-born Jewish state consciously decided to become a Western-style democracy, and the Russians have been trying to punish Israel for it ever since.

Jews as Foreigners and Land Thieves
Israel is facing many vicious false accusations today – committing genocide, targeting children, murdering Charlie Kirk.  One of the oldest, most persistent lies is the charge that the West deliberately inserted Israel into the midst of the Arab/Muslim world in order to divide and conquer it.

Thus, the Jews are portrayed as foreigners, rather than indigenous to the region. Some claim the majority of Jews today are actually descended from Khazars – a Turkish people who converted to Judaism centuries ago. Or they say the West shipped Jews to Palestine out of guilt over the Holocaust. A more contemporary version of this falsehood derives from Wokeism, which maintains that Jews are really privileged white supremacists who were sent to oppress the brown peoples of the Middle East. All of these distorted views end up charging the Jews with stealing the Land from the Palestinian Arabs, and insisting they must go back to Europe. Indeed, they see Zionism as racism, an evil plot to rob others and control the world.

The truth, however, is that most of these pernicious lies were dreamed up in the Kremlin in revenge for the new state of Israel looking Westward for inspiration on how to model its governance and culture.

The Real Imperialists
Now it is true that some Western European powers, namely Great Britain and Germany, did consider sponsoring a Jewish state in the Middle East while the world was still in the colonial era. But after World War II, at the San Remo conference in April 1920, the Western powers set up the mandate system to serve as a self-imposed end to the colonial era. Rather than continue to oppress foreign peoples and exploit their resources, they decided to establish trusteeships to help these people groups achieve self-determination and develop until they could stand on their own as independent states.

Thus, Britian was granted mandates over Palestine, Jordan and Iraq, while France oversaw Lebanon and Syria until they could rule their own affairs. And in this new season of nationalism and self-determination, why should the Jews have been treated any different? They, too, were granted the chance by the League of Nations to develop a Jewish state in their ancestral homeland under the British Mandate in Palestine.

Yet over time, Britain betrayed the Balfour Declaration and its trusteeship over Palestine. Actually, it was Christian anti-Semites within the British administration in Jerusalem who worked to undermine the Mandate by helping to create a rival movement of Palestinian nationalism, including the appointment of Hajj Amin al-Husseini as the Grand Mufti of Jerusalem – a repugnant figure who later became Hitler’s mufti.

By 1939, the British White Paper had imposed strict quotas on the number of Jews who could enter the Land of Palestine just as the German Nazi menace was rising. Issued just months after the mass pogrom on Kristallnacht, the White Paper also severely limited Jewish land purchases in Palestine. Thus, Britain did all it could to stymie the emergence of a Jewish state. Even after the enormity of the Holocaust was uncovered, the British imposed a blockade to prevent desperate Jewish survivors languishing in displacement camps across Europe from reaching the shores of their ancient homeland.

Then in its War of Independence in 1948, the nascent Jewish state faced arms embargoes imposed by all the Western powers, including America, while the British armed, trained and even commanded invading Arab forces. The only nation to supply the besieged Jews with weapons was the small nation of Czechoslovakia, with Soviet approval!

Let that sink in! It was the Soviet bloc, not the West, which supplied the embattled defenders of Israel with the few heavy weapons and aircraft they could secure to repel the Arab onslaught.

The Turning Point
Meanwhile, as US President Harry Truman wrestled with the decision of whether to recognise the new Jewish state, his Secretary of Defense James Forrestal vigorously opposed it, warning that the Arabs would carry out their threats to drive the Jews into the sea. His Secretary of State George Marshall also strongly advised against it, contending that the Jewish leaders in Palestine were “Bolsheviks” who would quickly turn Israel into a Soviet satellite.

Now the Holocaust did open a brief window of sympathy for the Jewish state and people, as both the United States and Soviet Union recognised the new nation of Israel in May 1948. The following year, the USSR also supported Israel’s admission as a member state of the United Nations, still hoping it would join the Soviet camp. But Moscow would soon turn on Israel when it consciously chose to become a Western democracy, based on the British parliamentary system. From that moment onward, the Kremlin’s propaganda machine began churning out one outlandish lie after another against Israel. The Russian/Soviet empire, perhaps the most imperial power player of modern times, dared to accuse the democratic West of planting a foreign imposter in the heart of the oil-rich Middle East.

In retrospect, the whole history of Western engagement with Israel and the Middle East at that time was one of doing everything they could to appease the Arabs to gain access to their oil! And as for the Soviet Union, one could argue they did as much if not more than any other nation to bring about the creation of the Jewish state.

The truth is that Israel’s rebirth in 1948 was against the tide of history, and against the national self-interests of both the Western powers and the Soviets. Ultimately, Israel secured its independence not by human scheming but by divine miracle.

As the prophet Jeremiah declared long ago, the return of the Jews to their promised land would be by God’s hand, not man’s. “Hear the word of the Lord, O nations, and declare it in the isles afar off, and say, ‘He who scattered Israel will gather him, and keep him as a shepherd does his flock.’”  (Jeremiah 31:10)

Main photo: Ben Gurion declares the founding of the State of Israel in 1948-(Wikipedia photo)