| West all the way to the borders of Iraq on the east, including both the eastern and western banks of the Jordan River. This was only one of the decisions made by the League of Nations pertaining to the final borders of all the Arab countries in the Middle East. In light of this decision Jews from all over Europe and the United States and North Africa began to immigrate to what was to be the Jewish homeland. Britain, which had taken Palestine from the Turks, received a mandate from the League of Nations to govern Palestine until representatives of the Jewish nation could assemble, organize, take over the reins of government and establish its state. The name “Palestine,” a mispronunciation of “Philistine,” was given to the Biblical Land of Israel 2000 years ago by the Greeks and then the Romans, who eventually conquered the state of the Jews and exiled most of its residents. This is the name used by the Arabs who settled there. Jews never used the name “Palestine.” “Zion” or "Eretz Israel" – the Land of Israel – is the name that has always appeared in Jewish prayer books. Nor was Palestine ever completely without Jewish settlement. A Jewish representation remained in cities and villages around the country from the time of the great exile until the mass immigration in the late 1940s. The League of Nations’ decision to make Palestine the Jewish national home was recognition of the right of Jews to return to their ancient homeland as well as a way of thanking the Jews in Palestine for their active support for the Allied Forces during World War One. The Jewish Brigade, formed by the Jews in Palestine, fought alongside the Allies against the Germans and Turks who then ruled Palestine, while the Arabs of Palestine fought on the side of the Turkish and German forces against the Allies. Britain, with its League of Nations mandate over Palestine, decided a few years after the war to bestow all of the land on the eastern side of the Jordan River to the heads of the desert-dwelling Bedouin tribes who, led by Laurence of Arabia, had assisted the British in their war against the Turks. These were part of the same lands designated by the League of Nations for the Jewish homeland. With this move, the final boundaries were set for Saudi Arabia and the Kingdom of Jordan. The population of the new Kingdom of Jordan included many Arabs who had moved there from Palestine, in addition to the Bedouins. Empowered by its League-of-Nations-granted mandate, the British decided to leave only the western side of the Jordan River for the Jewish national home. Leading the Palestine Arabs at the time was Haj Amin el-Husseini, the Grand Mufti (the highest spiritual leader). Although appointed by the British, el-Husseini incited the Arabs of Palestine to take up arms against the decisions of the League of Nations and the British about the designation of the Land of Israel. Under his leadership, the Arabs of Palestine systematically erupted in riots and pogroms against the Jews in settlements around the country, taking a heavy toll in dead and wounded. When, at a later stage, el-Husseini openly revolted against the British, he was forced to flee to Iraq, far from the long arm of the British. When Britain conquered Iraq during World War Two, el-Husseini fled to Germany where he lived for many years. He maintained close ties with Hitler and Himmler and recorded propaganda broadcasts to the Arab countries against the Allied Forces. The Arab massacre of the Jews of Hebron in 1929 was a part of el-Husseini’s overall plan to rid all of Palestine of Jews. In effect he was saying to the Arab world and especially to the Arabs in Palestine, ''just as we did it in Hebron, we can make all of Palestine Jew-free.'' In World War Two, the Arabs of Palestine led by Haj Amin el-Husseini joined the Axis powers and encouraged the destruction of Jews in Europe, along the lines of the Hebron model, in order to prevent Jews from entering Palestine. The Jews in Palestine joined the war on the side of the Allied Forces and fought alongside the British army in its protracted and difficult struggle against Nazi Germany. In 1945, World War Two ended and the United Nations was set up on the remnants of the institutions of the League of Nations. The new organization reconfirmed all of its predecessor’s decisions, including those about making the west bank of the Jordan River into a Jewish home. Using daggers, rifles and terrorist bombs, the Arabs of Palestine waged constant war against the Jews. On the basis of the non-binding recommendation of the United Nations Assembly in 1948 to divide the area between the Jordan River and the Mediterranean Sea into two states, one Jewish and the other Arab, the State of Israel was established. The Arabs of Palestine did not accept the UN recommendation. Instead they asked the neighboring Arab states to help them rid the land of Jews. Egypt, Jordan, Syria and Lebanon, with their superior armed forces and with the reinforcement of Iraqi army brigades (even though Iraq shared no border with Israel) invaded the new state. They tried to wrest the small area west of the Jordan River that the British mandate had set aside for the establishment of the Jewish state from the small Jewish enclave (just over half a million Jews). The 1948 war, or the War of Independence as it is called in Israel, ended with a cease-fire between the sides and a new reality. The invading Arab states kept the areas they had conquered west of the Jordan River, while Israel remained in the lands it had succeeded in conquering – an area broader than that recommended by the UN for establishing the Jewish state. During this stressful period of war, threats to survival and material want, the miniscule State of Israel succeeded in absorbing Jewish refugees who had survived the Holocaust in Europe as well as Jews who had to flee their homes in sovereign Arab countries because they were no longer welcome in their homelands. In their flight, these Jewish refugees left behind their money, their possessions and all of their property. The Arab states could not come to terms with this situation and in 1967 again opened war against Israel, in an attempt to redress the results of the 1948 war. Again, it was the same states going to war – Egypt, Jordan, Syria and Lebanon, with Iraqi support in the form of an armored division assisting the Syrian and Jordanians. The 1967 war also ended with a cease-fire between the sides. Egyptian forces fled the Sinai Peninsula, to the western bank of the Suez Canal, leaving Israel in total command of the Sinai. Jordanian forces retreated eastward over the Jordan River and Israel took over all the lands evacuated by the Jordanians. Liberating these territories was actually fulfillment of the decisions of the League of Nations and the United Nations. Syria also retreated and Israel took control of the Golan Heights, a piece of land not mentioned in the decisions of either world body. After the 1967 war, Israel did not force any Arab residents to leave or move to the neighboring Jordanian Kingdom, the land of their brothers, the former residents of Palestine. Arab residents in the areas from which the Arab states had retreated remained where they were, and Israel took sovereign control of these areas, providing them with administrative and welfare services. It should be remembered that these were the very territories originally earmarked by the League of Nations and the UN for Israel. This did not conclude the struggle between the Arabs and Jews of the liberated Palestine, meaning the Land of Israel according to the Bible and the prophets. It was merely postponed. The Arabs living in the lands now under Israeli control were vigorously incited to continue their terror activities against the Jews. In 1973, war again broke out as the armies of Egypt and Syria attacked Israel. One outcome of this war was a peace treaty between Egypt and Israel, as a part of which Israel returned the entire Sinai Peninsula to Egyptian sovereignty. Years later, the Kingdom of Jordan also signed a peace treaty with Israel that entailed minor border adjustments. Syria only signed a cease-fire with Israel and Israel agreed to retreat from additional areas conquered on the Golan Heights during the 1973 war. The European community and at least three Presidents of the United States have toiled over the years to bring about agreements between Israel and the Arab residents of the territories, those people called “Palestinians.” Despite the external assistance, ongoing disagreement between the sides has not abated. Palestinian leaders demand the establishment of a Palestinian state in place of Israel and continually resort to blood- letting terror to expel the Jews from Israel. The refusal of the Arabs of Palestine to recognize the right of the Jews to an independent state of their own has gone on for almost a hundred years, and it is this struggle that provides the authentic background for “The Hebron File.” It is important to remember that the basic historical facts in “The Hebron File” are true. The plot is a work of fiction woven around events that actually occurred. These events, listed in the Chronology after the Glossary, serve as the backdrop for the story that unfolds between a fictional Israeli Jewish family and Palestinian Arab family between 1929 and 1985. My hope is that this story provides insight into the events and their effects on the people involved, as well as a good read. All the characters in this story – except for the historical ones – are fictional. |
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| In mid-August 1929, the Arabs of Jerusalem, Hebron and the nearby villages assembled in Hebron, went on a rampage and massacred Jewish residents of the city. About 60 Hebron Jews were brutally slaughtered and hundreds of others were wounded. British police on the spot did not intervene until the massacre had run its course. Nine years earlier, after World War One and after Britain had conquered “Palestine” (actually, the Biblical Land of Israel) from the Turks who had ruled it until then, the League of Nations made one of its most important decisions: to grant a national home for the Jews in all of Palestine, that is, from the Mediterranean Sea in the |