RSS
Here’s What Really Happened with the British and Mandatory Palestine
David Ben-Gurion declares Israel’s independence, at the Tel Aviv Museum, May 14, 1948. Photo: Wikimedia Commons.
The ignorant (or brainwashed) useful idiots who call for the destruction of Israel, claim that the British Mandate that granted Jews a homeland was not only a mistake, but an original sin.
In reality, it was a brief moment in history when the world recognized Jewish suffering, and believed that they deserved a haven in a land where Jews had continually lived for millennia. Little did they know what more horrors would be visited upon Jews in the years to come.
It is true that the colonial powers of the 19th and early 20th centuries arrogated to themselves the right to carve up Africa and the Middle East by paying little attention to the different warring tribes, cultures, and regions they forced into tense relationships when they imposed artificial borders in the region. But of course, such attitudes, conquests, and invasions existed for thousands of years. To blame only the most recent examples is to distort history.
The British Mandate was the product of the reshaping of much of the world after World War I. It went beyond the wording of the Balfour Declaration of 1917, and recognized the historical connection of the Jews to the Holy Land, and understood that Zionism meant reconstituting their national home. We have the British to thank for this. But sadly, things went downhill from there.
Critics of Israel deny all the past historical powers that were actual colonizers of the land (like Egypt and Jordan), and forget that Israel accepted a Palestinian state in 1947 and 1948. But the Palestinians and five Arab countries rejected it, and tried to destroy Israel and all the Jews in it. That’s the reason there is no Palestinian state today.
And, in fact, much of the British policy during this period was meant to favor the Arab community.
There were riots, attacks on Jewish civilians, and the notorious Hebron massacre of Jews in 1929. The British felt they had to appease the Arabs, so they began to restrict Jewish immigration. The Jews were divided between the pacifists and the fighters. The first member of a Jewish underground group, Shlomo Ben Yosef, was executed by the British in 1938. The British White Paper of 1939 virtually closed the door on Jewish immigration precisely at the moment when a haven might have saved hundreds of thousands from Nazi barbarity.
The post-war foreign secretary of the UK’s Labour government was the notorious Ernest Bevin, who was adamantly opposed to the idea of a Jewish state. He pushed the Mandate authorities to take a very hard line and enacted the Defense (Emergency) Regulations which suspended Habeas Corpus, established military courts, and prescribed the death penalty for carrying weapons or ammunition illegally and for membership of illegal organizations.
In 1946, Michael Eshbal and Yosef Simchon were arrested by the British and sentenced to death. The Irgun began a policy of reprisals. Five days later, they kidnapped five British officers in Tel Aviv, and another one the following day in Jerusalem. Two weeks later, when Eshbal’s and Simchon’s sentences were commuted to life imprisonment, the officers were released.
A year later on, April 16, 1947, Dov Gruner, Yehiel Dresner, Mordechai Alkahi, and Eliezer Kashani, were executed by the British. In May 1947, 41 prisoners broke out from Acre Prison. Six of them were killed and seven others were rearrested. Among the organizers, Avshalom Haviv, Yaakov Weiss, and Meir Nakar were tried by a military court and also sentenced to death. All these names are unknown to the vast majority of Israelis today.
The Irgun retaliated by capturing two British soldiers and announced that if their men were put to death, they would do the same to the British soldiers. The High Commissioner Alan Cunningham gave the order and the Irgun men were executed. The day afterwards, the bodies of the two British soldiers were discovered hanging from olive trees. The Irgun admitted the killings.
Ernest Bevin did whatever he could to stop the Jewish state. He plotted with the Jordanians and negotiated “the Portsmouth Treaty” with Iraq (signed on January 15, 1948) undertaking to withdraw from Palestine and ensure a swift Arab occupation of all its territory to destroy the Jewish state. As the British withdrew, they handed over their hardware to the Arabs.
We owe a lot to Britain as the first state to recognize the right of the Jews to their own homeland, regardless of their ulterior motives. Rarely is a conflict all black and white. It wasn’t then, and it isn’t now. If Arab Nationalism can be justified, why can’t Jewish Nationalism?
The Bible says, “The poor will never cease from the land.” And neither will enmity and conflict, whether they are external or internal. I don’t have a solution, only optimism. But the Balfour Declaration and League of Nations were essential elements in establishing a Jewish state after 2,000 years. And despite our present mourning, that is still a reason to celebrate.
The author is a writer and rabbi, currently based in New York.
The post Here’s What Really Happened with the British and Mandatory Palestine first appeared on Algemeiner.com.
RSS
‘Valid For All Countries Except Israel’
US passport. Photo: Pixabay.
JNS.org – There’s an unwritten rule among governments in many Muslim countries—when things go wrong at home, turn on the State of Israel.
Bangladesh, one of the poorest and most densely populated countries in Asia, provides the latest example of this tactic. Last week, the authorities in Dhaka announced that they were reintroducing what is essentially a disclaimer on the passports issued to its citizens: “Valid for all countries except Israel.” That shameful inscription was abandoned in 2021 by the government of recently ousted Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina, although it was never followed up with diplomatic outreach to Israel, much less recognition of the Jewish state’s right to a peaceful and sovereign existence.
The rationale for the move in 2021 was that Bangladeshi passports had to be brought up to date with international standards. However, the war in the Gaza Strip triggered by the Hamas pogrom in southern Israel on Oct. 7, 2023, has apparently canceled out that imperative.
“For many years, our passports carried the ‘except Israel’ clause. But the previous government suddenly removed it,” Brig. Gen. Mohammad Nurus Salam, passports director at the Department of Immigration, told the Arab News. Somewhat disingenuously, he added: “We were used to seeing ‘except Israel’ written in our passports. I don’t know why they took it out. If you talk to people across the country, you’ll see they want that line back in their passports. There was no need to remove it.”
It’s been 25 years since I was in Bangladesh, where I spent several months as a BBC consultant assisting with the launch of the country’s first private TV news station. One of the aspects that struck me profoundly—in contrast to Salam’s claim that the people want their passports to preclude travel to Israel—was the lack of hostility towards Israel among the many Bangladeshis I met and worked with, and I have no reason to believe that this attitude has fundamentally shifted. Most Bangladeshis are consumed by their own country’s vast problems, and the distant Israeli-Palestinian conflict does not impinge in any way on the resolution of those.
When I told people that I was Jewish, had family in Israel and had spent a great deal of time there, the most common response was curiosity. For the great majority, I was the first Jew they had ever met, and they eagerly quizzed me about the Jewish religion, often noting the overlaps with Islamic practices, such as circumcision and the prohibition on consuming pork.
“What is Israel like? What are the people like?” was a conversation I engaged in on more than one occasion. I remember with great affection a journalist called Salman, a devout Muslim who invited me to his home for an iftar meal during Ramadan. Salman was convinced that there were still a couple of Jews living in Bangladesh, and he combed Dhaka trying to find them so that he could introduce me (he never succeeded because there were no Jews there, but I appreciated his efforts.) I also remember members of the Hindu community, who compose about 8% of the population, drawing positive comparisons between Bangladesh’s Indian-backed 1971 War of Independence against Muslim Pakistan and Israel’s own War of Independence in 1947-48.
To understand why Bangladesh has taken this regressive decision requires a hard look at its domestic politics. In August of last year, the government of Sheikh Hasina—the daughter of independence leader Sheikh Mujibur Rahman and the dominant political figure over the past 30 years—was overthrown following a wave of protest against its well-documented corruption, discriminatory practices and judicial interference. Her downfall was accompanied by a surge of sectarian violence against Hindu homes, businesses and temples, with more than 2,000 incidents recorded over a two-week period. In the eyes of many, Hindus were associated with Sheikh Hasina’s Awami League Party, and the violence against them suggested that Islamist positions were making headway in a country that flew the banner of secular nationalism in its bid to win freedom from Pakistani rule.
The passport decision can be viewed in a similar light: Bangladesh asserting its identity as a Muslim country standing in solidarity with the Palestinians, the Islamic world’s pre-eminent cause, at the same time as breaking with the legacy of Sheikh Hasina’s rule. Yet that stance will not alleviate the fiscal misery of Bangladeshi citizens, with more than one in four people living below the poverty line. Nor will it address the chronic infrastructure problems that plague the country’s foreign trade, or tackle the bureaucracy and red tape that crushes entrepreneurship and innovation.
In short, supporting the Palestinians brings no material benefits for ordinary Bangladeshis, who would doubtless gain from a genuine relationship with Israel that would introduce, among many other advantages, more efficient water technology to counter the presence of arsenic and the lack of sanitation that often renders Bangladesh’s large reserves of water unusable and undrinkable.
Even so, ideology and Muslim identity may not be the only explanations for the Bangladeshi decision. It can also be seen as a gesture towards Qatar, the wealthiest country in the Islamic world, which has artfully cultivated trade and diplomatic ties with a slew of less developed countries, Bangladesh included. Last year, Qatar’s ruler, Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad al-Thani, paid a two-day state to Bangladesh that showcased Doha’s contributions in the form of bilateral trade worth $3 billion as well as millions of dollars in Qatari grants for school and higher education. Such largesse on the part of the Qataris is a critical means of ensuring that governments in Bangladesh and other Muslim nations stay away from the Abraham Accords countries that have made a peace of sorts with Israel.
Bangladesh is not, of course, the only country to prevent its citizens from traveling to Israel or denying entry to Israeli passport holders. A few days after the Bangladeshi decision, the Maldives—another Muslim country that enjoys close relations with Qatar—announced that Israelis would no longer be permitted to visit. None of these bans is likely to be lifted as long as Israel is at war with the Hamas terrorists in Gaza, Iran’s regional proxies and the Iranian regime itself.
The ripple effects of that war—antisemitic violence in Western countries, cold-shouldering of Israel by countries without a direct stake in the conflict—will continue to be felt. None of that changes the plain fact that this remains a war that Israel must win.
The post ‘Valid For All Countries Except Israel’ first appeared on Algemeiner.com.
RSS
US, Iran Set for Second Round of Nuclear Talks as Iranian FM Warns Against ‘Unrealistic Demands’
Iran’s Foreign Minister Abbas Araqchi attends a press conference following a meeting with Russia’s Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov in Moscow, Russia, April 18, 2025. Tatyana Makeyeva/Pool via REUTERS
Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi said a deal could be reached during Saturday’s second round of nuclear negotiations in Rome if the United States does not make “unrealistic demands.”
In a joint press conference with his Russian counterpart, Sergei Lavrov, Araghchi said that Washington showed “partial seriousness” during the first round of nuclear talks in Oman last week.
The Iranian top diplomat traveled to Moscow on Thursday to deliver a letter from Iran’s so-called Supreme Leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, briefing Russian President Vladimir Putin on the ongoing nuclear talks with the White House.
“Their willingness to enter serious negotiations that address the nuclear issue only, without entering into other issues, can lead us towards constructive negotiations,” Araghchi said during the joint press conference in Moscow on Friday.
“As I have said before, if unreasonable, unrealistic and impractical demands are not made, an agreement is possible,” he continued.
Tehran has previously rejected halting its uranium enrichment program, insisting that the country’s right to enrich uranium is non-negotiable, despite Washington’s threats of military actions, additional sanctions, and tariffs if an agreement is not reached to curb the country’s nuclear activities.
On Tuesday, US special envoy Steve Witkoff said that any deal with Iran must require the complete dismantling of its “nuclear enrichment and weaponization program” — reversing his earlier comments, in which he indicated that the White House would allow Tehran to enrich uranium to a 3.67 percent threshold for a “civil nuclear program.”
During the press conference, Araghchi also announced he would attend Saturday’s talks in Rome, explaining that negotiations with the US are being held indirectly due to recent threats and US President Donald Trump’s “maximum pressure” campaign against Tehran — which aims to cut the country’s crude exports to zero and prevent it from obtaining a nuclear weapon.
“Indirect negotiations are not something weird and an agreement is within reach through this method,” Araghchi said.
He also indicated that Iran expects Russia to play a role in any potential agreement with Washington, noting that the two countries have held frequent and close consultations on Tehran’s nuclear program in the past.
“We hope Russia will play a role in a possible deal,” Araghchi said during the press conference.
As an increasingly close ally of Iran, Moscow could play a crucial role in Tehran’s nuclear negotiations with the West, leveraging its position as a veto-wielding member of the UN Security Council and a signatory to a now-defunct 2015 nuclear deal that imposed limits on the Iranian nuclear program in exchange for sanctions relief.
Known formally as the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA), Trump withdrew the US from the deal in 2018.
Since then, even though Tehran has denied wanting to develop a nuclear weapon, the UN’s nuclear watchdog – the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) – has warned that Iran has “dramatically” accelerated uranium enrichment to up to 60 percent purity, close to the roughly 90 percent weapons-grade level and enough to build six nuclear bombs.
During the press conference on Friday, Russian Foreign Minister Lavrov said that “Russia is ready to facilitate the negotiation process between Iran and the US regarding Tehran’s nuclear program.”
Moscow has previously said that any military strike against Iran would be “illegal and unacceptable.”
Russia’s diplomatic role in the ongoing negotiations could also be important, as the country has recently solidified its growing partnership with the Iranian regime.
On Wednesday, Russia’s upper house of parliament ratified a 20-year strategic partnership agreement with Iran, strengthening military ties between the two countries.
Despite Tehran’s claims that its nuclear program is solely for civilian purposes rather than weapon development, Western states have said there is no “credible civilian justification” for the country’s recent nuclear activity, arguing it “gives Iran the capability to rapidly produce sufficient fissile material for multiple nuclear weapons.”
The post US, Iran Set for Second Round of Nuclear Talks as Iranian FM Warns Against ‘Unrealistic Demands’ first appeared on Algemeiner.com.
RSS
Reps. Dan Goldman and Chris Smith Issue Statement Condemning Shapiro Arson Attack As ‘Textbook Antisemitism’
Pennsylvania Gov. Josh Shapiro (D) holds a rally in support of US Vice President Kamala Harris’ Democratic presidential election campaign in Ambler, Pennsylvania, US, July 29, 2024. Photo: REUTERS/Rachel Wisniewski
Rep. Dan Goldman (D-NY) and Rep. Chris Smith (D-NJ) issued a statement condemning the recent arson attack against Gov. Josh Shapiro (D-PA) as a form of “textbook antisemitism.”
“Governor Shapiro is the Governor of Pennsylvania and has nothing to do with Israel’s foreign policy, yet he was targeted as an American Jew by a radicalized extremist who blames the Governor for Israel’s actions. That is textbook antisemitism,” the statement read.
Shapiro’s residence, the Pennsylvania governor’s mansion, was set ablaze on Sunday morning, hours after the governor hosted a gathering to celebrate the first night of the Jewish holiday of Passover. Shapiro said that he, his wife, and his children were awakened by state troopers knocking on their door at 2 am. The governor and his family immediately evacuated the premises and were unscathed.
Goldman and Smith added that the arson attack against Shapiro serves as “a bitter reminder that persecution of Jews continues.” The duo claimed that they “strongly condemn this antisemitic violence” and called on the suspect to “be held accountable to the fullest extent of the law.”
Pennsylvania State Police said that the suspect, Cody Balmer set fire to Shapiro’s residence over the alleged ongoing “injustices to the people of Palestine” and Shapiro’s Jewish faith.
According to an arrest warrant, Balmer called 911 prior to the attack and told emergency operators that he “will not take part in [Shapiro’s] plans for what he wants to do to the Palestinian people,” and demanded that the governor “stop having my friends killed.”
The suspect continued, telling operators, “Our people have been put through too much by that monster.”
Balmer later revealed to police that he planned to beat Shapiro with a sledgehammer if he encountered him after gaining access into his residence, according to authorities.
He was subsequently charged with eight crimes by authorities, including serious felonies such as attempted homicide, terrorism, and arson. The suspect faces potentially 100 years in jail. He has been denied bail.
Shapiro, a practicing Jew, has positioned himself as a staunch supporter of Israel. In the days following Hamas’s brutal slaughter of roughly 1,200 people across southern Israel on Oct. 7, 2023, Shapiro issued statements condemning the Palestinian terrorist group and gave a speech at a local synagogue. The governor also ordered the US and Pennsylvania Commonwealth flags to fly at half-mast outside the state capitol to honor the victims.
Shapiro’s strident support of the Jewish state in the wake of Oct. 7 also incensed many pro-Palestinian activists, resulting in the governor being dubbed “Genocide Josh” by far-left demonstrators.
US Senate Democratic Leader Chuck Schumer (NY) chimed in on the arson attack Thursday, urging the Justice Department to launch a federal investigation, claiming that the incident could be motivated by antisemitism.
Schumer argued that the arson attack targeting Shapiro, who is Jewish, left the Pennsylvania governor’s family in “anguish” and warned that it could serve as an example of “rising antisemitic violence” within the United States. He stressed that a federal investigation and hate crime charges may be necessary to uphold the “fundamental values of religious freedom and public safety.”
Thus far, Shapiro has refused to blame the attack on antisemitism, despite the suspect’s alleged comments repudiating the governor over his support for Israel. The governor has stressed the importance of allowing prosecutors to determine whether the attack constitutes a hate crime.
The post Reps. Dan Goldman and Chris Smith Issue Statement Condemning Shapiro Arson Attack As ‘Textbook Antisemitism’ first appeared on Algemeiner.com.