64 Friday, April 18, 1980
THE DETROIT JEWISH NEWS
Israel's Declaration of Independence Iyar 5, 5708
•
ERETZ YISRAEL was the birthplace of the Jewish
people. Here their spiritual, religious and political identity
was shaped. Here they first attained statehood, created
cultural values of national and universal significance and
gave to the world the eternal Book of Books.
After being forcibly exiled from their land, the people
kept faith with it throughout their Dispersion and never
ceased to pray and hope for their return to it and for the
restoration in it of their political. freedom.
Impelled by this historic and traditional attachment,
Jews strove in every successive generation to re-establish
themselves in their ancient homeland. In recent decades
they returned in their masses. Pioneers, ma'apilim ("il-
legal" immigrants) and defenders, they made deserts
bloom, revived the Hebrew language, built villages and
towns, and created a thriving community, controlling its
own economy and culture, loving peace but knowing how to
defend itself, bringing the blessings of progress to all the
country's inhabitants, and aspiring towards independent
nationhood.
In the year 5657 (1897)-, at the summons of the
spiritual father of the Jewish state, Theodor Herzl, the
First Zionist Congress convened and proclaimed the
right of the Jewish people to national rebirth in its
own country.
This right was recognized in-the Balfour Declaration of
2nd November, 1917, and re=affirmed in the Mandate of the
League of Nations which, in particular, gave international
sanction to the historic connection between the Jewish
people and Eretz Yisrael and to the right of the Jewish
people to rebuild its National Home.
The catastrophe which' recently befell the Jewish
people — the massacre of millions of Jews in Europe — was
another clear demonstration of the urgency of solving the
problem of its homelessness by re-establishing in Eretz
Yisrael the Jewish state, which should open the gates of the
homeland wide to every Jew and confer upon the Jewish
people the status of a fully-privileged member of the comity
of nations.
Survivors of the Nazi Holocaust in Europe, as well as
Jews from other parts of the world, continued to migrate to
Eretz Yisrael, undaunted by -difficulties, restrictions and
dangers, and never ceased to assert their right to a life of
dignity, freedom and honest toil in their national home-
land.
,
The flags of Israel and Jerusalem fly outside the
Knesset.
In the Second World War, the Jewish community
of this country contributed its full share to the strug-
gle of the freedom and peace-loving nations against
the forces of Nazi wickedness and, by the blood of its
soldiers and its war effort, gained the right to be re-
ckoned among the peoples who founded the United
-
Nations:
On 29th November, 1947, the United Nations General
Assembly passed a resolution calling for the establishment
of a Jewish state in Eretz Yisrael; the General - Assembly
required the inhabitants of Eretz Yisrael to take such steps
as were necessary on their part for the implementation of
that resolution. This recognition by the United Nations of
the right of the Jewish people to establish their state is
irrevocable.
This right is the natural right of the Jewish people to
be masters of their own fate, like all other nations, in their
own sovereign state.
Accordingly we, -members of the People's Council,
representatives of the Jewish community of Eretz Yisrael
and of the Zionist Movement, are here assembled on the day
_
andate over Eretz Yis-
of the termination of the Britigh M
rael and, by virtue of our natural historic right and on the
strength of the resolution of the United Nations General
Assembly, hereby declare the establishment of a Jewish
state in Eretz Yisrael, to be known as the state of Israel .. .
THE STATE OF ISRAEL will be open for Jewish
immigration and for the Ingathering of the Exiles; it will
foster the development of the country for the benefit of all
inhabitants; it will be based on freedom, justice and peace
as envisaged by the prophets of Isarel; it will ensure com-
plete equality of social and political rights to all its inhabi-
tants irrespective of religion, race or sex; it will guarantee
freedom of religion, conscience, language, education and
culture; it will safeguard the Holy Places of all religions;
and it will be faithful to the principles of the Charter of the
United Nations.
THE STATE OF ISRAEL is prepared to cooperate
with the agencies and representatives of the United Na-
tions in implementing the resolution of the General As-
sembly of 29th November, 1947, and will take ste-
bring about the economic union of the whole of Eret
rael.
WE APPEAL to the United Nations to assist the
Jewish people in the building-up of its state and to receive
the state of Israel into the comity of nations.
WE APPEAL — in the very midst of the onslaught
launched against us now for months — to the Arab inhabi-
tants of the state of Israel to preserve peace and participate
in the upbuilding of the stake on the basis of full and equal
citizenship and due representation in all its provisional and
permanent institutions.
WE EXTEND our hand to all neighboring states and
their peoples in an offer of peace and good neighborliness
and appeal to them to establish bonds of cooperation and
mutual help with the sovereign Jewish people settled in its.
own land. The state of Israel is prepared to do its share in
common effort for the a6ancement of the entire Middle
East.
WE APPEAL to the Jewish people throughout the
Diaspora to rally round the Jews of Eretz Yisrael in the
tasks of immigration and upbuilding and to stand by them
in the great struggle for the realization of the age-old
dream — the redemption of Israel.
_ Placing our trust in the Almighty, we affix our signa-
tures to this Proclamation at this session of the Provisional
Council of State, on the soil of the Homeland, in the city of
Tel Aviv on this Sabbath Eve, the 5th Day of Iyar, 5708 (14
May, 1948).
Wingate Trained Anti-Terrorist Squads
British Officer Prepared Groundwork for Israeli Army
By DULCY LEIBLER
World Zionist Organization
As a 33-year-old captain
in the British Army,
Charles Orde Wingate was
posted to Palestine in 1936,
serving as an intelligence
officer who was to study the
political and security situa-
tion. Three years later he
was transferred out of the
area, due to official disap-
proval of his politial activi-
ties, and it was noted on his
passport that he was not to
re-enter Palestine. Within
those three short years,
however, his personality
and military genius left
lasting impressions upon
the country, upon the young
Jews whom he had trained,
and upon the Jewish army
that they were to build.
Some of the men Wingate
trained went on to become
the military leaders of the
state of Israel.
Palestine had been ad-
ministered by the British
since 1919. By the 1930s the
conflict between Arabs and
Jews escalated to such an
extend that during the first
eight months of 1936, no
CHARLES WINGATE
less than 300 people were
killed and 1,400 wounded in
the Arab distrubances.
Wingate, who had al-
ready mastered Arabic,
arrived in Palestine after
successful service in both
the Sudan (1927-1933)
and Libya. He played a
leading role in fighting
the Arab terror cam-
paign, distinguishing
himself in repelling the
attacks on the Irawi-
Haifa pipeline, for which
he was awarded the DSO.
British military_ opinion
at that time favored the
Arabs, who were thought to
be rather primitive, pic-
turesque people, at the
mercy of the Jews. Wingate,
however, soon came to the
conclusion that it was the
Jews — rather than the
Arabs — who were being
oppressed, and he became
an immediate convert to
Zionism.
One of seven children
born to missionary parents
in India, Wingate was
familiar with the Bible. In
fact, he kept the Bible at his
side throughout his life and
after his death his widow
sent his well-thumbed copy
to a Jewish -settlement
fighting in the War of Inde-
pendence, noting that in
spirit, Wingate was still
leading Jewish fighting
men into battle.
He gained the confidence
of the Jewish leaders, and
became known to all as
"Hayedid," The Friend. He
established contact with the
Hagana, and formed — with
its help — his special night
squads to combat anti-
British and anti-Jewish
sabotage in Palestine. They
were to be the basis of the
Hagana, the Palmach, and
ultimately the Israeli
Army. The squads demon-
strated Wingate's belief —
in contrast to that of most
soldiers then in Palestine —
that properly trained, the
Jews made top-rate fighting
men.
Hagana fighters in
these units operated with
unconventional, but very
successful, tactics. In
fact, Wingate, in histrain-
ing courses, made an
opening remark which
was remarkable consid-
ering the time and cir-
cumstances: "Our pur-
pose here," he said, "is to
found the Jewish army!"
British officials had strict
instructions not to meddle
in local politics. Wingate,
however, ignored these or-
ders. To David Hacohen
(who later played a leading -
role in the Labor Party) he
said, "I count it as my
privilege to help you fight
your battle. To that purpose
I want to devote my life."
Wingate wrote long let-
ters to his cousin, Sir Re-
ginald Wingate, expressing
his military and political
ideas. In one he stated, "The
Jews are loyal to the Empire
. . . Palestine is essential to
our Empire . . . In the event
of war, it would be 10 times
more important to have a
strong Jewish people here."
The British government
had had enough of Win-
gate's interfering. Despite
the recognition -of his great
gifts, the authorities said
that he worked for causes
which he favored rather
than for the Service.
Wingate then got swept
up in the tide of World
War II. Ha commanded
an anti-aricraft battery in
Britain, led a force agains
the Italians in Ethiopia,
and played a decisive
rota in the liberation of
that country. Churchill
considered him some-
thing of a genius. Wingate
- went to Burma, where he
trained and led the Chin-
dits, a special jungle unit
that operated behind
Japanese lines. He was
killed in an air crash in
1944 in the Burma jungle.
His devotion to the
Jewish people and Eretz
Yisrael persisted all his life.
He maintained his belief in
creating a strong Jewish
nation in the Middle East
and, writing to a. Jewish
friend, once wrote in He-
brew, "If I forget thee, 0
„Jerusalem . ." Yet he suf-
fered greatly from being
excluded from what he be-
lieved in so strongly. He
said on more than one occa-
sion that he thought the
mission of his life was to
lead the army of the future
Jewish state.
Israelis have never for-
gotten "Hayedid," nor the
debt they own him. Various
institutions and places have
been named after him all
over the country. There is a
children's village on the
slopes of Mt. Carmel called
Yernin Orde. The Wingate
Institute — the college of
physical education near
Natanya — honors his
name. Jerusalem has a
Wingate Square not far
from the president's Ise
and the prime ministt_ re-
sidence, and a forest on Mt,
Gilboa perpetuates his
memory.
M me:
;«,
•
An Israeli soldier during the War of Indepen-
dence plants a tree for a fallen comrade.