Letter From The Editor; Israel’s Independence

A regular comment that raised so much laughter during my time as an undergraduate was that Britain’s greatest export was the number of independence days that the country had bequeathed to the world. This number hovers at around 65, depending on precisely what one considers ‘independence’ to be; and whether the abandonment of the British from certain parts of the world, such as Afghanistan shortly after the First World War, meets the requisite criteria for independence. 

Although Israel is celebrating her independence, the word is something of a misnomer. ‘Independence’, for example in the American sense, while suggesting freedom from the British, still resides within a context that the United States was a new country. In this instance, there was no reassertion of a pre-colonial existence – for prior to the European arrival and the eventual declaration of 1776, there were not any political entities that the United States could claim as a predecessor. Across the world in India, although there were political entities that predated the arrival of the Portuguese in 1498, there had been no single political country that incorporated the entire subcontinent. The closest that this ideal was realised was under the Mughal Emperor Aurungzeb, but this was firstly under a religious adherence at odds with the then contemporaneous Hindu dominance over modern India and secondly the retention over Southern India that was neither long-lasting nor complete. Shortly after, the British would dramatically increase their power across the Mughal-dominated northern plains, which crossed from their Persian heartlands over modern-day Pakistan and all the way west into Bengal. The South would remain a hodgepodge of statelets, principalities, maharajas and rajas, until further incorporation into the British Raj. Similar remains true across Africa – the arbitrary nature of the borders indicates strict European involvement in the drawing up of borders, ignoring most local tribal adherences.

Compare this scenario to Israel. That the British signed the Balfour Declaration, and numerous British politicians such as Churchill, Herbert Samuel, Rufus Isaacs, or Alfred Mond remained committed to Zionism, remains a fact. Yet Israel’s release from the control of the British and the League of Nations/United Nations through the Declaration of Independence on  14 May 1948 was a reestablishment of independence, rather than a creation of a new political entity divorced from a historical aspiration for political order. A ‘re-independence’ would perhaps be more accurate, for it was a reforging of the millennia-old connection of the Jews and the place of their initial foray into statehood. 

The Baltic States, for example, have a better way of putting it. Although they do celebrate an Independence Day from The Russian Empire, their day of liberation from the USSR is referred to as the ‘Restoration of Independence’. What better way could there be to commemorate Yom Haatzmaut?

Claims that this original political entity was somehow lacking in development is as abstract as it is nonsensical. In the Book of Samuel we read of Samuel’s reticence to allow a King over Israel, which is only overcome through the insistence of the public – a clear demonstration of power resting with the populace. We see the separation of powers, fundamental to the American or (unwritten) British constitution, with the distinct roles of the King, Sanhedrin, and High Priest. And, in a conclusion that brings us to the present, we read of the fundamental relationship between a people and their land. What would the English be, if they did not have England? The French without the French? So, we ask, what would the descendants of the Israelites be without the Land of Israel?

To repeat the quote of Ben Gurion: “to believe in Israel is to believe in miracles”. It is truly astounding – that a land that once was filled with the sound of Jewish prayer is once more overflowing with its children. And the British? To paraphrase a likely apocryphal response to Irish MP Daniel O’Connell, O’Connell’s ancestors were but brutal savages in an unknown island when Disraeli’s were priests in the Temple of Solomon.

 So with that, happy re-independence day to Israel!