JUDAICA - Wisdom In Torah

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eral solemn events. The 50 th anniversary of the 1942 Wannsee
Conference was the subject of an international conference in
London organized principally by the Wiener Library. During
1992 there were many celebrations of the Sephardi experience
to mark the anniversary of the expulsion from Spain.
[Vivian David Lipman and David Cesarani]
Relations with Israel
Britain’s relations with Israel should be viewed in the perspective
of half a century, beginning with the closing phases
of World War I. In November 1917, with the war against Germany
and her allies still at its height, the British government
issued a statement of policy, the *Balfour Declaration, favoring
the establishment of a Jewish national home in Palestine.
The near euphoria and sense of gratitude to Britain that this
announcement aroused among Jews everywhere was to give
way a generation later to an atmosphere of bitterness and
mutual recrimination, in which the British Mandate over
Palestine finally came to an end (1948). But in the intervening
years, despite all the frictions and difficulties, the foundations
of Jewish statehood had in fact been laid. The period
immediately following Israel’s Declaration of Independence
in May 1948 was a somber one in the relations between the
new state and the former mandatory power. Unlike the United
States and the Soviet Union, Britain refused to recognize the
newly established state for many months. At the United Nations
General Assembly in Paris in the latter part of 1948, the
British delegation was the principal, though ultimately unsuccessful,
protagonist of the so-called *Bernadotte Plan, a central
feature of which was the proposal to transfer the Negev
from Israel to the Arabs. Relations between Britain and what
it termed “the Jewish authorities in Tel Aviv” reached an acute
point when, on Jan. 7, 1949, in the course of renewed fighting
between Israel and Egypt, the Israelis shot down five British
planes that had been sent on a reconnaissance mission from
the Suez Canal Zone. At this time, however, a strong reaction
against the policy of Foreign Secretary Ernest *Bevin began to
assert itself in Britain. The debate in the House of Commons
on January 28 was a damaging one to the government. Three
days later Bevin announced the de facto recognition of Israel
and, shortly thereafter, the appointment of Britain’s first diplomatic
representative to Israel, Sir Knox Helm.
Gradually a new pattern of relations evolved between the
two countries. The period of Bevin’s influence had not been
forgotten by the people of Israel, but Britain’s initial role in
having made the development of Jewish nationhood in Palestine
politically and physically possible was increasingly recalled
and recognized. Steady progress was made in day-today
contacts through trade, tourism, and cultural relations.
But despite these positive developments, British policy toward
Israel continued to be markedly reserved, for reasons connected
with Britain’s interests and commitments in the Arab
world. As late as 1955, the British government still harbored
ideas about the transfer of at least a part of the Negev to Egypt.
This attitude was reflected in Prime Minister Anthony Eden’s
speech at the Guildhall on Nov. 9, 1955, in which he suggested
a compromise on the frontiers set by the Partition Resolution
of 1947 and those established under the Armistice Agreements
as a way out of the Arab-Israel impasse. This proposal was
unequivocally rejected by Israel and eventually abandoned.
Less than a year later, Britain and Israel found themselves in
unlikely association in military action against Egypt–Israel in
Sinai, Britain in Suez. The events leading to this development
were President Nasser’s nationalization of the Suez Canal on
the one hand, and his active sponsorship of the fedayeen terror
gangs, organized on Arab territory for acts of murder and
sabotage within Israel, on the other.
For more than a century, the preservation of Britain’s
communications with India, the keystone of her empire, had
been a dominant factor in Britain’s interest in the Middle East.
In 1947, India achieved independence almost contemporaneously
with Israel. The strategic and political implications of
this event for Britain’s status in the world were not immediately
obvious. Britain remained the paramount power in the
Middle East with military bases in Iraq, Egypt, and Jordan,
and with a vital financial stake in the ever-increasing oil wealth
that was being uncovered not only in Iran but in the Arab
lands bordering on the Gulf, including Iraq, Kuwait, Bahrain,
and the sheikhdoms. In the mid-1950s a revolutionary
change occurred: the collapse of British power and prestige
that accompanied the Suez debacle of 1956 was followed two
years later by the murder of the king of Iraq and the lynching
of his premier, Nuri Said, Britain’s faithful friend and ally.
The last British base in the Arab Middle East other than one
in Aden was now relinquished. By 1968, as Britain’s policy of
withdrawal from direct military commitment to areas east
of Suez began to be extended even to the Persian Gulf; Aden
too was abandoned. Middle East oil, so vital to the European
economy, continued to flow more or less uninterruptedly because
of the mutual interests of the Arab governments on the
one hand and of Western purchasers on the other. But the
old power relationship, including its implications for Israel,
had dissolved.
Nevertheless, Britain’s role in the area in the 1960s must
not be underestimated. As a great world financial and trading
community, with the support of experienced and effective
diplomats, Britain continued to exert extensive influence. The
decline of Britain’s authority in the Arab world significantly
affected British-Israel relations. Although the traditional sensitivity
of the Foreign Office to possible Arab reactions persisted,
a more relaxed, less inhibited attitude toward Israel
began to assert itself. This was manifested not only in official
contacts and public statements, but also in willingness to sell
Israel such major items of military equipment as Centurion
tanks, naval vessels, and submarines. Within the aggregate of
Britain’s overseas trade, Israel occupied a modest but increasingly
significant place in 1968. The total bilateral trade between
the two countries in 1967 amounted to about $215,000,000, an
increase of nearly 75% compared with 1957. In fact, the value
of Britain’s exports to Israel exceeded that to any of the Arab
430 ENCYCLOPAEDIA JUDAICA, Second Edition, Volume 6