Israel: A Nation Reborn | Page 9

down , the Final Solution . And here was a people , numbering barely 600,000 , living cheek-by-jowl with often hostile Arab neighbors , under unsympathetic British occupation , on a harsh soil with no significant natural resources other than human capital in what was then Mandatory Palestine .
That the blue-and-white flag of an independent Israel could be planted on this land , to which the Jewish people had been intimately linked since the time of Abraham , just three years after the end of the Holocaust — and with the support of a decisive majority of UN members at the time ( 33 in favor , 13 opposed , with ten abstentions ) — truly boggles the mind .
And what ’ s more , that this tiny community of Jews , including survivors of the Holocaust who had somehow made their way to Mandatory Palestine despite the British blockade and British detention camps in Cyprus , could successfully defend themselves against the onslaught of five Arab standing armies , is almost beyond comprehension .
To understand the essence of Israel ’ s meaning , it is enough to ask how the history of the Jewish people might have been different had there been a Jewish state in 1933 , in 1938 , or even in 1941 . If Israel had controlled its borders and the right of entry instead of Britain , if Israel had had embassies and consulates throughout Europe , how many more Jews might have escaped and found sanctuary ?
Instead , Jews had to rely on the goodwill of embassies and consulates of other countries and , with woefully few exceptions , they found there neither the “ good ” nor the “ will ” to assist .
I witnessed firsthand what Israeli embassies and consulates meant to Jews drawn by the pull of Zion or the push of hatred . I stood in the courtyard of the Israeli embassy in Moscow and saw thousands of Jews seeking a
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