compass on the abc re israel, page-7

The place looks like an abandoned quarry. Probably the biggest single instigator was that arrogant interferer and self-promoter Winston Churchill.

"Referring to the years prior to the creation of the Jewish state, the historian Bernard Wasserstein argues that "No British statesman had a more consistent and more emphatic record of...support for Zionism as a solution to the Jewish problem than Winston Churchill." Churchill considered the establishment of the State of Israel "as one of the most hopeful and encouraging adventures of the 20th century." Only eight months subsequent to the proclamation of the State, Churchill suggested to the House of Commons that "The coming into being of a Jewish State in Palestine is an event in world history to be viewed in the perspective not of a generation or a century, but in the perspective of a thousand, two thousand or even three thousand years."

Churchill used to trace his Zionism back to the days of the Balfour Declaration, describing himself as "an old Zionist." His attitude toward Zionism remained as passionate and as explicit following his return to Ten Downing Street in 1951. Now, however, with the State of Israel firmly in place, the images he entertained became perhaps more vivid, more colorful, and as ever imbued with historical resonance.

Thus, in June 1954, Churchill stated to journalists in the United States, "I am a Zionist, let me make that clear. I was one of the original ones after the Balfour Declaration and I have worked faithfully for it." This was merely the introduction. He went on: "I think it is a most wonderful thing that this community should have established itself so effectively, turning the desert into fertile gardens and thriving townships, and should have afforded refuge to millions of their co-religionists who suffered so fearfully under Hitler, and not only under Hitler, persecution. I think it is a wonderful thing." In a conversation with Israel's Ambassador in London, Eliyahu Elath, Churchill referred to Israel's population as "the sons of the prophets dwelling in Zion."

Churchill's attitude toward Zionism and the State of Israel was distinctively positive, the images he entertained bordering on the romantic. In this respect, Churchill had no equal among British politicians and officials in the first half of the 1950s. On almost any question pertaining to the country, Churchill's rhetoric, more than any other decision-maker or official, was distinctively pro-Israel, reflecting, beyond political considerations and a pure judgement of principle, an emotional attachment to that country and the case it presented"