On Wednesday the 6th July 2022, the ICEJ UK along with other pro-Israel Christian organisations are involved in an event in the UK Parliament to remember the 100th year anniversary of the UK being given the Mandate for Palestine by the League of Nations (now the United Nations). This was in response the the Balfour Declaration of 1917 when the then UK Government declared its intention to create a Jewish State as a homeland for the Jewish people:

On the 24th July 1922 this mandate was approved by the League of Nations.

Britain was now given the responsibility of turning the Balfour Declaration into a reality for the Jewish people. Over the following years successive British Governments failed in carrying out this responsibility as they sought to appease the Arab nations that opposed the establishment of a homeland for the Jewish people in Palestine. The sad fact is that over the coming years there were a number of attempts by senior British leaders to frustrate this mandate and in fact to reverse it.

During the 1930’s opposition to the plan was intense with both the Peal Commission and the McDonald White Paper seeking to made the Balfour Declaration invalid and reverse it. Although this was not successful it was another block placed in the way of the establishment of the Jewish homeland. The 1930’s was a dark period in British history with regards to these matters that lead to and even darker period for the Jews of Europe with beginning of the second world war and Hitler’s intention to wipe out the Jews of Europe. If only Britain had kept its original vision and word to the Jewish people who knows how many Jews would have been saved from the Holocaust?

We are thankful that God did have the last word on the Middle East with regards to the establishment of the State of Israel in 1948. But if only Britain had kept its word, who knows what may have been avoided? 26 years after the mandate was given to the British Government, Israel was born. 26 years that almost wiped out the Jewish people in Europe. 26 years! Of course even during the UN vote on creating a Jewish homeland in November 1947 the British Government abstained. It was a shameful era for British Jewish relations.

The event on 6th July in Parliament, where MP’s and Lords are invited, will be both a time of thanksgiving for the Balfour declaration but also a time of repentance for what Britain failed to deliver.

It is a privilege to be involved with other organisations as we seek to bless the Jewish people through this event.

Len Grates, ICEJ UK Director