JRV1330

Great Britain, America and Us Jews as the U.S. Celebrates 250

#1330 July 12, 2026

In celebrating as Americans and Jews the United States reaching 250, both the past and the present make us proclaim the fundamental Zionist-America Idea connection to all the inhabitants thereof.

Great Britain, America and Us Jews as the U.S. Celebrates 250

Great Britain and the Jews

American Jew that I am, I have two words for the United States on its 250th birthday – mazel tov!  And, American-brewed beer in hand, I say a shehecheyanu over my privilege of being both, an American and a Jew, Here & Now.  I see, of course, no inconsistency between these two attributes, but I’m driven to tell you of one night I had mixed emotions.

On the night of September 20, 2001, nine days after horrific attack on America’s tallest skyscrapers and Pentagon, President George W. Bush movingly addressed the nation from the halls of Congress. One foreign leader was present.  President Bush paid him this homage:

“America has no truer friend than Great Britain. Once again, we are joined together in a great cause–so honored the British Prime Minister has crossed an ocean to show his unity with America. Thank you for coming, friend.”

As one who has read of Dunkirk and the Battle of Britain, and having imbibed deeply Bass Ale, Sherlock Holmes, Tolkien, Rowling and Shakespeare, I confess to an admiration in multiple ways of Great Britain, and as an American would have picked its Prime Minister of all foreign leaders to have been with us that night.

But I’m also a Jew. As such, my long disaffection for Britain was justified as recently as last night, July 9, 2026, by this Reuters article, UK’s Likely Next PM, Andy Burnham, Says He Wants To Put More Pressure on Israel, leading

“Andy Burnham, who is expected to be named as Britain’s new prime minister later this month, wants to exert more pressure on the Israeli government over its actions in Gaza, the Guardian reported on Thursday.”

See also Times of Israel, yesterday, 7/9/26, Citing Apparent War Crimes, Likely Next UK PM Urges ‘More Pressure’ on the Israeli Government; and Melanie Phillips blog posting (melaniephillips@substack.com) today, 7/10/26, Amoral Andy Sticks It to the Jews, subhead: Who cares that no-one knows how he’ll govern Britain? He’s passionate about Gaza.

You would think Britain, what with Sir Galahad spinning in his grave, has some at-home problems to deal with.  E.g., per Google AI:

“The UK grooming scandal refers to the systematic sexual exploitation and trafficking of thousands of vulnerable young girls across towns like Rotherham, Telford, and Oldham by networks of predominantly Pakistani men. Official inquiries revealed decades of institutional failures, with police and social services ignoring the abuse out of fear of being labeled racist.” [emphasis added]

  But let’s focus on how Great Britain shares responsibility with the Third Reich for the genocidal [n.b.] extinction of millions of Jews. In 1939, Britain reneged on its trusteeship of the Palestine Mandate with its Jewish national home by promulgating a White Paper ending Jewish immigration and purchase of land in Palestine by Jews. It enforced a blockade against Jews, even while Germany was still willing to let European Jews out.  Britain continued this trapping of Jews within Europe during and even after the Holocaust, right up until it left on May 14, 1948.  This also included prohibition of importing arms by the Jews (Arab combatants and arms entered), and confiscation of such arms as Jews had that British searches could find.

Even after it formally left, British anti-Jewish homeland efforts didn’t stop then. When the 1948 Arab invasion-started war’s outset saw the Egyptian army approach Tel Aviv, Britain was silent, but when near the war’s end when Israel’s army set foot in Sinai in its drive to evict the Egyptian army from the Negev, Britain instantly threatened to intervene on the Arab side if Israel didn’t retreat, which it did.

The 1948 war didn’t end with border-setting peace treaties, but with UN-demanded ceasefires followed by armistice agreements recognizing exclusively military-only ceasefire lines expressly declared not to constitute borders. This left in Arab hands Gaza, historic Jerusalem and Judea-Samaria, all part of Palestine west of the River to which the Mandate provision authorizing trustee Britain to exclude from the Jewish national home didn’t extend.

As Americans we appreciate Britain as America’s ally, but as Jews we have inescapable reservations.

America and the Jews

Mazel tov on its 250th birthday and all, we American Jews have to take a sober look at America.  When Lee and I gave our Powerpoint talk on our media bias book at The Friends of Israel Gospel Ministry, Inc., in New Jersey, we were asked in the Q&A “Do American Jews regard America as exceptional?” We answered that our people has an institutional memory extending back three thousand years, and that we don’t regard America as exceptional, we regard America as unique.” 

But that said, and rightly so, because America uniquely strives, for all its past and present shortcomings, to treat its minorities as part of itself, we can’t ignore the historical record.  When the great American Indian chief Sitting Bull appeared to Israeli PM Shamir in a dream warning “Yitzhak, let me tell you about Land For Peace,” his thought didn’t embrace his own people alone.  

The United States during World War II joined with Britain in failing to save Europe’s Jews.  See, e.g., chapter 20 of Yoram Kaniuk’s bio of Yossi Harel, Commander of the Exodus, summarizing Wyman’s The Abandonment of the Jews: America and the Holocaust, 1941-1945:

“… the two great democracies, the United States and Great Britain, were, in the words of an official of the American Treasury Department, ‘deeply committed not to save the Jews.’”

And even here in America during that dark period are the incidents of the ship St. Louis and official pressure to force the thousand Jews who were rescued to Oswego, NY, to leave after the War. 

Yes, President Truman did a gutsy thing in bucking the State Department for western Palestine partition at the UN, without which it would have failed, but the United States imposed an arms embargo effectively on Israel alone during the ‘48 war, and if you don’t believe it really meant it read Leonard Slater’s The Pledge.

Obama-fomented UNSC 2334 (see Bibi: My Story, pp. 577-578) declaring historic Jerusalem and Judea-Samaria “occupied Palestinian territory” was rightly condemned by former U.S. Ambassador to Israel David Friedman (One Jewish State, p. 78) as “the greatest betrayal of Israel” ever by a U.S. President.

So not just antisemites in America but official policy has at times been against us.

So What Do We Do?

I would have you read and act upon Philly ZOA Executive Director Steve Feldman’s JNS article Tuesday, 7/7/26, Zionism stands at the very heart of America’s founding and the American idea. He leads:

“As Americans celebrate the 250th anniversary of our independence, it is also fitting to celebrate Zionism, an independence movement thousands of years older that has been closely connected to the United States since the pre-founding era.”

I’m conscious of this millennia age difference.  My father was born in America in 1899.  Our just two father-son generations have lived for 126 years, half United States’ lifetime.  Compare Dr. Weizmann telling Britain’s leaders “Jews were living in Jerusalem when London was a marsh.”

Steve writes “Zionism and the American idea are intertwined, as proved in innumerable ways,” a number of which over the centuries he recounts. But he ends we must do more than celebrate that Zionism-Americanism connection:

“Yet despite this history and America’s Judaic roots, some have falsely depicted Zionism as ‘anti-American,’ along with numerous other slanders.

“These falsehoods have been disseminated through devices that almost everyone carries in their hands to browse the internet. They are found in school textbooks and on the shelves of public libraries. Politicians utter them from podiums and pundits deliver them on their podcasts.

“But as shown above, Zionism is as American as apple pie and, literally, the Liberty Bell. It does little good for Zionism or America for us to keep this knowledge to ourselves.

“Whether we express it to friends and family or shout it from the rooftops, we must proactively celebrate, promote and foster Zionism like never before in our homes and in every public forum we can. If we do not, proud Zionists run the risk of becoming pariahs in the nation that, other than Israel, has done more for Zionism than any other.”  [emphasis added]