Derek Prince - The Arabs Gave Derek and His Family 24 Hours To Leave The Building
This is an excerpt from: How I Became Involved in Israel
At that time the real tension between Jews and Arabs was really developing. It became unsafe for us to live any longer in an Arab village. During World War II, the Arabs had been very kind and loving to the Jewish girls. And many of them still would have been, but there would have been others who probably would have done harm to them. We had to move, we moved into Jerusalem and we settled in a house which is today number 90 Hebron Road. If you want to find it, you can find it. It wasn't Hebron Road in those days and it wasn't number 90. Then came the 29th of November, 1947. You know what happened then, don't you?
There's a street in Jerusalem named the 29th of November. What happened? The United Nations voted to partition Palestine and give the Jews a state. They didn't know what that would mean in the land. But after that, Jews and Arabs no longer trusted one another. Up to that time they had lived, on the whole, fairly peacefully with one another. And so, in Jerusalem there were some areas that were totally Arab, some areas that were totally Jewish. They didn't change. But there were mixed areas where there were Arabs and Jews. Without anybody saying anything, each group sized the other up and decided who was the stronger, and the weaker ones moved out. They didn't take a lot of luggage or furniture with them because people seen moving became targets for snipers at that time.
By that time there were snipers in Jerusalem on the housetops who would shoot at anything. They would shoot at a cat or a piece of paper or a human being. Well, we lived in a mixed area called at that time Upper Baka. And Lydia and I said to ourselves, "Listen, we're Christians, We're both Arabs and Jews. This fight isn't for us. So, we'll stay". Well, we lived on the two top floors of the house. The bottom floor was an office of a Jewish businessman who had a Muslim Arab office boy. The Jewish businessman disappeared, we didn't see him any more. The Muslim Arab boy stayed and looked after the lower floor. One night one of our daughters went just a few houses down the road for a piano lesson. It was about dusk. As she came back she saw a truckload of Arab Legion soldiers right in front of our house and they were talking to the office boy.
Now, the Arab Legion was probably the most efficient Arab military force in the Middle East, trained and officered by British. They were theoretically part of the security forces in Jerusalem but there was no security for Jews where they were. I don't want to seem biased, that is just a fact. So, the moment this little girl saw these soldiers talking to the office boy she knew something was wrong. Instead of going in through the front she went around the back, up the side stairs to the second floor, dropped on her hands and knees, crawled out to a balcony which is still there today, and listened to what they were saying.
Now, she was fluent in Arabic. They were inquiring how many people lived in the house and what kind of people were they. The office boy was saying they were mostly women and mostly Jewish, and giving the ages of the girls. And so, the legionaries said, "We'll be back. What's the best time"? The office boy said, "If you're here at midnight there's no one around". Well, our daughter knew well enough what was intended. Interestingly, we were having a prayer meeting. There was a British police constable who'd come seeking the baptism in the Holy Spirit. Just about that time my wife Lydia got a tongue and I got an interpretation. It began, "I have delivered you from the snare of the fowler".
Well, as I gave that interpretation the daughter burst into the room, she looked as if she'd seen a ghost. She told us what had happened. We knew enough about Jerusalem and the Middle East to know this was no idle threat. First of all, the British constable went out and said, "I'll phone police headquarters and find out what to do". Well, the message was that maybe at midnight they would have a police patrol there, which would be one British constable, one Jewish constable and one Arab constable. Well, the Arab would never turn against his fellow Arabs and one Jew and one British against a truckload of Arab Legionaries would not be much.
So we knew nothing to do, we have to go. It was 7 00 o'clock when this happened so Lydia cooked a little food, which nobody was very excited to eat. We said to the girls, "Make up a little bundle with the things you need most that you can carry in your hand". It was interesting because every one of them, the first thing she put in the bundle was her Bible. At 9 00 o'clock at night, very quietly we filed out into the totally dark deserted streets of Jerusalem. No one went out after dark. There were snipers around, you didn't know what might happen. I took the youngest little girl, the English girl, in my arms and led the way. Then the girls followed in age order, and Lydia came behind and very quietly closed the door.
That was the last the family ever saw of that home. We didn't know where to go but in the middle of Jerusalem there was a British security zone surrounded by a wall of barbed wire as high as this ceiling. No one was permitted in it without a special pass, but we felt that's the only place we could go to. The constable said, "I'll go with you and I can go in". He went in and we stood for about 40 minutes at the entrance. I remember the British soldier that was in the sandbag sentry box was very polite and got up and gave Lydia his seat so she could sit down. The policeman went to the commanding officer and told the story and said, "Can they come in"?
After a while the commanding officer said, "All right, let them in". The news was you can come in. Well, it was 11:00 o'clock at night by then. We knew there was an American Assembly of God mission building in the security zone. We knew the missionaries. So around about 11:15 we turned up and said, "Here we are, can you take us in"? Well, they were wonderful, they said, "We'll put mattresses down". So, there we were, we're sleeping.
The next day at about midday the missionary in charge of the building took Lydia and me aside and said, "We've had a message from the Moslems that if you keep the Jewish girls in that building they'll burn the building down". He said, "We have a pregnant woman here and other women, we can't afford to take that risk". He said, "You and Sister Prince are welcome to stay but the girls will have to move". We said, "We're one family, where we go they go, and where they go we go".
So, 24 hours later we were out in the streets of Jerusalem again. This time we ended up in a British mission which was in what had become No Man's Land. If you heard of the... gate? You probably remember that, some of you. Well, that's just about where it was. They took us in and they were kind and hospitable. That's where we spent Christmas 1947. But, all around there were people fighting. Not major fighting but people shooting at one another, so we never walked past the windows, we always dropped down and crawled on the floor. Then we got a word that the American missionaries were going home and they needed somebody to look after the building. Would we like the job?
Well, I mean, it was the only hope for us. We moved back into the building, the missionaries moved out. They sold us their canned goods and so we had some food. Well, by this time Jewish Jerusalem was under siege because the Arabs all around were cutting off all the convoys that should have brought food into Jerusalem. The British administration was siding with the Arabs. They didn't arrest the Arabs but if they saw Jews with rifles they arrested them and took the rifles.
By April 1948 the city was virtually starving. I actually saw Jewish residents, doctors, dentists and people like that, going around the outside of our house plucking up grass to see if they could get some food. People had no heating materials so they would break up packing cases and light a fire and kindle it in the gutter to heat them. Because the American missionaries had left their food supply behind we had enough to eat. Then on the 13th of May, about 9 00 o'clock in the evening there was a knock at the door. The British officer was there and he said, "I want to tell you we're moving out. Tomorrow you'll be under the Jews because they are taking over this part of the city".
The next day there was a nice little note on our door from a young man who signed himself Phineas Pincas, and he said, "I'm in charge of the Hagganah for this area. May we set up a post in your garden"? Well, we knew they'd do it whether we said yes or no so we said yes. And anyhow, we were glad to have them there. So, we shared our garden from then onwards with the Hagganah. Then the 14th of May the war started, what they call the war of independence. At that time there were less than 600,000 Jews in the whole country, and they were surrounded by Arab states numbering 40 million, most of whom had armies with modern equipment. I'm British and I'm saying this, I was there.
I think the British calculated the Jews just cannot hold out, we better side with the Arabs. I would have to say that I witnessed a miracle, something I think just as miraculous as some of the battles described in the Bible in the Old Testament. You know what happened, 600,000 Jews routed 40 million Arabs, six armies. Lydia had been through a lot of previous troubles, she'd seen Jews with nothing better to defend themselves than a broomstick with a carving knife bound on the end. She said, "This time we're going to pray". I am not anti anybody but we prayed specifically that God would paralyze the Arabs because we knew that was the only hope for survival. And actually, the Jewish authorities said to Jewish women with daughters, "Keep a revolver loaded with one bullet for your daughter and one for yourself, but don't get taken alive".
After that these Hagganah boys and girls would come to us, we became very friendly with them. They would say, "You know, we can't understand it but we go into a place, we're outnumbered and they Arabs are better armed, and it's just as if they were paralyzed". They used the very word that we had been praying. Well then the fighting really started in earnest and those of you that know Jerusalem, the building we were in is on the corner of Agron and King George Avenue. Those of you that know the King's Hotel, it's kitty-corner across. It is not the Conservative Jewish Synagogue, or center. But at that time it was still an Assembly of God building.
Then the Arab Legions started shelling the city from Nebe Samoel, which is the highest area north of the city. They started firing hundred pound shells. The first hundred pound shell landed just behind our house. Two of our girls, one Jewish and one Arab were sitting in the window, and the blast knocked them down and a piece of shrapnel went through the window between their heads. The little Arab girl came in and said, "Momma, momma, a bomb has come into the house". We said, "Nonsense, it couldn't come into the house". "Well, come and see," she said. We ran to the room and there was a hole in the plaster of the wall opposite the window, and at the bottom was a large shell fragment.
So being incautious, I picked it up and it was still too hot to hold. I dropped it and waited until it cooled and I picked it up and it was most of the base of a hundred pound shell. Being British I was interested to notice that stamped on it were "Made in Britain". I said, "Thank you, Britain". Well, we survived. That house at that time had 23 rooms, it has more now. There was a laundry room in the basement where they just did the laundry. That's where we lived, all of us, everybody. One family, one room. Every now and then I would slip out, much to Lydia's disapproval, and go up to the attic and watch the fighting, which was interesting.
I mean, I saw it. I saw the Jews raise their flag over Barclays Bank which was one of the main focal points. That's the first time I had ever seen the Star of David raised like that. Then there was a cease fire imposed by the United Nations and when we emerged and went up to our living room we counted approximately 100 spent bullets on the floor of the living room. The front of the house we couldn't go out because it was directly exposed to the snipers. But I would go out of the side entrance, cross the street and go down to a little grocery store. We had got the first ration cards ever issued in Hebrew. I still keep them as a kind of memento.
I went to the store with the ration cards for a family of six, which we were at that time, and I said, "We want a week's rations". I'm convinced they treated us just like the other people. We got a loaf of bread about as long as my arm from the elbow to my fingers, and a lump of cheese about the size that I could hold in my fist, and that was a week's rations for six people. Well, I'd just like to read one Scripture which I think is appropriate. You see, a lot of things in the Bible that I'd been reading for three months in the desert suddenly became very real to me. It was like I was reading the day's newspaper.
I'll read two passages. The first is in Jeremiah 3:14. At that time, we in the British army knew very little about the Holocaust. It was something that had not been fully disclosed. We were beginning to get Jewish survivors in Palestine and I talked with several at different times. They would always say something like this, "Well, I'm the only member of my family that escaped in this city, but I have one relative in another city that escaped". Maybe a brother or an uncle or a cousin. Mostly German cities. I read in Jeremiah 3:14, and it's addressed to the north, which is Russia and Germany: "Return, O backsliding children, says the Lord, for I am married to you. I will take you one from a city and two from a family, and I will bring you to Zion".
It was so exact. I was impressed again and again that the perfect word of God is not metaphorical, it's not approximate, it's extremely accurate. The other Scripture, I don't believe this is the final fulfillment but it became very real to me, was Isaiah 66:8. "Who has heard such a thing? Who has seen such things? Shall the earth [or the land] be made to give birth in one day? Or shall a nation be born at once? For as soon as Zion travailed she gave birth to her children".
I realized I had seen that happen, a nation born in a day, the 14th of May, 1948. A complete nation, a very tiny nation, a very weak nation. But, with everything: a government, a police force, an army, a civil administration. In one day. I don't believe it's ever happened before, I doubt if it will ever happen again. It was so accurate. I believe there's a further spiritual application to that but it was so vivid to me.