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The Destiny of Britain and The Forsaken Promise - Printable Version

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The Destiny of Britain and The Forsaken Promise - Dave - 02-07-2008

I've just got a couple of films called <URL url="http://www.thedestinyofbritain.org.uk/">The Destiny of Britain and <URL url="http://www.theforsakenpromise.org.uk/">The Forsaken Promise, produced by the <URL url="http://www.hatikvah.co.uk/">Hatikvah Film Trust. You can view trailers for both films on their mini-websites.



The Destiny of Britain came out at the end of last year and explores how the vision for the return of the Jewish people to the Holy Land developed and grew within the church in Great Britain for 300 years, and climaxed in the Balfour declaration of 1917. The emphasis is that it was Biblical prophecy that motivated many famous churchmen to seek the restoration of Israel, combined with Britain's political interests in having a worldwide empire. It's a unique exploration of a little-known subject. People like the Wesleys, Wilberforce, and Shaftesbury, to name a few, are best known for their evangelistic and social activities, but they were also strong supporters of the Jewish people.



The Forsaken Promise came out just over a year ago and looks at how Britain reneged on her promises in the Balfour declaration, leading ultimately to the deaths of countless Jews in the holocaust. This brought about huge anti-British feeling amongst the world-wide Jewish community, culminating in British withdrawal from the Holy Land, and the Jewish people having to declare their own independence and found the state of Israel themselves. The subject matter is again not common knowledge and deserves a wide audience.



Having seen the films, I wish I'd bought The Forsaken Promise when it first came out, but I'd been deterred by the slightly high price. The films cost GBP 20 each, and there is an offer of both for GBP 30 (which prompted me to buy them). However, they are definitely well-worth the money even at the full price. There's about four hours of material on each (both are double DVDs) and I now feel that you get a very good deal. They are professionally filmed to a high standard, and the picture and sound quality are excellent. Considerable effort has been made to investigate the subject matter in great detail and locate archive information. None of this comes cheap, and I feel that the efforts of the makers are most praiseworthy.



Both films made me cry, for different reasons. In The Destiny of Britain, I was moved by the love and concern for the Jewish people shown by many leading churchmen and politicians of previous generations. But The Forsaken Promise gives the opposite picture, a dreadful state of affairs apparently motivated by institutional anti-semitism, which is really quite distressing.



The material presented is well-researched and historically accurate. The many interviews with both eyewitnesses and academics are of immense historical value and give fascinating insights into people and events that go far beyond anything one could read in a book. A holocaust survivor and a member of the Jewish underground share their harrowing experiences, and a lady who saw General Allenby's entry into Jerusalem in 1917 describes the scene. Contentious topics are explained in context, such as the precise meaning of the wording of the Balfour declaration and the Jewish violence against the British. Of course, nothing is perfect and I do have a few minor concerns, but I'm not even going to mention them here.



I would say that both films are very important and I can highly recommend them - in my view they should be compulsory viewing for every believer, and certainly for all church leaders.