Far-left media notoriously make various historical and statistical errors that lead the public to a divisive conclusion on Israel-Gaza/Hamas wars. The arguments are: (1) Unjust creation of Israel in 1948 provoked conflicts in the Middle East; (2) Foreign aid to Israel is about one-half of Israel’s Growth National Product (GNP), and 85% of that aid comes from the United States; (3) Israel response to Gaza’s attack on October 7, 2023, is excessive and disproportionate.
CREATION OF MODERN-DAY ISRAEL
The Arab-Israel conflict in the Middle East is centuries old. The conflict over land is particularly perplexing. Before the time of Christ, the Jewish people lived in their own kingdom; a Jewish-ruled state was located where Israel is today. In 586 B.C., however, the Babylonian Empire defeated Israel. As a result of it, many Jews were brought to Babylonian as slaves. Returning to their homeland after years of captivity, the Jewish people constructed a new state, only to be incorporated into the Roman Empire. Then, in 70 A.D., the Romans destroyed the Temple in Jerusalem, and the Jewish people scattered throughout the Roman Empire and beyond. From this time until 1948, Jews had no state.
During the intervening centuries prior to 1948, Palestinian Arabs and the Islamic religion predominated in the territory where Israel had been. The Palestinians, like the Jews, claimed the territory as their own. Thus, at one time or another, Palestinian Arabs and Jews both owned the land at the eastern end of the Mediterranean. This leads to a question, “Whose land is it?” Unfortunately, there is no simple, universally accepted answer.
In 1948, the United Nations proposed that Palestine be partitioned, with Jewish state being created along the Mediterranean coast and Palestinian state inland. It was not a perfect solution, and few people, least of all the Arabs, were pleased with it. But, at least, it was a solution, and both superpowers, the United States and the Soviet Union, were behind it.
U.S. FOREIGN AID TO ISRAEL
U.S. foreign aid to other nations in need is not only a critical humanitarian effort but also is in the national interest of the United States. During World War II (1939-45), the United States instituted a huge Lend-Lease Program ($50 billion at that time) to 42 recipient countries, including 11 countries who fought Nazism. The origin of U.S. modern-day foreign assistance dates back to the Marshall Plan. After World War II (1946-50), the United States instituted the Marshal Plan, which granted $13.2 billion (which translates into more than $130 billion in today’s dollars) to help restart the world’s economy and stabilize potential U.S. allies in Western Europe.
The U.S. president’s fiscal year 2023 budget request included $60.4 billion for the Department of State and the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID). Countries that received the most foreign aid from the U.S. in 2021 are: Israel ($3.3B), Jordan ($1.6B), Afghanistan ($1.4B), Ethiopia ($1.39B), Egypt ($1.29B), Yemen ($1.04B), South Sudan ($954M), and Congo (Kinshasa) ($825M).
The United States currently gives billions of dollars in security assistance to both Israel and Egypt to help maintain peace and stability in the Middle East. The United States considers Israel its most reliable ally in the Middle East and gives it more than $3.3 billion per year in foreign aid, and gives nearly $2 billion to Egypt as well. In September 2023, Israel Gross National Product was reported at $126.8 billion in U.S. dollars. Israel’s total foreign aid from other countries (mostly USA, England, France) in security assistance is about $5 billion.
ISRAEL-GAZA/HAMAS WAR
Far-left media and activists accuse Israel of excessive and disproportionate use of force against Gaza/Hamas in defending itself in today’s war initiated by Gaza. Historically, there have never been proportionate wars. None.
On December 7, 1941, Japan launched a surprise aerial attack on the U.S. naval base at Pearl Harbor, Hawaii. The attack killed 2,403 U.S. personnel, including 68 civilians, and destroyed or damaged 19 U.S. Navy ships, including eight battleships.
In response, on Aug. 6 and Aug. 9, 1945, the United States detonated two atomic bombs over the Japanese cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. The bombings killed between 129,000 and 226,000 Japanese respectively, most of whom were civilians, and remain the only use of nuclear weapons in an armed conflict.
ALASKA WATCHMAN DIRECT TO YOUR INBOX
The allied bombing of Germany from 1942-1945 almost completely ruined several major cities (Dresden, Berlin, Cologne), in bombing essential infrastructure and, in the process, killing thousand civilians. Nearly 27 million Soviets were killed during the war, including some of my relatives in Kiev, compared to nearly 9 million civilian and military Germans death by allied forces during the war.
On the 9/11, 2001, the Arab terrorists cowardly attacked and killed 2,977 people and injured thousands at the World Trade Center in New York, the Pentagon in Washington D.C., and in Somerset County, Pennsylvania. In response, the United States and its allies invaded two countries — Iraq and Afghanistan — and, in the process, disproportionately killed and wounded tens of thousands of civilians and military personnel.
The causes of the Oct. 7, 2023, heinous Gaza’s attack of Israel are deeply rooted in multi-faceted historic, religious and ethnic issues of global terrorism. Historically, terrorism has always been a complex problem for humanity and for peace-seeking nations. Only “united we win” again.
The views expressed here are those of the author.
5 Comments
Religion is poison
Do you ever have anything positive to say. You must be living a miserable life.
No and not.
“During the intervening centuries prior to 1948, Palestinian Arabs and the Islamic religion predominated in the territory where Israel had been. The Palestinians, like the Jews, claimed the territory as their own. Thus, at one time or another, Palestinian Arabs and Jews both owned the land at the eastern end of the Mediterranean. This leads to a question, “Whose land is it?” Unfortunately, there is no simple, universally accepted answer.”
Here is where you skip a LOT of important history. When NATO annexed the land now referred to as Israel, the settlers who took that land predominantly came FROM Europe. They were not settling an active dispute between native Jewish inhabitants and native Palestinians. This article wrongly suggests that the Jewish settlers who were leaving Europe, a place that had become largely uninhabitable for Jews due to fascism and communism, had a legitimate claim to the land. The claim they made was ONLY legitimate because of the UN declaration. Creating Israel solved Europe’s “Jewish Problem…” a term I didn’t invent, it was the term used to describe the issue in UN discussions leading to the annexation.
Obviously this led to other problems, like seeding perpetual enmity between the Arabs of Israel and the invasive European Jewish settlers. Osama Bin Laden himself said to a CNN reporter, in the last press interview he ever gave, that the reason why the Islamic world would attack America is because of their support for Jewish Israel. Maybe it wouldn’t have turned into such enmity if the decision to create Israel had been made with the cooperation of the locals. But it sure did not!! Thi we are here today.
GOD removed the Israelites from the land as he is doing we the inhabitants of this land as we both broke his covenant and butchered babies
and dedicated them to moloch. simple. we see the invading armies marching in and we do nothing in delusion of its not happening.