Rabbi Uri Pillichowski
Israel Hayom, May 2, 2023
“For well over a century, many Americans, including presidents like Abraham Lincoln, Franklin D. Roosevelt and Woodrow Wilson believed in the Jewish people’s right to the Land of Israel.”
As Israel celebrated its 75th birthday last week, scores of American elected representatives, from the president to members of Congress to mayors across the country celebrated 75 years of a strong US-Israel relationship.
House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries released a video from Israel in which he said, “75 years ago the State of Israel was born, and over the last 75 years there has been a special relationship between Israel and the United States of America.”
A question worth asking is if the US-Israel relationship has been as special for 75 years as it is today. Lately, anti-Zionists have used the strong US-Israel relationship as a talking point. They claim that the Jewish people are illegally occupying Palestinian land and that Zionism is a colonial enterprise. Zionism has been successful at stealing Palestinian land because of US support. Without it, the anti-Zionists hold, the Jewish people would never have been given a land at all. Many Zionists respond to this in the wrong way. Instead of focusing on Israel’s strength and resilience, they denigrate the US-Israel relationship. They claim the relationship isn’t as old or as special as its advocates claim. These Zionists have begun retelling the history of the US-Israel relationship and call into question the traditional narrative.
They claim that, in the early 1940s, America knew about the Holocaust and did nothing to stop it. Then, America did everything it could to prevent the Jewish people from declaring their own independent state. They point out that President Harry S. Truman only granted Israel de facto, rather than de jure recognition. They also note that the US joined the arms embargo against Israel and did not sell weapons to the Jewish state for almost 20 years. … [To read the full article, click here]