I'm not anti-Semitic

I was at a talk by author Gore Vidal a few years ago. He was asked a question about Israel and the Middle East conflict overall. Vidal basically said something that Israel needed to pull out of Palestine and Lebanon. Someone got up and shouted at Vidal, basically calling him an anti-Semite. I think that this event symbolized Americans' relationship with Israel. Any person who criticizes that country is not pegged anti-Israel, but anti-Semitic.

Ever since Israel was founded after World War II, the Jewish state had a certain about of capital because of the holocaust. The thing is, Israel expanded beyond their territory for "relgious reasons" and eventually began wasting that capital. In fact, because of that capital that Western nations granted Israel, the country - not the Jewish people - began to bully its neighbors. In fact, every instance of an Israeli war with its neighbors in an overreaction and "safety" is used as an excuse for expansionism.

To fully understand the situation, let me show you a map from CNN:



Notice the locations of Lebanon, Egypt and Syria to Israel. Now here are some of the conflicts that have taken place since the end of World War II in that region:

1948 Arab-Israeli War - In short, after World War I, the British were in charge of that region. They split it into several pieces. "At this time (1922) the population of Palestine consisted of approximately 589,200 Muslims, 83,800 Jews and 71,500 Christians." However, Jews from Europe began to immigrate to the region. They called for a Jewish state. In 1947, two separate territories were formed in Palestine, one Jewish and one Arab. This immediately led to fighting. Several Jews were killed by Arabs. Initially, the Arab armies had the advantage, but by late 1948 that had all changed. Israel began to take more Palestinian land ... they also began to conduct "ethinc cleansing" (read: genocide) in the region.

1956 Suez War - In 1956, Egypt leader Abdel Nasser nationalized the Suez Canal Company, which controlled the Suez Canal. England and France joined with Israel for economic reason - they needed the canal. Israel invaded, but was forced to withdraw because of a U.N. resolution.

Six-Day War (1967) - Although Israel was forced to pull out of Egypt, the invasion showed how strong its military was. So with increased Arab aggression, Israel once again attacked Egypt. During this six-day war, 21,000 Arabs were killed and 45,000 were wounded - 779 Israelis were killed. As a result of this war, Israel took over the Gaza Strip and the Sinai Peninsula from Egypt, the West Bank (including East Jerusalem) from Jordan, and the Golan Heights from Syria.

Lebanon-Israeli Conflict - In 1978, terrorist organizations began conducting attacks on Israel. Israel than invaded Lebanon and only stopped because of U.N. resolutions ordering them to. The U.N. setup a security zone in Southern Lebanon. Then in 1948, after some more shelling by terrorist organization, Israel attacked Lebanon again. With the aim of "evicting" the terrorist organization. Sounds familiar, huh? They finally left the Lebanon security zone in 2000, but not before taking over a small part of Lebanon and building settlements there.

Israel has gotten away with being the aggressors in the region for 60 years. That needs to stop. The terrorism needs to stop too, but until Israel stops trying to grab more Arab land it won't. This cycle of small attacks by Arab countries, major assaults by Israel, will continue until this happens. My opinion doesn't mean I'm anti-Semitic. It also doesn't mean I'm against a Jewish state. All it means is that this country needs to end the cycle of aggression against its neighbors.