why did America set up Israel, were the Europeans involved in this as well?

Answer 1

Wrong!

Israel was set up by the United Nations, and not just the U.S., OR European countries.

Answer 2

The idea of a state of Israel of first mooted by the British cabinet in the Balfour Declaration of 1917 which accepted the Zionist plans for a homeland for the Jewish people. This arose out of the discussions of what to do with the Ottoman Empire once WWI was over. This is what it said:-

Foreign Office,
November 2nd, 1917.

Dear Lord Rothschild,
I have much pleasure in conveying to you, on behalf of His Majesty's Government, the following declaration of sympathy with Jewish Zionist aspirations which has been submitted to, and approved by, the Cabinet:
"His Majesty's Government view with favour the establishment in Palestine of a national home for the Jewish people, and will use their best endeavours to facilitate the achievement of this object, it being clearly understood that nothing shall be done which may prejudice the civil and religious rights of existing non-Jewish communities in Palestine, or the rights and political status enjoyed by Jews in any other country".
I should be grateful if you would bring this declaration to the knowledge of the Zionist Federation.

Yours sincerely
Arthur James Balfour

There was some dispute over what was exactly meant by the words 'national home'. In public it was said that a state was not intended although in private many accepted that such would be the outcome.

The Americans weren't that much interested in the Middle East at first - remember it was the French who armed the Israeli air force with Mirage fighters. It was not until the late 1960s/early 70s that America began to take an interest - partly as part of the cold war manoeuvring and partly in a desire to safeguard oil in the light of the massive price increases caused by OPEC sabre rattling in the early 1970s

Answer 3

America didn't. The United Nations did.

On the 29th November, 1947, the United Nations General Assembly passed a resolution calling for the establishment of a Jewish State in Eretz-Israel; the General Assembly required the inhabitants of Eretz-Israel to take such steps as were necessary on their part for the implementation of that resolution.

Answer 4

I think you don't have it just right.

On November 29, 1947, the UN General Assembly passed resolution 181. As a General Assembly resolution, 181 had no force of international law. The international legal basis for the Jewish state was the 1922 League of Nations Mandate for Palestine which charged the British government with administering the area earmarked as the future Jewish state.

Indeed, if anything, resolution 181 sought to legitimize illegal moves taken by Britain throughout the term of its mandate. As the League of Nations mandate made clear, Britain was supposed to preside over the territory of the Mandatory Palestine and to foster the establishment of a Jewish state which would eventually replace the British mandatory government. Yet almost from the get-go the British did just the opposite. They established the Hashemite Kingdom of Transjordan on the majority of the land slated for the Jewish state. Moreover, they took all possible steps to prevent the Jews from establishing a state on the remainder of the land. They blocked Jewish immigration and limited the right of Jews to purchase and settle the land to a tiny portion of the territory - which they believed would be too small to sustain a sovereign state.

It was due to the British failure to destroy Zionism and block the Jewish people from establishing their state that the UN partition plan was brought into being. That is, far from establishing a Jewish state, 181 simply accepted an already existing national entity. Despite the best efforts of Britain, the Jews had already established their state in 1947. It would have existed even if the resolution had not passed.


And just as the Bush administration is now treating Palestinian terrorists with deference while treating Israel abusively, so too, it is expending American political capital and prestige to woo oppressive, anti-American, pro-jihadist regimes like Saudi Arabia and Egypt. Perversely, rather than thank the Americans for taking Israel to task as they have demanded, the Saudis forced the Bush administration to beg and genuflect to them before agreeing to participate in the conference. And that participation too was conditioned on US willingness to embrace the so-called Saudi plan for Middle East peace from 2002. The Saudi demand and the American willingness to accept it tells the entire tale of the moral and strategic failure of the Annapolis conference. The Saudi plan demands an Israeli withdrawal to the indefensible 1949 armistice lines, an Israeli acceptance of millions of hostile foreign Arabs as citizens within its truncated borders and an Israeli renunciation of sovereignty over all of Judaism's sacred sites in Jerusalem. Once Israel implements all of these demands, the Saudi plan states that the Arab world will take steps towards having regular relations with it. That is, the Saudi plan which the U.S. included in the terms of reference for the conference is a plan for Israel's destruction.


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Answer 5

It was the United Nations who set up Israel. The US was hesitant but I guess South America had no hesitation to the idea.

Answer 6

Thank goodness the US did not have her fingers in the pie in 1947 - it is bad enough now. Just imagine what George Dubya and friends could have done then!!

Oil is God in the Middle East and one to which everyone bows regardless of religion.

The Arabs give thanks and the West begs on her knees!!

Answer 7

Um... it was the European's idea, not ours.