United States and Israeli Relations from post WWII to the Present

                Relations between Israel and the US since WWII have been complex, constantly waxing and waning in their strengths. Israel owes the US for its current economic and military strength, while the US has used Israel as a strategic ally in the Middle East, allowing for the strategic placement of military resources. The relations between these two nations evolved from the US support of the creation of a Jewish homeland just after WWII and have evolved into a constant political tradeoff that has repercussions all over the world, most importantly in Russia and other Arab nations. The US has always attempted to help Israel resolve conflicts in the Middle East with diplomatic solutions, but failing this the US has almost always supported Israel in its war efforts. In recent years, tensions have risen because of the strong support from the US for the creation of an independent Palestinian state and for the cessation of Israeli building projects in Palestine. However, the US still grants $3 billion in aid annually to Israel and Israel is the largest recipient of aid from the US since WWII.

Table detailing US aid to Israel

                Israel is a country on the Southeastern shore of the Mediterranean. It is a representative democracy where all citizens can vote. Its capital is Jerusalem, which is located partially inside of the Palestinian territories. Internationally, Jerusalem is not considered part of Israel. Israel has been occupying the Palestinian territories since 1967 after the Six Day War, and the US does not recognize Palestine as a state. The territory of Palestine was set aside in 1947 from the Jewish state of Israel to create a distinct Arab state. Since that point, tensions between Arab nations and Israel regarding borders and recognized sovereignty have been extremely high. In 1948, after the Arab-Israeli war, Britain, France, and the US signed the Tripartite declaration, which marked the beginning of official US/Israeli relations. The declaration said that each nation pledged to take action to prevent the violation of borders created after the war, oppose an arms race in the Middle East, and have a devotion to peace and stability in the region.

Map showing location of Israel and Palestine

                In the 1950’s, the US began providing Israel with economic aid for basic food supplies. However, with the looming threat of influence of the Soviet Union on Egypt, the US was forced to begin selling defensive weapons to Israel in case of war. Later, in the Kennedy administration, the US shifted to full support of Israel. This antagonized other countries in the Middle East, and perhaps pushed them to the side of the Soviet Union. The US failed to contain the tension diplomatically and was forced to begin selling offensive weapons to Israel. Despite US pressure for peace, Israel did not want to pull out of occupied Arab territories, especially Palestine. In order to gain attention from the US, Egypt engaged in a war with Israel in the 70’s. The US provided intense military support to Israel because of the Egyptian ties to the Soviet Union, despite the fact that Egypt expelled its Soviet advisors before the war. At the end of the war, the US pressured Israel into sparing a badly beaten Egyptian army, thus sparking peace between Israel and Egypt and preventing Soviet intervention. This was a major success for the US because it improved the US standing in the region and preventing further tensions, and possibly all out war, with the Soviet Union in the region.

The US began selling missile defense weapons to Israel

                Under the Bush Sr. administration in the early 90’s, the US began to express its request for Israel to abandon its policies of expansion. This further soured US/Israeli relations that had come under strain when the previous administration opened talks with the Palestinian Liberation Organization (PLO), the governing body of Palestine. During the Bush administration, Israel was still occupying several Arab states, including Palestine, where it was conducting building projects for Jewish people. Despite this, there was relative peace in the region. The US attempted to capitalize on this peace to advance Arab-Israeli peace in general. Peace negotiations began in Madrid, eventually leading to a UN resolution that improved Israel’s standing in the UN. However, the talks did little to improve the still tense situation between Israel and its neighbors. Under the Clinton administration in the 90’s, Israel and the PLO officially recognized each other and the US provided more funds for Israel anti-terror and defense efforts.

Emblem for the PLO

 As of now, the US is against the settlement of Israelis in Palestine, because it does little to improve peace and prevents the emergence of a Palestinian state. During the recent Bush administration, the US always encouraged Israel to pull out of Palestine during times of conflict, and the US still supports the creation of two states that live side by side in peace.

Obama and PM Netenyahu in talks to promote peace in the Middle East

                Today, the Obama administration and Secretary of State John Kerry continue to support a two state solution to the Israeli/Arab tensions. The US continues to pressure Israel to cease building projects and supports the idea that the PLO and Israel work together to create a border that makes sense from a demographic perspective, to create one Jewish state and one Arab state. The US and Israel are still strong trading partners, and the US provides military and economic aid to ensure that Israel continues to be a strong presence in the Middle East. 

Sources:

The Handbook of the Middle East

Key events in the history of Israel

US gov website on Israel

CNN article on Israel

US aid to Israel

Article on the alliance of the US and Israel

Detailed history of US/Israel relations

History of Israel from the Israeli gov website

Cinderella Man is an inspirational film about the unlikely story of a boxer in the great depression. The film highlights several difficulties that an everyday individual might encounter during this time period, such as struggling with money, jobs, family, and food. The film is overall very effective in its portrayal of historical facts and contexts, and it does a great job of conveying emotion and drawing the audience in to the story. For example, the film goes to great lengths to show the shame felt by the main character at several points in his life. In addition, difficulties in finding work, Hoovervilles, and the impact of the radio are also highlighted, providing accurate historical context. However, there are some aspects of the plot that are embellished in order to be more entertaining, such as the portrayal of the main antagonist.

The most prevalent aspect of the great depression was the lack of money all across America. This, at its core, is the basis of the movie. Braddock fights to be able to provide for his family, not for glory or fame. This is shown by Braddock’s simple demeanor and neutral statements at the press conference. He is also pressured by his wife not to fight, but does anyway because he knows that that is the only real choice for the wellbeing of his family. The film also shows how many companies were forced to cut labor in order to reduce costs and remain afloat. Braddock has to try his luck every day at the docks to bring home some money to keep the utilities on at his house.

Family life is a huge part of the movie, and it is fairly accurately portrayed. Braddock is always motivated by his internal desire to provide for his own family. This motivation was true in the US for many men before the depression, and, for the most part, did not change during the depression. Braddock also feels great shame when he is forced to go the government for aid. The culture at the time was such that individuals felt like failures if they had to ask for aid. This is emphasized by the fact that Braddock repays what he borrowed later in the film. Another example of this shame is effectively portrayed when Braddock’s friend is forced to abandon his home because of his unemployment. Braddock’s friend leaves his family because of his poverty and moves to a Hooverville, which are shantytowns of unemployed people in major cities.

The rise of the prevalence of radio is also effectively shown in the film. Beginning in this time period, radio became a way to bring people together and organize the masses. Several people from the community come together in churches, bars, and houses to listen to Braddock’s fight.

The film is effective in its portrayal of life in the 1930s during the depression. It shows how there were few aspects of life that did not suffer for nearly everyone in the US. It does an especially good job of highlighting the type of shame and other emotions that might be felt by a man trying to provide for his family during this time period.

                 

Great White Fleet Project Sources

Great White Fleet – History and Memorabilia

Naval History – Great White Fleet

Great White Fleet Information – Library of Congress

Smithsonian – History of Postcards
Online Library GWF Database
         -This source provided several pictures I used for my postcards. It also provided some specific details about the voyage that I used to embellish my postcards.

                No one intentionally writes history.  Instead, time is spent reconstructing the past; determining what events occurred and why, what people's thoughts were, how cultures were changing, and so on. How, then, do we reconstruct this picture? News articles, journals, books, and other media obviously help provide a great deal of information, especially starting in the 20th century an onward, but even these resources can leave important details missing. In this way, historians must be like detectives. They must study details and clues hidden among what we know about the past in order to fully comprehend an era. Often times the significance of these details isn't immediately obvious, such as architectural changes, developments in fashion, and subtle changes in language. However, when analyzed thoroughly, they can do better to illuminate a subject than a written history. That is why, in order to further understand the culture of urbanization at the turn of the 20th century, I have chosen to study food in the United States. Food was a clear choice because it literally powers the world. Changes in the way food is prepared, stored, and sold are constantly occurring, and they can sometimes reflect certain issues of the time, such as the issue of genetic modification in the present day. In this article, the various aspects of food as they relate to urban life from 1880-1920 in the United States are discussed.

Miner with a lunch pail

                Perhaps the first thing that caught my attention was a picture in the book, Breaker Boys. The picture showed men descending into a dingy coal mine carrying lunch pails. The first question that came to my mind was "what was in the lunch pails?" Another showed children carrying lunch pails on their way to work. Child labor and industrialization were two huge issues during the turn of the century. Industrialization fueled the blossoming economy and fed the fast pace lifestyle of the US. Without rapid industrialization such as what occurred in the late 1800’s, America would be vastly different today. So what fueled the industrial laborers? The answer is most likely sandwiches. Sandwiches, more specifically the ham sandwich, were actually invented in the mid to late 1800’s in Europe. They were popularized in the US as they closely fit the fast pace lifestyle. Ham sandwiches were quick and easy to make, and could even be nutritious. Sandwiches could be quickly made at home and eaten with one hand while on a short lunch break.

                Other foods that were either invented or popularized in the United States at the time were macaroni and cheese, fried chicken, corn muffins, eggs Benedict, soda pop, and strawberry shortcake. The diversity of these recipes lends itself to the influx of immigrants from all over the world. As urban centers diversified, so did their food. People of the same ethnic background tended to gravitate toward each other in neighborhoods in order to find comfort foods. For Jews, it was necessary in order to find kosher meals. In fact, Jewish culture at the time contributed many words to American culture, such as “bagel” and “schmaltz.” Related to this, cookbooks shifted to catering to upper class leisure to lower class necessities. High school cookbooks contained bland, white recipes that reflected the idea of a “melting pot.” These cookbooks were not designed to cater to one class of people, rather they were designed to be useful to many cultures.

Miniature replica of an icebox

                In urban areas with a constant ice supply, jellies, similar to jello as we know it today, became a popular dessert item among middle and upper class families.  However, for most an icebox was too impractical. Most people favored buying their food day to day. The invention of the train allowed for more people to move into urban areas and still have access to fresh meat and dairy products. The meat and dairy could be harvested at a farm or different city and shipped in overnight. This made consumption much safer, as before products like milk had to be harvested in the middle of the city. Cows were kept in cramped and unhealthy spaces, and the open milk jars had to be carried through a dusty and unsanitary city center to be delivered. Railroads lines also directly influenced the invention of strawberry shortcakes, as they expanded the strawberry season for the North East. More strawberries were available for a longer period of time, so people began to get creative.

Example of early cans from a grocery website

                The move of individuals away from an agrarian lifestyle to a city lifestyle necessitated an improvement in large-scale farming. The expansion of food production was made possible by railways as discussed earlier, fast ships, and developments in canning, chilling, and freezing. A mechanical cooler was developed in the 1860’s that allowed better and more sanitary milk to be transported to cities by rail. With respect to the improvements in agricultural technology, in 1840 it had taken 233 man-hours to grow 100 bushels of wheat. By 1920, it only took 87. There was such a sudden excess in food in the US that large amounts of wheat was exported to Europe to feed factory workers. Canning was invented in the early 19^th century in Europe and was soon dominated by Australia. However, after the Civil War the US took over Australia was the world’s primary producer of canned food. Canned foods were heated before being sealed, which was thought to force out the air to increase shelf life but actually killed off bacteria in the food. Meat, fish, fruits, and vegetables were canned and eaten. There was criticism of the flavor, but many people had never tasted the fresh product, so few complained.

                Much of the consumerism attitude of the US at the time is summed up in the Sears and Roebuck catalog from the 1890’s. It contains literally thousands of mail-order entries, bringing the feel of urban life to isolated places. It contains mail order groceries, such as canned items and raw meat. The Sears and Roebuck catalog claimed to be working for the consumer, saving them time and money and providing them with the highest quality product. The catalog reflected the rise of leisure in the US, as a result of growing excess money and time. Along with this came the rise of health foods. Dr. Kellogg’s diets and programs indicated a rise in the standard of living. Coupled with the advancement of water purification in cities, these diets reflected a shift in the US, from growing to optimizing. 

Example of a Sears and Roebuck catalog

Sources:

Food in History

This source provided a great overview on the changes in food and food technology at the turn of the century.

Breaker Boys

This source provided images of boys working in mines descending with lunchboxes in their hands. It led me to wonder what they ate for lunch on the job.

 The American History Cookbook
This source was invaluable because it contained many recipes from different time periods in the US and commentaries on their cultural significance.

The City

Provided some examples on cultural changes with regards to food in the city

Sears and Roebuck Catalog from the 1890’s

This reproduction of a catalog from the 1890's provided many examples of the goods being traded at the time. The wording of the paragraphs was very interesting and reflected several aspects of the changing culture.

Whenever I talk to someone about Andrew Carnegie who hasn't hear of him before, I always tell them, "Ever hear of Carnegie Mellon? Yeah, THAT Carnegie." Andrew Carnegie believed that the best way to improve the lives of other people was to promote knowledge, education, and peace throughout the world. He did this by creating many foundations that provide thousands of grants to institutions around the world. These include universities, teaching organizations, public outreach initiatives, and much more. He believed in the long-term benefits of educating a community, rather than the short-lived benefits of helping an individual or community by giving them money.

This approach is effective in that it will save and benefit many more people over time than simple donations would. The proverb "give a man a fish and you feed him for a day. Teach a man to fish and you feed him for a lifetime," applies here. The counter argument is that there are more immediate problems that can be solved with money, such as starvation and homelessness. However, these problems, while dire, will only be perpetuated if the roots of the problems- poor education and resources- are not addressed.

If I had hundreds of millions of dollars to give away, I would create a grant fund to encourage high school students to begin working on the problems that matter to them at a young age. The money would go to building better facilities in high schools, such as machine shops or labs; providing grants for high school students to pursue research, science projects, or social projects; providing scholarships to low-income children around the world who show a strong passion in academics; and to encouraging children to become more interested in academics.

Native American Language

It is commonly accepted that Paleoindians migrated to North America via a land bridge about 12,000 years ago to become what we know today as Native Americans. From the North, Natives spread all across the continent, east, west, and south into South America. They created complex and diverse communities, which were, in North America, centered around a close connection to nature and the environment.

One fascinating facet of the rich history of Native Americans is the incredible diversity of their languages. There were about 1000 distinct languages spoken in North America alone before the arrival of Europeans. The majority of these languages were complex; they were comparable in complexity to Russian or Latin.  With the exception of some smaller languages, known as “isolates”, most of these languages could be placed in language families. A language family is a collection of languages with a common origin that separated into dialects over time. This means that each language family had a distinct origin; each language originated at a totally different time or place from any other language and bears no significant relation to any other. Some of the most significant and widespread language families are the Algic, Iroquoian, Muskogean, Siouan, Uto-Aztecan, Athabaskan, Salishan, Eskimo-Aleut, and Mayan. The next map shows a general overview of the languages in North America at the time of the first European settlements:

[Picture Source]

It is interesting to note the geographical generalizations that can be gathered from the map. Muskogean is in the Southeast; Algic in the Eastern Midwest, Canadian outback, and Rocky Mountains; Siouan in the arid plains of the Midwest; Uto-Aztecan in the East; and Athabaskan in the southern deserts. Even though languages within families are related, a language could still be incomprehensible to a speaker of another language in the same family. Individuals separated by 100 miles probably would not have been able to communicate by speech. For inter-tribal communication, sign language was used as a lingua fraca.

The obvious question is why; why are the languages among Native Americans in North America so incredibly diverse? The origin for the diversity of the languages is unclear. One theory states that multiple groups of people came across the land bridge at the same time, each bringing their own language to North America. Another theory states that multiple groups came over an extended time period. The land bridge could have gone through several periods of existence, and different groups could have crossed during different periods, bringing with them different languages. Another theory suggests that some groups migrated across the Pacific Ocean in addition to the groups that migrated via the land bridge. There is not enough evidence to definitively disprove any of these theories, and more research is required to discover the true nature of early Native American history.

What can be explained, however, is why all of these different languages persisted in the same continent. This is because of the nature of Native American beliefs. To westerners, the idea of a non-absolute truth being applied to one’s basic principles is nearly incomprehensible. All of the Abrahamic religions have a definite beginning of the universe and separation of man from God and Eden. In contrast, Native American beliefs are more cyclic and individual in nature, with each tribe having its own creation story. The creation stories relate to the area in which the tribe exists, so there is no definite separation of the people from the superior, and the people always return to the land. Each creation story was able to coexist with the creation stories of other tribes, even though they may have been mutually exclusive. This difference in culture of Europeans and Native Americans is summed up by this quote from The Earth Shall Weep;

                “…the Native American ability to syncretize two realities- to accept that different people have
          different truths or to believe that two apparently contradictory statements can be true in different                   ways- has baffled and frustrated Europeans brought up with the idea of a single, monolithic truth.”

Native Americans believed that each tribe had its own special relationship with the superior forces, and that each tribe could fulfill its own tasks without worrying about what others were doing. Tribes believed that their neighbors were created to be part of a different landscape. This lack of concern for other tribes’ culture is what maintained the language diversity. Tribes mostly lived within their own community, and there was little need to talk to other tribes. Native Americans most likely thought of other tribes in a similar way to how we think of other planets; they were their own worlds. When it was necessary to trade, or perhaps during a war, communications were done with sign language.

Today, this incredible diversity is dying. Approximately 200 of the original 1000 Native American languages still exist, and only 20 of these are still being learned by children from their parents. Most languages are only spoken by older generations. Languages are important to study and preserve because of the traditional wisdom in spoken history and stories, importance in tracing the roots of humans, and learning about our past.   

Source can be found here

This picture shows a Native American making the sign language sign for "now".

Source can be found here

This is an early illustration of the Native American sign fro battle.

Paleoindians -This source gave some useful information about the very early history of Native Americans.It helped establish a foundation for my discussion.

Native American Sign Language -This source provided some limited information on sign language, but had an extensive database of pictures.

Native American Languages (Indiana University) -This source gave an overview of Native American language and gave me a rudimentary understanding of the technical aspects of language. It provided a lot of specific useful information about languages.

Languages in the present -This source provided information on the current state of Native American languages, as well as an argument as to why we should study linguistics.

The Earth Shall Weep -This source was extremely important and helped me form the basis to my argument about the connection between Native American spirituality/culture and language. This source the main reason I came up with my new theory.