"Who did what for Israel in 1948? America did nothing."

[kentuck]

The early history of Israel is very interesting. They received the majority of their support from the Soviet bloc nations, including Russia and Czechoslovakia, not from America. Israel became a close ally for America when Russia sided with North Korea during the Korean War. This seems to be a fairly credible source.
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http://www.sullivan-county.com/islam/israel1948.htm

<snip>

This universal belief, never challenged by the media, is that the United States was wholly or largely responsible for fully supporting Israel on the ground from the very beginning of its independence in May, 1948.

<snip>
The major Arab armies who invaded the newly born Jewish state were British led, equipped, trained and supplied. The Syrian army was French-equipped and had taken orders from the Vichy government in resisting the British led invasion of the country assisted by Australian troops, Free French units and Palestinian-Jewish volunteer forces in 1941. In their War of Independence, the Israelis depended on smuggled weapons from the West and Soviet and Czech weapons.

<snip>
Czech assistance to Israel's military strength comprised a) small arms, b) 84 airplanes –– the outdated Czech built Avia S.199s, Spitfires and Messerschmidts that played a major role in the demoralization of enemy troops; c) military training and technical maintenance. On January 7, 1949, the Israeli air-force, consisting of several Spitfires and Czech built Messerschmidt Bf-109 fighters (transferred secretly from Czech bases to Israel), shot down five British-piloted Spitfires flying for the Egyptian air-force over the Sinai desert causing a major diplomatic embarrassment for the British government.

<snip>
Even with Czech weapons and Soviet aid, Israel would undoubtedly have been unable to halt the Arab invasion without a massive inflow of manpower. The United States, Canada and Europe provided no more than 3000 volunteers, many of them combat hardened veterans from both the European and Pacific theaters of war plus a few score idealistic youngsters from the Zionist movements with no combat experience or training.

But their numbers were a drop in the bucket compared to more than 200,000 Jewish immigrants from the Soviet dominated countries in Eastern Europe, notably, Poland, Bulgaria (almost 95% of the entire Jewish community) Romania, Yugoslavia, Czechoslovakia, the former Baltic States and even the Soviet Union who emigrated to Israel arriving in time to reach the front lines or replenish the depleted ranks of civilian manpower. Without both the arms and manpower sent from the "Socialist Camp", to aid the nascent Israeli state, it would have been crushed.

[The Magistrate]

1. It is An Odd Bit, Sir

The Soviets supported Israel on two levels. A degree of hostility between the Zionists and England post-war led to their adopting the view Israel might prove a wedge against English domination in the Near East ( it is worth remembering that, at the time, Egypt and Iraq, as well as Trans-Jordan, were essentially English clients, and no one considered this likely to change any time soon in 1948 ). Further, Zionism was definitely a left Socialist movement at the time, and the Soviets had a good deal of experience at taking left parties over from within and turning them to their own purposes. So Israel seemed, to the Soviets, to at least open the possibility of a cat's paw against the English totally under their control in the Near East.

The thing broke apart more under the pressure of Stalin's last purge, the 'Doctor's Purge', which took on a decidedly anti-semitic character. Relations between the U.S. and Israel remained fairly distant until after the Suez Crisis. Well into the sixties, France was the principal supplier of weapons to Israel.

[kentuck]

2. Very interesting...

Also, I read that the US did not supply any weapons to Israel until Kennedy was President. It's good to have an historical perspective, I think?

[Lithos]

3. It was Kennedy

And involved Surface to Air missiles, a defensive system. Most of the criticism there is mostly to smear Kennedy as the sale itself was fairly small in the bigger picture.

It was the sale of M48 Patton tanks in 1965 with some A4 Skyhawks shortly after which were the first real offensive weapons sold. The next sale was after the 1967 war and involved F4 Phantoms. These represent the swing to the US being Israel's major arms supplier. This was a very calculated set of deals which the US viewed as a counter to the large Soviet investments in Syria and Egypt at the same time.


L-

[Johnyawl]

4. I have a book on the '67 war...

...and at that time the Israeli Air Force's primary weapon was the Dessault Mirage III.

[The Magistrate]

5. The Site Is Pretty Far Out There, Sir: Extreme Libertarian At Best....

A few samples:

http://www.sullivan-county.com/id5/peck22008.htm

"The fact is that all fascism is simply non-Soviet socialism that maintains an appearance of private ownership."

"Progressives are Statist Tyrants that Violate Individual Liberties
All forms of fascism including Progressivism are statist' philosophies. All are atheistic like their Bolshevik cousins."

"This is where American Progressivism differs from its European cousins in they never overthrew democracy as such, just violated the Constitution by legal maneuvering or simply ignored it."

"Perhaps we are lucky FDR died on April 12, 1945. Because of his excesses the twenty-second amendment to Constitution was passed to limit the president to two terms.

Progressives are still racists and obsessed by racial equality as opposed to their racist' eugenics of the past, but not for the reason one thinks. They don't give a hoot about blacks or Latinos, they simply need them as useful idiots at election time."

http://www.sullivan-county.com/racism/index.htm

"Debunking Liberal Race Hustlers

by Lewis Loflin

Why do white Progressive racists target poor whites for attack at every turn? They are politically correct scapegoats. It's because these often ivy-league white elite hold poor whites in even worse contempt than they do blacks. Who operates the lousy public school systems that graduate scores of illiterate blacks in big cities? Rich white Progressives do.
Fed up with the press

Why would I present what I do here? The press is obsessed with "white racism" as the cause of failure in low-achieving minority communities. There's also a large element that wants to exploit them for votes for Progressive/Leftist causes. Most problems in low-achieving non-Asian minority communities is self-inflicted, while others effect all people regardless of race. To single out only non-whites as suffering from poverty and economic dislocation is simply a lie."

There is much more available there, but thes selections, I think, suffice....