Press+Release+Announcing+US+Recognition+of+Israel,+1948+(2)**

Ryan Wilk Mr. Nolen 4/3/09 Document project on the U.S. recognition of Israel

The press release announcing us recognition of Israel was a brief and concise statement issued by President Harry Truman in 1948. Truman wrote this statement, recognizing Israel as a country, only eleven minutes into a worldwide speech that proposed the idea. Truman’s quick actions made the United States the first country to accept Israel as an independent state.
 * Times, issues and histories:** Israel was at first just a strip of land mandated by the League of Nations after World War I. It was a homeland for jewish people meant to be separate from other arab nations, however it wasn’t granted its independence until after world war II. President Harry Truman realized that this document was necessary after looking back on all the discrimination the jewish people dealt with during the holocaust. In addition to that, Britain declared a Balfour declaration in 1917 which promised a jewish state. Truman was a man who believed that all promises should be kept, and for those reasons Truman supported the creation of Israel. The land was originally owned by Britain, who opposed letting it go, but after much persuasion by the United States, they did. There were a lot of forces that were involved in the creation of Israel such as the League of Nations, the United Nations, the United States, Britain and Palestine.
 * Controversies:** The issuing if this document was a big decision for Truman. There were many things that could have, and maybe did, go wrong. One controversy was the State Department. Secretary of state George Marshall disagreed with Truman when it came to recognizing Israel as a country. His disagreement with Truman was so bad, that he threatened to not vote for him in the next election. The different religious groups during that time period did not get along so well, and Marshall feared that if The United States supported something that would benefit the jewish people, than the muslim countries might refuse to trade with the United States in anger. This would be problematic, because the United States depended on the oil that it had imported from the Middle East. President Truman issued this document anyway, but that still was a large conflict that he had to face during his considerations of recognizing Israel.
 * Significance in American history and a ranking from 1 to 100:** The significance of this document in American history as a whole is undeterminable at the moment, because some of the issues that spawned from what Truman did are still being resolved today. The United States has supported Israel ever since it became a country in 1948, and just as George Marshall had predicted, it gave Islamic nations (such as Iran) additional reasons for disliking us. Some issues resulting from this document are still unresolved the outcomes in the future may prove very significant or they may not, but with this limited knowledge, on a scale from 1 to 100 on levels of importance I would rank it about a 20 because that number is a low number, and this document is responsible for the problems that the United States is having with Iran now. This is why gas prices have gone up which may eventually lead to many Americans with low paying jobs unable to drive cars, and the idea of Americans unable to drive cars is one of the most terrible things that could ever happen to this country.
 * ID the document 11 spaces prior:** The document 11 spaces before this one was titled “Aerial Photo of Missiles in Cuba, 1962.” These two documents are similar, because they both have to do with 2 sides disliking each other because of their different ways of doing things. In the Cuban missal crisis document, the communists disliked the Americans because they use the capitalist system of government rather than the communist. In the Israel document, the palestinians disliked the Israelis, because they supported a different religion than most people in Palestine. The documents are different because one involves America and the other doesn’t. The document concerning Israel is more important because that conflict has been going on for many more decades. Many documents relate to two sides opposing each other because they are different, this ongoing hatred between the Palestinians and the Israelis can not lead to anything good, it hasn’t and it never will.