Iran and Jews

Iran is in the news because of their nuclear program and the country most threatened is Israel. Most people are not familiar with Israel’s place in the Middle East but they have been there for over 3,000 years. When Abraham was told by God to sacrifice his son he took him to a place near Jerusalem. Throughout history the Jews have longed for a homeland and this longing is referred to as Zionism.
During WW 1 the allies led by England were struggling against the German war machine and they needed a source of acetone to make explosives used in weapons and a Jewish biochemist named Weizmann discovered a way to manufacture acetone using microbes and this helped England win the war. Weizmann and others were Zionist and this discovery was, among other things, the incentive for an English lawmaker named Balfour to suggest a Jewish homeland in the area known as the Palestinian territories including the city of Jerusalem. At that time there were only a few Jews living there among a majority of Arabs.
Not much happened until Hitler took over Germany in the 1930’s and when he became a threat to the Jews many started to migrate to the area around Jerusalem. By the time the war was over there were about 600,000 Jews living in this new area along with twice that many Arabs.
It was then, 1948, that the United Nations declared the State of Israel and answered the long held dream of the Zionist. Immediately a half dozen Arab countries declared war on Israel and this was the first of five wars, the last of which was 1982. There have always been tensions between the Jews and the Arabs and many American presidents have tried to broker a peace deal but none have succeeded. Most people today advocate a two state solution where Israelis can live side by side with Arabs but that has not come to fruition.
During WW 11 most Arab countries were on the side of Germany and only the Israelis sided with the Allies. The friendship between the US and Israel was cemented at that time and is alive and well today. There are fewer than 15 million Jews in the world and about one-third live in Israel and another one-third live in the US.