A review of Martin Gilbert’s “Israel: Birth of a Nation” (History Channel)

“The Land of Israel was the birthplace of the Jewish people. Here their spiritual, religious and political identity was shaped. Here they first attained to statehood, created cultural values of national and universal significance and gave to the world the eternal Book of Books.

After being forcibly exiled from their land, the people kept faith with it throughout their Dispersion and never ceased to pray and hope for their return to it and for the restoration in it of their political freedom. Impelled by this historic and traditional attachment, Jews strove in every successive generation to re-establish themselves in their ancient homeland.”

– “Israeli Declaration of Independence,” 14 May 1948

This film is actually about the Arab-Israeli War of 1948, not the creation of the state of Israel

The establishment of the modern state of Israel is one of the greatest events in world history. In 1948, the Jews returned to their ancient homeland. But the land was now inhabited by the Arabs instead. Moreover, the Arabs weren’t too crazy about the return of the Jews, and were willing to go to war with them to prevent Israel from being re-established. Thus, this documentary is actually about the Arab-Israeli War of 1948. It does not give the political background on how the modern state of Israel was created. It does not even give much political background about the war itself. Thus, it may be necessary for me to give some of the missing background here, and show a few of the things that this documentary omitted. Along the way, I will also give some praise for those things that I believe the documentary to have done well.

History of the European Union

“By this Treaty, the HIGH CONTRACTING PARTIES establish among themselves a EUROPEAN UNION, hereinafter called ‘the Union’, on which the Member States confer competences to attain objectives they have in common.”

– “Treaty on European Union” (also known as the “Maastricht Treaty”), 7 February 1992 – later replaced by a modified version of the treaty in 2007

Europe was devastated by World War II …

Europe was devastated by World War II. Even in the winning countries, there was destruction from bombing by one side or the other. And in the losing countries, the devastation was (if anything) even worse. In Germany, a new “Iron Curtain” was forming, and their old capital city of Berlin was divided. Everything to the east of that Iron Curtain (except West Berlin) would be controlled by the Soviet Union, and managed exclusively for Soviet benefit. The countries to the west would have an opportunity for freedom and prosperity, but the Eastern Bloc (at this time) did not. It was in this postwar environment that the European Union’s earliest predecessors were formed.

Hamburg, Germany, after a massive Allied bombing in 1943

Karl Marx contradicted himself about zero-sum games

A “zero-sum game” is one where you can only gain to the extent that others lose

Marx once argued that the economy was a “zero-sum game” – or, in other words, that one can only gain to the extent that others lose. But he seems to have undercut this idea within one of the same chapters where he proposes the idea. Thus, this is one of many areas where he contradicts himself, as I will show with some quotations from his work “Das Kapital.” Incidentally, all of the quotations from that work in this particular blog post are from Volume 1, Chapter 5 of the work – as published by Marxists.org.

Karl Marx