By Sue Harris
May 11, 2026
The United States was founded and exists on stolen Indigenous land, taken in the course of an ongoing genocide. Israel was founded and exists on stolen Palestinian land, taken in the course of an ongoing genocide. In both countries, these genocides are a structural part of settler colonialism. The ideology grounding settler colonialism in both has helped to cement a long-standing relationship between Israel and the United States.
Israel was formed out of an alliance between the British ruling class and wealthy Zionist elites under the shadow of growing European antisemitism. On Nov. 2, 1917, British Foreign Secretary and former Prime Minister Arthur Balfour wrote the following to Baron Walter Rothschild: “I have much pleasure in conveying to you, on behalf of His Majesty’s Government, the following declaration of sympathy with Jewish Zionist aspirations which has been submitted to, and approved by, the Cabinet.
“His Majesty’s Government views with favour the establishment in Palestine of a national home for the Jewish people, and will use their best endeavours to facilitate the achievement of this object, it being clearly understood that nothing shall be done which may prejudice the civil and religious rights of existing non-Jewish communities in Palestine, or the rights and political status enjoyed by Jews in any other country. I would be grateful if you would bring this declaration to the knowledge of the Zionist Federation.” (avalon.law.yale.edu)
This letter, known as the Balfour Declaration, expressed the desire of British imperialism to make a “national home,” i.e., a new political entity, on someone else’s land. Who was Lord Balfour to establish that “national home” in another people’s country? Or Lord Rothschild, for that matter?
But it was 1917, and at the time Britain was a world power and had the military might to establish whatever suited its interests, including in West Asia. But why did they do it? In one word: oil. Palestine was and is situated in an oil-rich part of the world. The Palestinians had a very rich history but very little power. The Zionist leadership clearly had a capitalist orientation and was also white.
Jewish people were looking for safety from growing antisemitism in Europe but could be used by Zionists and the British imperialist government in ways that would give England more access to the oil-rich nations in this area.
With the Balfour Declaration, and what was once called “Ottoman Palestine” having become the British Mandate for Palestine in 1920, the Zionist movement moved ever closer to the goal of an autonomous state. The Zionists spent the years before Israel’s creation working in the fields and establishing the first settlements as well as forming clandestine terrorist organizations and settler militias.
The early Jewish immigrants to West Asia established the infrastructure that would support Jewish immigration to what would become Israel. At the same time, Jewish life in Europe seemed to be less and less tenable. In 1938, Zionist orator and writer Ze’ev Jabotinsky said the Jews in Poland were “living on the edge of the volcano.”
Rise of U.S. imperialism
However, the British empire grew weaker as the 20th century progressed, while U.S. imperialism grew stronger. When World War II ended, it was the U.S. that had the power, the money and the same imperialist motivation as Britain to support Israel’s creation.
Soon after President Harry Truman took office, he appointed several experts to “study” the Palestinian issue. In the summer of 1946, Truman established a special cabinet committee under the chairmanship of Dr. Henry F. Grady, an Assistant Secretary of State, who entered into negotiations with a parallel British committee to discuss the future of Palestine. No Palestinians were part of this discussion.
In May 1946, Truman announced his approval of a recommendation to admit 100,000 displaced Jewish people into Palestine and in October publicly declared his support for the creation of a Jewish state.
Throughout 1947, the United Nations Special Commission on Palestine “examined” the Palestinian question and recommended the partition of Palestine into a Jewish and an Arab state. On Nov. 29, 1947, the United Nations adopted Resolution 181 (also known as the Partition Resolution) that would divide Britain’s former Palestinian mandate into Jewish and Arab states in May 1948 when the British mandate was scheduled to end.
Under the resolution, the area of religious significance surrounding Jerusalem would remain a corpus separatum under international control administered by the U.N.
Although the U.S. backed Resolution 181, the U.S. Department of State recommended the creation of a U.N. trusteeship with limits on Jewish immigration and a division of Palestine into separate Jewish and Arab provinces but not states. However, Truman ultimately decided to recognize the State of Israel.
The Nakba begins – May 15, 1948
Palestinians forced from their homes during the Nakba, May 1948. Photo: Inside Arabia
The period before and the aftermath of Israel’s declaration of independence on May 14, 1948, has become known as al-Nakba (the catastrophe), when around 750,000 Palestinian Arabs were expelled or fled from their homes, becoming refugees in neighboring countries. Zionist militias killed thousands of Palestinians and destroyed or depopulated roughly 530 villages. May 15 is commemorated annually as Nakba Day.
Before the Nakba, Palestine was a diverse, culturally vibrant society with a bustling economy, characterized by coexistence between Muslim, Christian and Jewish communities. It was predominantly an agrarian society, with over two-thirds of the population living in rural villages supported by olive groves and farming, alongside urban centers like Jaffa, Haifa and Jerusalem.
The 1948 attack by Israel on the existing Palestinian villages resembled the U.S. government’s clearing (or “cleansing”) of Indigenous people in the mid 1800s. The forced relocation of Indigenous peoples involved the state-sanctioned removal of tribes from their ancestral lands to designated territories, often resulting in massive mortality rates, such as the 4,000 to 15,000 deaths of Cherokee people on the “Trail of Tears.” [more than the Cherokee were involved] Driven by expansionism, the 1830 Indian Removal Act displaced over 100,000 people, causing lasting cultural, economic and physical devastation.
U.S. and Israel today
Since the Nakba in 1948, the U.S. has continued an unapologetic commitment to Israel over the years, at the cost currently of over $3 billion annually. There are powerful imperialist incentives for this commitment.
As former President Joseph Biden said while in the U.S. Senate, “Were there not an Israel, the U.S. would have to invent an Israel to protect our interest in the region.” And, “There is no apology to be made,” for support of Israel in the Senate, because “It is the best $3 billion investment we make.” (C-Span, June 5, 1986)
It is the U.S. that has financed Israeli expansionism in West Asia. It is the U.S. that has provided the superior weaponry, the bulldozers and the defensive systems. Without the U.S., Israel could not exist. Israel’s atrocities and its compulsive militarism are at the bidding of the U.S., not the other way around.
The United States committed Israeli-style war crimes for three centuries before Israel even existed. The skill of U.S. media apologists, racism against the victims and limited technology have made those crimes less obvious until today. However, to say that the U.S. is following Israel’s lead in the current war against Iran and West Asia in general is like saying “the tail is wagging the dog.” The Zionist apartheid state is a tool of U.S. imperialism.
