What Does Gaza Really Mean?

When Hamas shot those rockets into a rock concert on October 7th, this date was 75 years and slightly less than 5 months following the declaration of the Jewish state in 1948. Over that period of time, this region of the world which is hardly very large has been the location of more than twenty major armed conflicts, many involving the United States and American armed forces.

The first conflict was the 1948 War of Independence which lasted almost a year and cost both sides somewhere between 15,000 and 20,000 lives. Then in 1954, we invaded Iran, got rid of a government we didn’t like and installed the Shah.

Remember him? He lasted until 1977 when a revolutionary movement directed by a cleric sitting in a Paris suburb threw him out.

Meanwhile, there was the Suez crisis in 1956, then the 1967 war which led to the creation of Gaza, by the way, and another war between Israel and the surrounding Arab states in 1973.

There was also a major conflict between Iraq and Iran which lasted 8 years, and the two wars that we fought with Iraq — Desert Shield and Desert Storm.

Let’s also not forget the eight-year war which started when Russia invaded Afghanistan in 1979, along with the American invasion of Afghanistan in 2002 which lasted until Joe Biden pulled our troops out in 2021.