Noah Pakutka

5/24/21
Sokoloff
Modern World History
Overview/Introduction
Throughout my life, I have wondered about my family descent. It makes me wonder
where I came from, where my parents came from and where their parents came from. Although I
find it interesting, I’ve never really had any clue on where to start. All I really knew before this
project was that I was a descendant of Polish people. I was right and wrong at the same time
about my family’s history. There is so much more to my family history that I found out and I just
think that it’s incredible what I could find. You may find this interesting, or you may not. I find it
interesting. It just feels powerful knowing where you came from instead of not.
In this project, I will be discussing a comparison between two different historical events.
One of my distant relatives (great, great, great, etc. grandfather) fought in the United States
revolutionary war. I interviewed my grandmother on my mother’s side to ask her more about it
and found interesting stories about what my grandmother knew. I will be comparing my relatives'
side, the US Revolutionary War to the Arab Israel War Conflict of 1948. Throughout this project
so far, I have used interviewing, made a transcript of that interview, have used noodletools to
summarize what I have researched on notecards with important websites, and have researched
those websites by reading carefully. Although the time periods of the Arab Israeli War Conflict
and the US Revolutionary War were entirely different, the experience of someone living during
that time was similar by government division, individual experience seeking change in
government, and overall expense of the wars.
Summary and Synthesis of Research
The US Revolutionary War’s main cause is to free themselves from taxation of the British. It was
initiated by the thirteen colonies of what the United States of America is today. There were major
disagreements between the two that cannot be ignored. The lives of the Colonies’ citizens were
overrun at times by British troops and the Colonies were tired of it. They finally decided to break
free from their motherland. This was quite similar to how the Arab-Israeli war was handled, in
the way that a country was fighting to keep their own land,
“I could only think that they were all going to war,” he (Ben G) said. Within hours, he was right.
Through the following May, when the British Mandate expired, civil war raged in Palestine.
This is important because it talks about the establishment of Israel. Similarly to the United
States, Israel splits apart from Palestine to become its own independent state. Unfortunately, a
day after that establishment, a war started between Palestine and Israel to gain their own
territories. It was a quite violent war with air campaigns from both sides and bombings. We can
see that both of these wars are similar by the fact that they both needed to devise or were already
divided from what they were once their opposing side in the war.
The US Revolutionary war had many patriotic soldiers that believed in something bigger than
themselves, which is why they are willing to fight. On both sides, US and British troops were
both patriotic and fought for what they believed in, it’s just that the US ended up on top. Most
importantly, this fact compares to the Arab Israeli war by the fact that the soldiers felt passionate
to fight for their country. “Between 1947 and 1948, the Haganah underwent major structural
reforms to incorporate various militias and become a professional fighting force, growing to
comprise 12,000 infantry and 20,000 reserves. On the other hand, it possessed only one gun for
every three soldiers and had serious shortfalls of heavy weapons, armored vehicles, and
artillery.” This shows that in the short period of time, Israel in itself created a major military. The
amount of soldiers in that short amount of time shows the dedication of Israel’s citizens. That
they have a good enough perception of their government and vision of freedom in the future that
they will fight for their country. Even through the violence, the Israelis fought for the country
that exists today, it is what they stand for. That individual perception should be respected just as
an individual soldier for the US army, such as Alexander Thomas.
The revolutionary war was expensive and cost much damage, it lasted over a long period of time
and caused plenty of deaths and injuries. In fact the cost of the revolutionary war was so high,
the equivalent cost of it today would be around 2.4 billion US dollars. You could say the cost was
definitely heavy, similar to the Arab Israeli War. “As it turned out, Israel extracted almost three-
fourths of the $300 million direct costs of the war from its own citizens, and while 86 percent of
Israel’s arms costs was born by foreign sources.” Although the Arab Israeli War had a
surprisingly low amount of deaths for the amount of damage that was caused, it was still an
insane amount of money, 300$ million over what was in my opinion an unnecessary war (like all
wars which are violent and rarely contribute to the goal of world peace)
Analysis of Research and Sources
Throughout the school year, our history class has been doing plenty of practice finding
reliable sources and websites that we can trust. Through trial and error, we studied the best ways
to source websites and funnel out unreliable sources, and I could say that I am an expert at
finding reliable sources and describing why those sources are reliable.
The first source is the New York Times Magazine article. The New York Times Magazine
is one of the, if not the most recognized news companies in the world. The New York Times has
130 Pulitzer prizes and is ranked 18th in the world as a news source. With this well known
authenticity, the New York Times Magazine would have no problem at all writing about a
historical event, or in my case, a war. This is why I chose this for my topic, since they are experts
on any topic in any field of research. If you do not trust the NYT, then you may not trust
anybody.
The second source I chose to represent is The Strategy Bridge. They are a nonprofit
organization focused on the development of people in strategy, national security, and military
affairs. Since they are experts in this field, that is the reason I chose them for a point of view on
the people living during the Arab-Israel conflict of1948.
The third and final source I chose from the internet is the Center for Israeli Education,
which is a government funded organization. Since it is a government funded website, it should
be a non-biased explanation of the Arab-Israeli war, which it is. This is the reason I chose to
show the total expenses of the war from this source, because if an Israeli government website is
not a plausible source, then there must not be any authentic source.

Further Research and Study

In conclusion, my research has certain flaws. When I conducted my interview on my
grandmother, I was imagining an entirely different topic than what I wrote about. Yes, there was
a little tangent of the revolutionary war in what she was talking about, but it was unfortunately
just not enough information about the revolutionary war from the interview to include in a paper
that compares it to another the Arab-Israeli conflict. However, I did do a lot of historical
research.
First off, I would have wanted to interview my grandmother again, asking her about my distant
relative who joined the war because he was fed up with the US government and wanted to see
change and establish a great country that still sustains itself to this day. I would have asked her to
talk about how Alexander Thomas fought until his last end breaking both of his legs yet wanting
to still fight and shoot at the British to keep his land from being overruled. This would have
compared well with the Israeli troops acting in a similar manner defending their country. This is
important because it talks about the persistence of my relative, Alexander Thomas, how he
fought for the United States until his last stand, did not give up, which I think is a good
representation of how the US acted during that time period. It was the story of how he fought as
an individual for his country, you could say that he was patriotic, how he fought for his country’s
division for a greater future like many did and then relate that to the Arab Israeli war. How
Israel’s soldiers fought to keep their land that they rightfully have.
Second, I would have asked my grandmother to talk about Alexander's feelings, maybe she could
understand how he felt and elaborate on how he seeked change for his country as an individual,
which is the reason he wanted to fight for it. The feeling as an individual of patriotically wanting
to join the army, it really shows that individual’s feelings and his good perception of the country.
He would have no reason to fight for it if he did not believe in it. I could relate that to the Arab
Israeli war, the sheer number of people that joined an army in such a short period of time, to fight
for what they believe in. An individual soldier’s beliefs may show what the entire country is
thinking as a whole.
Third and lastly, I wish I could have asked my grandmother a question about the expenses of the
war, how Alexander was part of a US Naval ship called the Congress, how it battled against the
Savage (a British naval ship) that destroyed George Washington’s estate. I could have definitely
expanded upon how this relates to the cost of the war. This is only one event representing a war
that lasted seven years, the damage cost of the entire war if raised by inflation today would be an
insane amount of money. I could relate this to not only Israel-Arab war’s total damage costs in
that short period of time fought in such close proximity within each other.