In the 50s, the consensus was that the Jews were not a martial race while the Arabs were. The effeminate Jew could never stand up to the martial, masculine Arabs. We found out whether that was the case in the 60s and 70s.

Bad example. Israel literally won a war of independence in 1948, and in 1956, they invaded Egypt (with the help of Britain & France).

And if the bible stuff is true, Jews and Arabs have been at war with each other for centuries. It wasn't until the Roman Empire had reached the levant and put them both down that things went quiet.

China's only strength is that they have sheer numbers of soldiers to throw at the enemy. But they never had the capabilities to move them to separate continents.

During WW2, America had to fight a war on both its shores, as well as landing in Africa and fighting through France to reach Germany. China had never left Asia, and yet their small island neighbor called Japan had successfully beat other European empires and was pushing hard into the Chinese mainland.