Making David into Goliath

Under both wartime presidents the Jews enjoyed popular sympathy, and public opinion supported Zionist aims, insofar as it was aware of them.

The views of America’s military and diplomatic leaders were, however, quite to the contrary. Diplomatic cables revealed to a postwar commission examining the Palestine problem showed that each time the White House had made promises to the Jews the State Department hastened to tell Arab leaders to disregard them. And after one Truman statement supporting further Jewish emigration to Palestine, senior American diplomat Loy Henderson went so far as to apologize to the British ambassador for the department’s inability to control the president.

Needless to say, Truman was a politician, and there were more Jews in America than any other country, especially after most of the others had been killed by Hitler. Undoubtedly Zionists lobbied him hard, to the point that he often expressed irritation. But to ascribe Truman’s actions to political considerations is unconvincing. He had a stronger reputation than any other president in modern times for doing what he thought right rather than expedient. And his support for Zionism began when he represented Missouri, a state where Jewish influence was insignificant.

Throughout his presidency “the State Department and Truman were at loggerheads” on Palestine, write the Radoshes. Uncharacteristically, the third of Truman’s Secretaries of State, General George C. Marshall, began as a visceral Zionist sympathizer with scant knowledge of the issue. But by the time the department’s Middle East experts finished briefing him he reversed his position completely. Once Truman decided to cast the American vote in favor of partition and to recognize Israel, he had to go to lengths to persuade Marshall not to resign in protest and oppose him publicly. This showed the toughness for which Truman was renowned, and which his predecessor did not share. David Niles, a White House aide who served both presidents, later wrote that he doubted Israel would have come into existence had FDR lived out his term.

Passage of the resolution in the General Assembly required a two-thirds majority. The American decision influenced others but was not sufficient to assure the outcome. Surprisingly, the Kremlin, never a friend to Zionism, decided also to support partition, calculating that the departure of the British from Palestine would enhance its own influence. This constituted one of the rare instances when a state’s calculus of realpolitik worked to the Jews’ advantage.