In Recognizing Israel, Truman Honored America's Promises
In Recognizing Israel, Truman Honored America's Promises
By Michael T. Benson
Undersecretary of State Robert Lovett once said of Franklin D. Roosevelt that
FDR wanted to play every instrument in the band “and that’s a good
way to get a split lip.” While the Roosevelt enigma still looms large
over the U.S. presidency, his position with regard to American support of a
Jewish state in Palestine is even more mercurial. In “Promises Wilted
in the Mideast,” Bill Tammeus recounted some of Roosevelt’s statements
to King Ibn Saud in February 1945 that included a pledge that the president
would make “no move hostile to the Arab people.” What Mr. Tammeus
did not mention were the polar opposite promises made by FDR in support of a
Jewish homeland in Palestine, a policy long supported by the United States government
as stated in the 1917 Balfour Declaration.
Both the Republican and Democratic Party platforms of 1944 stated explicitly
their support of a democratic Jewish state in Palestine. In the mid-1940s, numerous
resolutions were passed in both the House and Senate calling for a Jewish state
in Palestine. To these resolutions, acting Secretary of State Edward Stettinius
sought to assuage Arab anxiety by stating that such actions merely “represented
the views of the members of the two Houses and would not have been binding upon
the Executive.” Such was the view of a State Department bent on inexorable
opposition to a Jewish state based on geopolitical, strategic, and military
grounds.
While FDR may have promised much to the Saudi king, both his private and public
comments to supporters of a Jewish state in America were much different. In
separate letters to both Senator Robert Taft of Ohio and Robert Wagner of New
York in October 1944, Roosevelt committed himself personally to a “free
and democratic Jewish commonwealth” in Palestine. For every promise made
to King Saud, there was a Rooseveltian counter promise – such as this
one to Henry Morgenthau, Jr., – that included a plan calling for “barbed
wire” around Palestine and moving Arabs out as Jews moved in. Fearing
diminished support within the Jewish community just a few weeks following his
meeting with King Saud, Roosevelt authorized Rabbi Stephen Wise to tell the
press that the president stood by his pledge to work toward the realization
of a Jewish state in Palestine.
Such was the entangled web of American policy and promises in the Middle East
that Harry Truman inherited in April 1945. In more than half century since the
president’s historic recognition of the Jewish State, Truman has become
widely recognized as the one American who did more to assist in the creation
of Israel than any other individual. As Trygve Lie, first Secretary General
of the United Nations, stated, “I think we can safely say that if there
had been no Harry Truman, there would be no Israel today.”
Critics of Truman’s immediate act of recognition have accused the president
of everything from crudely pandering to American Jews for money and votes to
providing the classic case of the determination of American foreign policy by
domestic political considerations. And while Mr. Tammeus may cite the Arab belief
that Truman broke FDR’s promise to King Ibn Saud, he was merely fulfilling
America’s prior commitment to a Jewish homeland in Palestine.
It is clear that the principal foundation of American-Israeli partnership owes
more to the historical affinities reaching back deeply into the national experience
of both peoples than to any transitory conditions of political harmony or international
expediency. The immense disparity between the size and power of the United States
and that of Israel is outweighed by a deep harmony of values, memories, spiritual
connections, and democratic loyalties.
Such values were evidenced in the early days of our republic. When Benjamin
Franklin formally proposed before the Continental Congress of 1776 the adoption
of the Seal of the American Union portraying Moses parting the waves of the
Red Sea, Thomas Jefferson preferred a less bellicose design. Jefferson’s
conceived pictorial depicted the children of Israel struggling through the wilderness,
led by a cloud by day and a pillar of fire by night. Though neither proposition
was adopted by the Congress, the following was chosen from the Book of Leviticus
for inscription on the Liberty Bell, the national symbol of independence: “Proclaim
Liberty throughout all the land unto all the inhabitants thereof” (25:10).
Indeed, Judaic heritage deeply impressed the minds, hearts, and attitudes of
America’s early settlers and helped to shape the nascent republic.
Despite overwhelming public opinion in the mid 1940s in favor of a Jewish homeland
in Palestine, such a proposition posed substantial security risks to a United
States State Department bent on “containing” Soviet expansion in
Eastern Europe and the Middle East. All of Truman’s foreign policy advisors,
to a man, were dead-set in their opposition to the president’s support
of a Jewish state. The strongest opponent to Truman was, ironically, the man
whom the president admired most and even called “the greatest living American”
– General George C. Marshall.
Two days before Israel’s declaration of independence, Marshall made an
ominous threat to publicly oppose the president on this issue. While such opposition
would have been catastrophic for the Truman Administration, the president nevertheless
granted immediate recognition to Israel. He thus fulfilled a pledge made to
the famed Zionist leader, Dr. Chaim Weizmann, just a few weeks earlier: “You
can bank on us. I am for partition.”
The supreme virtue of Harry S. Truman was his readiness – time and again
– to risk both his popular standing as well as his political career by
making unpopular decisions that were in the long-range interests of the country.
“One of the proudest moments of my life,” is how President Truman
described his courageous decision to recognize the State of Israel over five
decades ago.
Truman once remarked that it is impossible for a public man to constantly worry
about what history and future generations will say about the decisions he has
to make. Rather, “He must live in the present, do what he thinks is right
at the time, and history will take care of it.” As evidenced by the historical
record and his contradictory promises, such was not the view of Franklin Roosevelt
on the question of Palestine