The Troubles of Zion America

There are few nations in this world that have as unique a history and relationship with the United States as that of the State of Israel. Located in the region of the world known as the Middle East, Israel stands out from her surrounding neighbors of Syria, Lebanon, Jordan, Egypt, Saudi Arabia and Palestine not only due the circumstances of her creation but also for the fact that more than fifty percent of the population of Israel is Jewish, where as most of the Middle East as a whole is Muslim. Being that Israel is the world's only Jewish state, it has been the subject of negative propaganda from a number of anti-Semitic organizations, terrorists groups, her Muslim majority neighbors, and at one time the government and people of the United States of America. Israel was founded under the guidance of the United Nations in 1948 towards the end of U.S. President Harry S. Truman's first term.

Much of Truman's administration and a large portion of the American people were attempting to move past previous anti-Semitic views that had taken hold prior to and during the Second World War. Many Americans had felt that the Jewish people had brought upon themselves the persecution that occurred during the Nazi regime in Germany and even still felt that way even after the revelations of the Holocaust had occurred in the concentration camps, although the stereotypes that these views came from were slowly being reversed thanks to efforts by sympathetic Hollywood executives, novelist, journalists, and a few members within the U.S. government[1]. Regardless of their views, the United States government supported the efforts of the Zionist movement to create a new Jewish state carved out of remnants of the declining British Empire's Middle East territory though the diplomatic actions of the United States sometimes speak of the lingering thoughts of being anti-Semitic.

As the Israeli provisional government was being setup and negotiations were being held to establish boundaries, the governing of the holy city of Jerusalem and co-existence with their neighbors the Palestinian Muslims, the UN also held negotiations with the Arab nations of the region to determine the type of government that would take be formed to handle the coexistence of Palestinian Arabs and Jews. Referred to as the Palestine Question by diplomats and to others it is the Palestinian Refugee Problem (due to the forced evacuation of several Palestinian towns)[2] , the UN Security Council submitted to the Arab nations three proposals for their consent on how to solve the Palestine Question[3]. The first proposal was a unitary state with a democratic government and constitution, guarantees on minority rights and privileges, a bicameral legislation with Jews having equal representation, Jewish immigration would be limited to one hundred thousand people per year for about two to three years and then a lesser number for subsequent years after that, a UN Commission to observe development, and a municipal autonomy for towns and districts.

The second proposal is almost identical to the first except that it all for the formation of federal or canonized states similar to the United States or the Swiss Confederation instead of municipal autonomy. The final option was to form an international trusteeship that gave more responsibility for self-government in the future than at present times. This option carried a number of the same ideas as the other proposals including the immigration quotas. The Arab governments were less than receptive to this proposal and were more agreeable to the previous two ideas. During the entire 1948 ordeal of the Arab-UN negotiations and the withdrawal of British officials and military units, who had no wish to alter their time table in any way or to interfere in any Israeli-Palestinian problem that happened to occur, Egypt began a series of guerrilla attacks on Israeli towns and bases. Egypt's actions were condemned by the UN Security Council which voted in a resolution that ordered Egypt to begin peace talks with Israel in hopes of resolving the situation without further incident. Egypt refused to cooperate even the amount of international support that sided with Israel on the matter. Israel had hoped that Egypt's continued attacks would result in total support from the entire international community, these hopes were somewhat dashed when the United States did a very odd thing in first month of 1949.

January of 1949 was an election year on the United Nations Security council; with the exception of the five permanent members (Britain, China, Russia, France, and the United States) the remaining seats on the Security Council exist on a term basis. Egypt was a candidate for a seat on the Council, despite the nation's actions in the Middle East. The United States sponsored Egypt's candidacy for the Security Council seat despite US condemnation of Egypt's actions in relation to Israel. Israel was less than happy about this and made their feelings felt in this a message to the US State Department: "Yet, this undeniable violation by Egypt of her obligations under the charter of the United Nations did not deter the Government of the United States from sponsoring Egypt's candidate for membership in the Security Council, with the result that an aggressor state, which in collusion with other aggressor states has made itself responsible for a most flagrant breach of the international peace, now appears in the role of a custodian of the world peace and is able to use their authority and cast its vote in furthermore of its aggressive designs."[4] As the Israeli message rather subtly says, there is the suspicion that although the United States has supported Israel's founding and peace negotiations with neighboring countries, the American government was viewed to be anti-Semitic from the President down.

Truman supported the immigration of many of Europe's Jews, especially after he saw photographs from Nazi concentration camps and heard that many of the liberated Jews were living in former Nazi facilities and camps. The President's 1945 request that the British allow 100,000 of these Jews to immediately immigrate to the Holy Land (which would require the British to revoke the 1939 White Paper which greatly limited such immigration) set off a storm of resentment from the British Foreign Office who felt that America was stepping on their turf and from the U.S. State Department whose biggest worry was getting the Middle East nations angry at the US. Several State Department officials and Mid. East experts argued this with the Truman for six months. Truman's persistence however led the British to form a joint committee made up of six Americans and six British. The Anglo-American Committee met for the first time in the fall of 1946, it toured Europe investigating the conditions of the European Jews, examined the former Nazi camps, and also visited the Holy Land and spoke to Arab leaders, most of who spoke of driving the Jews from the Holy Land in a rather violent manner. Shortly after the committee's recommendation of allowing the immediate immigration of one hundred thousand European Jews, there were anti-American demonstrations in nearly every Arab capitol city. Truman was up for election soon and he was depending on support from American Zionist and Jewish leaders to help bring more people over to his side. However the British weren't too happy about having Uncle Sam telling them what to do in their Mid-East territory. This battle eventually spread to the United Nations and widen in scope.

The United Nations Special Committee on Palestine had been formed to asses the situation in Palestine following British efforts at trusteeship and territorial partitioning of a Jewish state and Arab state. When the UNSCOP officials arrived in the area in early 1947 Palestine was on the verge of civil war. Radical Zionist unhappy over British and American efforts in the area had taken to using guerrilla warfare against Arabs and British in an effort to drive the Arabs out and create a fully Jewish state. In the end the UNSCOP was willing to recommend the end of American and British plans at partition and trusteeship and instead create two fully independent states, one Jewish and one Arab. This was the equivalent of setting off a bomb within the United Nations. The UN General Assembly was drawn in to an all out knife fight for votes on whether to accept or reject the UNSCOP report. Zionist lobbyists worked double overtime to secure the votes of every neutral state they could in order to win the two-thirds majority needed to accept the report. The Arab nations were doing the same but with the opposite goal in mind of rejecting the report. By late Fall of 1947 the UN General Assembly was hearing the Jewish being accused of vote buying and the Arabs accused of using their oil industry to bully neutral states into submission.

Eventually the Zionist won out, narrowly by only two votes. Voting in a plan was one thing, making it work was another entirely different problem and it was that threatened to scuttle US support in the Middle East and from Jewish leaders. The British were beginning to pull out and the Soviets were willing to meddle in anything that had the hint of anti-American in it, this along with increased violence between Palestinian Arabs and Jews made the plan almost impossible to set up. Members at Foggy Bottom (State Department) decided that the original partition and trusteeship plan was a much better idea, it was at this point that Jewish support began to wan. Truman decided reluctantly to authorize the plan to be resurrected and put it place only later to have the State Department inform the UN that not even that plan was workable, American Zionist felt betrayed and double-crossed. Although Truman had not said to tell the UN this, the State Department which had always seen the idea of a Jewish country as a not so good idea did it anyway and watched as Americans blamed the President for something he didn't do or wouldn't do. This was obvious as White House Special Council Clark Clifford put it, "every Jew thought that Truman was a no good son of a bitch.[5]" Truman however was saved from a humiliating loss in his election bid when several Zionist gathered in Tel Aviv and announced that they were going to set up the provisional government of an independent Jewish state. Truman and his advisors saw that this was the only way come back, immediately recognize the unnamed nation as an independent state. Truman, who did not have the support to win practically any state before hand, jumped back up in the polls beating out challenger Governor Thomas Dewey of New York.

Although Truman had stood by the creation of Israel in its birth, the special relationship between the two nations was soon to be strained. Washington and Tel Aviv soon began to have disagreements beginning with a dispute over where Israel's boundaries should be drawn. Washington soon began secretly pushing the UN to draw borders that are more favorable to the oil producing Arab nations. The UN mediator, Swedish aristocrat Count Folke Bernadotte, agreed to this and began pressuring Israel to cede certain territories to the neighboring Arabs. Extremists in the Israeli government finally decided to take action and assassinated the mediator as he drove through Jerusalem. Truman was shocked by this turn of events; publicly he continued to show his support for the Israelis. Privately, he drew a line with Israel over any further territorial expansions. After Israel seized the Sinai Peninsula from Egypt in a planned military incursion, Truman made the point of demanding that Israel withdraw from the area immediately regardless of whatever reason it had used to take the area or the United States would have to readjust its official position regarding the relationship with Israel. The Israeli government, though willing to defend its interests in the region agreed to the withdrawal rather than risk a severe break with its largest international supporter. On New Years Day 1949 orders were issued to withdraw Israeli forces from the peninsula. This was not the end of the problems stemming from Israel for Truman. In 1951, armed conflict erupted along the Syrian border. Truman immediately pointed the finger at Israel and condemned the countries invasion of the UN demilitarized zone; US-Israeli relations were further eroded as a result. 1952 was an election year and a wearied Truman decided against running for a new term and prepared to hand off the reigns of power to pro-Arab President-elect Dwight D. Eisenhower who was not going to be as sympathetic to the Israelis as his predecessor had been.

Regardless of what the Israeli government did, there was always going to be US resistance in the form of sects of the State Department, Congress, and possibly some areas of the White House. When the United States entered into World War Two, a majority of her population had almost no sympathy to the Jews who were being persecuted by the Nazis. This changed slowly over time as the Zionist movement grew, new books and movie dramas, and the photographs and stories of the horror of the concentration camps. These influences did help to erode government opposition to the creation and recognition of the State of Israel, but only so much. People who are set in their ways and beliefs do not change very easily. Truman, though viewed sometimes as being anti-Semitic, risked his very reputation and re-election to support this lone Jewish country, despite the violence that surrounded its conception and birth in the heavy Muslim area of the world that already had a deep-seated dislike of the United States.

Source:

[1] Michelle Mart, Eye on Israel: How America Came to View Israel as an Ally Chapter 1 "Images of the "New Jew" in Postwar Culture" pgs. 2-15

[2] Benny Morris, 1948 and After: Israel and the Palestinians, pg 16-17

[3]Foreign Relations of the United States- 1948 Volume V The Near East, South Asia, and Africa part 2

pg 547-555 Possible Solutions to the Palestine Question with Arab Consent

[4]Foreign Relations of the United States- 1949 Volume VI Pg 606 Formal Reply of Israeli Foreign Office to the Special Representative of the United States in Israel to SecState

[5] Douglas Little, American Orientalism: The United States and the Middle East Since 1945, Chapter 3 pgs 80-87