L. Richman is senior editor at the Cato Institute.
> ...Something else was working in favor of continued sup-
port for the emerging Jewish state: U.S. domestic politics.
The year 1948 was an election year and, according to memo-
randa in the Harry S Truman Library and Museum, Jacobson,
Clifford, and Niles expressed fear that the Republicans were
making an issue of their support for the Jewish state and
that the Democrats risked losing Jewish support. Clifford
proposed early recognition of the Jewish state.(63)
His position had been strongly influenced by a special
congressional election in a heavily Jewish district in the
Bronx, New York, on February 17, 1948. The regular Demo-
cratic candidate, Karl Propper, was upset by the American
Labor party candidate, Leo Isacson, who had taken a mili-
tantly pro-Zionist position in the campaign. Even though
Propper was also pro-Zionist, former vice president Henry
Wallace had campaigned for Isacsonby criticizing Truman for
not supporting partition, asserting that Truman "still talks
Jewish but acts Arab."(64) The loss meant that New York's 47
electoral votes would be at risk in the November presiden-
tial election, and the Democrats of the state appealed to
Truman to propose a UN police force to implement the parti-
tion, as Isacsonand Wallace had advocated.
The administration's trusteeship idea soon became aca-
demic. On May 14 the last British officials left Palestine,
and that evening the Jewish state was proclaimed. Eleven
minutes later, to the surprise of the U.S. delegation to the
United Nations, the United States announced its de facto
recognition.(65)
The significance to the Arabs of the U.S. role in con-
structing what they regard as another Western colonial ob-
stacle to self-determination cannot be overstated. Dean
Rusk, who at the time was a State Department official and
would later become secretary of state, admitted that Wash-
ington's role permitted the partition to be "construed as an
American plan," depriving it of moral force.(66) As Evan M.
Wilson, then assistant chief of the State Department's Divi-
sion of Near Eastern Affairs, later summarized matters,
Truman, motivated largely by domestic political concerns,
solved one refugee problem by creating another. Wilson
wrote:
It is no exaggeration to say that our relations
with the entire Arab world have never recovered
from the events of 1947-48 when we sided with the
Jews against the Arabs and advocated a solution in
Palestine which went contrary to self-determina-
tion as far as the majority population of
the country was concerned.(67)
--
Michael Pugliese
I got an axe-handle pistol with a graveyard frame. It shoots tombstone bullets wearing balls and chains. I'm drinking TNT. I'm smokin' dynamite. I hope some screwball start's a fight, 'cause I'm ready, ready, ready
Muddy Waters, "I'm Ready."