On Wed, 11 Aug 2010, Marv Gandall wrote:
> My own view, which is far more widely shared, is is that the Truman
> administration well understood how what its responsibiities were, and
> debated and designed US policy with a view to advancing the interests of
> US capitalism. Its policies in Palestine and elsewhere were shaped at
> the time by the postwar collapse of the British and French empires and
> the rise of third world nationalist movements supported by the Soviet
> Union which threatened unfettered Western control of colonial and
> semi-colonial markets and resources, most notably the oil reserves of
> the Mideast. The Zionist social democratic leadership in Palestine was
> able to offer itself to the West as the custodian of its values and
> interests in the region, and has since then proved an invaluable ally
> crushing and containing left-nationalist and Islamist regimes and
> movements hostile to Western imperialism.
Marv, you're projecting backwards here. The majority of State and Defense were against recognizing Israel precisely because it would endanger US interests. General Marshall, the Secretary of State, had to be talked out of resigning over it. It was a very close run thing. I personally believe Truman finally did it largely on sentimental, logistic and humanitarian grounds having to do with what to do with DPs in Europe. He felt personally betrayed when Israel didn't take back the Palestinian refugees, since accepting refugees was the whole point of it to him. After that, relations between the US and Israel were quite cool for a couple of decades. It wasn't seen as a strategic pillar by anyone in the US establishment until Nixon's time.
Michael