> Doesn't everyone, including yourself, proceed on the basis of assumptions derived from our experience and reading which then have to be tested empirically? The important thing is to be open to the possibility that they may prove to be applicable only in part or not at all, and to revise the assumptions accordingly.
Absolutely. OK, fair enough.
> But I tried to support my assumptions, what you then described as my "axioms", with reference to the historic and current relationship between the US and Israel and the Israel lobby. I was prepared to accept, for example, though I considered it exceptional, your position that Truman's support of Israeli statehood was based on humanitarian concerns and philo-semitism. But my assumptions led me to dig a little further and I was rather quickly rewarded with evidence that Cold War considerations were more decisive, as I had expected, in resolving the internal debate within the administration.
That's not at all what the article said. Your summary totally garbled the account. The article opened by saying Truman was "a friend of the Jews who had made clear his support for the Zionist cause before WWII." It highlighted his landmark declaration of support for a real Jewish state (not an enclave) very early in the game -- in October 1946; it noted this was done on the advice of Truman's political aide Clark Clifford; that it was unanimously opposed by State and Defense; and the article strongly suggested it was done for imminent electoral reasons.
The rest of the article is mostly about the failed effort by State and Defense to get that policy reversed; they were motivated by Cold War concerns, but in *opposition* to a Jewish state. The article makes clear that the only factor that ever made Truman hesitate in his support for a Jewish state was the fear that it would require a US commitment of troops, and that once that fear proved groundless the path was clear for Truman impose the policy against the wishes of the State Dept. You quote Clark Clifford trying to make a geopolitical argument in favor of partition, but the article makes it clear that no one actually believed Clifford's interest in the matter was geopolitical; Marshall himself is quoted protesting that Clifford's pro-Zionist advice was "a transparent dodge to win a few votes" and telling Truman he personally would not vote for him in the next election if he followed Clifford's advice. Clark Clifford, by the way, masterminded Truman's 1948 reelection campaign.
Ultimately, the article argues that the US would have been forced to support Israel anyway, since the Zionists were establishing facts on the ground. That may or may not be true, but the article also makes clear that, as it happens, Truman did not need to be presented with a fait accompli to give his support to the Jewish state.
> You might notably cite, as others have, the reform legislation passed by the New Deal, the model for social democrats and those Marxists who proclaim the liberal-democratic state is "contested terrain". But I'd ask you to consider whether the nexus of reforms which constituted the New Deal would have passed if the ruling class was united against them and prepared to suppress the unions and other popular organizations which were agitating for them.
Well, power concedes nothing without a demand. But if "power" ends up conceding a demand, then that means it lost. It seems wrongheaded to say in retrospect that power "chose" to make the concession because it decided it was in its "interests" to do so, proving once again that power is always in control.
SA