Eleanor (17 page)

The question between Palestine and the Arabs, of course, has always been complicated by the oil deposits, and I suppose it always will. I do not happen to be a Zionist and I know what a difference there is among such Jews as consider themselves nationals of other countries and not a separate nationality.

Great Britain is always anxious to have some one pull her chestnuts out of the fire, and though I am very fond of the British individually and like a great many of them, I object very much to being used by them.

Truman assured her that he would do what he could to get as many Jews into Palestine as possible without waiting upon the report of
the joint committee. The latter, however, might produce a report leading to a lasting settlement.
¹⁸

In spite of her opposition to the appointment of yet another committee and her support of 100,000 visas, she still believed that a large influx of Jewish settlers would trigger an Arab uprising and that the Jewish community was not capable of defending itself. “Unless the British and the Americans are ready to protect the Jews by force from the Arabs it would seem like suicide to allow them to go back,” she wrote at the beginning of 1946.
¹⁹

Mrs. Roosevelt’s visit to Germany after the London session of the United Nations confirmed for her the passionate longing of the Jews for Palestine, the despairing sorrow in the displaced persons camps, that Miss Waren had reported. She was invited by the Army, “at my own suggestion, be it said, but tactfully put so they wouldn’t have me if they didn’t want me, to visit our men before I go home. . . .” She wanted to take a look at the refugee camps and to see for herself how much truth there was in reports of GI “fraternization” with German
Fräulein
. Those camps were the “saddest places. . .the Jewish camps particularly are things I will never forget.” In the mud of the Zilsheim camp an old Jewish woman knelt and, throwing her arms around her knees, murmured over and over, “Israel, Israel,” and Mrs. Roosevelt knew “for the first time what that small land meant to so many, many people.”
²⁰

She could not forgive the Germans for what they had done. “The weight of human misery here in Europe is something one can’t get out of one’s heart.” In Frankfurt, Army officers at her request located her old classmate Carola von Schaeffer-Bernstein. When Mrs. Roosevelt sadly remarked on Europe’s tragic situation, her friend quickly replied, “It was everybody’s fault. We are all to blame. None of us has lived up to the teachings of Christ.” Mrs. Roosevelt had no wish to hurt her friend but she felt duty-bound to ask how it was possible to be “so devoted to the principles of the church yet not protest the mistreatment of the Jews?”

“Sometimes,” the reply came back, “it is wiser not to look over the hill.”

“It was good to see you again,” she wrote Carola afterward, “but
there is a sadness over the whole of Europe which, I am afraid, it is hard to get away from.”
²¹

Not long after her return from Germany, the Anglo-American Committee of Inquiry handed in its report. It was unanimous in its recommendation of the immediate issuance of 100,000 entry certificates. It also urged that Palestine become a binational state dominated by neither Arab nor Jew. And, in view of the hostility between Arab and Jew, it favored continuance of the British mandate. Truman promptly endorsed these recommendations. The British, however, backtracked, and Ernest Bevin, the foreign secretary, who earlier had promised to implement any recommendation that was unanimous, now told a British Labor party conference that the only reason Truman wanted Palestine to take Europe’s Jews was because Americans did not want any more Jews in New York City.

Mrs. Roosevelt disregarded the slurring implications of Bevin’s remarks, because she felt he had a point:

It is not fair to ask of others what you are not willing to do yourself. Mr. Bevin’s speech gave many of us pause. We should not so conduct ourselves that such things can be said about us by responsible statesmen.
²²

She felt the United States should relax its immigration laws. “I think we have a duty to lead in taking our share.”

But she was angry with the British response to the joint commission’s recommendations. “There was really no need for a commission of inquiry, but we went along with Great Britain. The obvious reason we went along was that we believed Great Britain would accept the report of such a group and try to implement it.” There was no escaping the immediate point at issue—the 100,000 Jews in Europe

who must find homes immediately and they want to go to Palestine. The Arabs threaten dire things. The British talk about the impossibility of increasing the military force. But surely our allied Chiefs of Staff could work out some form
of military defense for Palestine which would not mean an increase in manpower.
²³

In Palestine, the British rejection of the joint commission’s recommendations turned the desperate Jewish settlers toward acts of terrorism against the British forces and illegal immigration organized by the Jewish defense force, the Haganah. Bridges were blown up and British officers kidnapped. There were pitched battles between British and Jewish troops. The British, with 50,000 troops in Palestine, decided on drastic action. The Zionist leaders were jailed. That strengthened the influences of the terrorists. The King David Hotel, headquarters of the mandatory and the British Army, was blown up with forty-three killed and forty-three injured. She was horrified:

Violence of this kind kills innocent people, and enough innocent people have already died in the world. More innocent Jews have suffered than any other people. . . .Violence can only make a fair and reasonable solution in Palestine more difficult.
²⁴

A few days later the British retaliated, which distressed her because she felt a great nation should have self-control and patience. She was even more revolted by the British decision to deport to Cyprus all captured “illegal” immigrants. “Dear Lady Reading,” she wrote her old friend and co-worker on August 23, 1946:

I am writing you this letter which you can pass on if you think wise, to Mr. Attlee and Mr. Bevin. I do not feel I have any right to express my feelings to them officially and yet as a human being, I can not help wanting to tell them how certain actions as regards the situation in Palestine have made me feel.

In the first place, I hope and pray that they will not actually put to death the young terrorists. I do not approve of what any of these people have done in the way of violence. I understand perfectly, however, the fact that this feeling of despair on the part of the Jewish people [has] been growing for a long time
and the show of force. . .Great Britain has made in Palestine has probably built up this resistance movement, since force always creates a similar attitude in the opposition.

If these young people are killed there will without any question, be a sense of martyrdom and a desire for revenge which will bring more bloodshed. A generous gesture will, I think, change the atmosphere.

In addition, I can not bear to think of the Jews of Europe who have spent so many years in concentration camps, behind wire again on Cyprus. Somehow it seems to me that the 100,000 Jews should be let into Palestine and that some real agreement should be reached with the Arabs. Willy-nilly, the feeling grows here that it is [not] just justice which Great Britain is looking for where the Arabs are concerned, but it is that she wishes the friendship in order to get more favorable consideration where oil concessions are concerned. I know this may not be true but no matter what the real reasons are, it is in such a mess that ultimately I feel it should be turned over to the United Nations. In the meantime the gestures should be on the generous side where Great Britain is concerned. . . .

I shall be grateful for whatever you decide to do about this letter.

With every good wish, I am,

Affectionately,
²⁵

Lady Reading passed the letter on, commenting ambiguously to Mrs. Roosevelt that there was more to the problem than appeared to the naked eye.

Mrs. Roosevelt still opposed a Jewish state. “The suggestion that the country be partitioned seems to me no answer to the problem,” she wrote in midsummer. She still had questions about Palestine’s absorptive capacity, and questions, too, about the number of Jews in Europe who wanted to go to Palestine. “Not all Jewish people want a nation and a national home,” she wrote a Zionist critic. “The greater part of the Jews throughout the world in the past have been nationals of the lands in which they lived, and they
wanted only to be different as to their religion, just as Catholics or Protestants might be different.” It might be that Jewish attitudes had changed and “that like many other people, the Jews wish to establish and fight for the right to the land. I hope this isn’t so. . . .” At the end of 1946 she informed the correspondent for the Palestine paper
Davar
that of the six solutions for the future status of the Jews in Palestine that he listed—British mandate, Jewish state in the whole of Palestine, Arab state in the whole of Palestine, partition, federalization of Jewish and Arab cantons, and UN trusteeship—she preferred the last.
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So it was with delight that she hailed the British decision in February, 1947, to turn the Palestine problem over to the United Nations, although she was appalled that Bevin, in disclosing this decision to the House of Commons, said all might have been well if President Truman for domestic political reasons had not made agreement impossible by his insistence on the 100,000. An “extraordinary outburst,” Mrs. Roosevelt called it, “a fit of temper” which she hoped the president, whom she described as “a patient man,” will accept “with charity.” Her own sense of charity was taxed to the limit when, on the eve of the special assembly which had been convened at the request of the British government, its spokesman in the House of Lords said Britain would only carry out the decision of the assembly if it approved of it. The British attitude undermined the authority of the United Nations, she wrote. “The British Government is a Labor-Socialist government, but as far as the Empire and foreign affairs are concerned, it might as well be a Tory Government, because there is a similarity in the official pronouncements by every British government on these subjects.” Though there were “comparatively few people” involved in the Palestine agony, “the horror of their situation is what makes it tragic, because those who are being kept out of Palestine are the waifs and strays of horror camps.” She deplored terrorist tactics, “but I deplore even more the attitude of self-righteous governments.” The British were not to blame alone. “Our own Government’s position has never gone beyond pious hopes and unctuous words.”
²⁷

She was impatient when the special assembly, under U.S. leadership, decided to postpone grappling with the substance of the Palestine problem and set up a Special Committee on Palestine (UNSCOP) to report to the regular session of the Assembly in September:

For two years now, displaced Jews have waited for the day of freedom and in many cases they are still behind barbed wires. The question of Palestine is as far from being settled as it was when the war came to an end.

Anglo-American interest in oil, she suggested, was behind the delay.

It seems to me, however, that this question cannot be settled on a commercial basis.

When we allowed the Jews to dream of a homeland and allowed many thousands of them to settle in Palestine—under the British mandate to be sure—we tacitly gave our support to this final conclusion. We are obligated today to see it through, giving every consideration, of course, to the rights of the Arabs, guarding their access to the religious shrines that are sacred to them, and seeing that from the economic standpoint whatever is fair is done.
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She respected General Marshall yet she wrote to him evidently complaining over the lack of firmness in the U.S. position in the Assembly. She was particularly concerned about Great Britain’s remaining responsible for the maintenance of law and order in Palestine while UNSCOP was preparing its report. He regretted her critical comment, Marshall replied. “It was our view that this session had been called for the procedural purpose of constituting and instructing a special committee to prepare the Palestine question for consideration at the regular session. . . .” Only in that manner would all the member states have a chance to study “this complicated problem” and the way be prepared for the widest possible support of world opinion” of UNSCOP’s conclusions.
²⁹

“I think that our Government will take a firmer attitude and I hope in the right direction when their report comes before us,” she wrote a correspondent. The right of the Jewish people to a homeland should have been considered and settled long ago, she continued. The United States, she felt, should support that right. She drew comfort from UNSCOP’s membership, made up as it was of smaller nations and excluding the great powers which were primarily concerned with the future of the oil fields.
³⁰

Her misgivings about allowing Britain to administer Palestine pending UNSCOP’s report were borne out when the British embarked upon a policy of interception of illegal immigrant ships, returning them to France and, when the passengers refused to disembark, ordering the ships to sail for Hamburg. It was easy to understand the refugees’ sense of despair, she wrote, adding, “They feel perhaps that death is preferable.”
³¹
She received an imploring letter from Eva Warburg, sister of Ingrid with whom she had worked in 1940–41, to save political refugees from the advancing Nazi armies. Eva Warburg had settled in Palestine in the thirties. “I am writing you on behalf of the 1700 Jewish orphans living in the camps on Cyprus. . . .They are, all of them, survivors from death camps or children who were hidden somewhere five long years.” She described how they were held behind barbed wire, machine guns and searchlights trained on them. Could the women of the world not speak out against holding children as political hostages? Mrs. Roosevelt sent the letter on to President Truman, whose reply to her anguished telegram about the illegal immigrant ships called attention to the Jewish capacity to commit outrageous acts. “The British still seem to be on top and cruelty would seem to be on their side and not on the side of the Jews,” Mrs. Roosevelt commented. When the three shiploads of Jewish displaced persons docked in Hamburg, she wrote sadly: