Zionism: The Real Enemy of the Jews, Volume 1 (52 page)

Against this background the actual convening of another Special Session of the General Assembly to seek support for UN trusteeship as the only possible solution to the Palestine problem was a test of President Truman’s nerve.

America’s Zionist leaders were hoping that their pressure would cause Truman to panic, and tell Marshall to instruct Austin to inform the Security Council that the U.S. no longer believed another Special Session of the General Assembly would serve any useful purpose. In that event, the case for putting partition back on the agenda and implementing that plan would become irresistible, or so the Zionists imagined.

They were to be disappointed. Pressed by Marshall to stand firm, Truman’s nerve held and the Security Council agreed to the convening of the Second Special Session of the General Assembly. It got down to business on 16 April. There were now four weeks to go before Britain’s withdrawal from Palestine would be completed.

The delegates of all the member countries of the UN were aware that if they failed against the clock to come up with an agreed and workable plan for UN trusteeship as the immediate solution to the Palestine problem, there would be set in motion an escalating conflict that might be one without end, and which would bring with it threats to the stability of the global economy and the peace of the world. In private the gravity of the situation was acknowledged by all.

The fact that President Truman did not panic under pressure and did not pull the plug on the convening of the second Special Session of the General Assembly conveyed an implicit message from his administration at Executive level to America’s Zionist leaders. The message was something like this: “We are not going to bow to pressure when doing so would require us to endanger the national and wider Western interest. The stakes are too high for game playing of that kind”. (That, I imagine, is how Secretary of State Marshall and Defence Secretary Forrestal would have put it).

But...
It was not the member governments of the UN or even America’s Zionist leaders who were calling the shots. Ben-Gurion was now in command and control of the action.

So far as the Zionists in Palestine were concerned, what was happening at the UN was a supreme irrelevance. Ben-Gurion was determined to declare the coming into existence of the Jewish state as soon as the British Mandate ended. In other words, Ben-Gurion was intending to proceed as though the partition plan had not been vitiated, as though there had been no reversal of U.S. policy, and no matter what the General Assembly decided with regard to trusteeship. The ‘us against the world’ mindset was now the prevailing one in Ben-Gurion’s camp.

With help from the outside, the Zionists in Palestine had succeeded in wrecking Britain’s policy of restricting Jewish immigration. Now they were going to demonstrate that they were prepared, if necessary, to defy even the United States of America.

Up to this point the man who had had most influence on Truman’s Palestine policy was Marshall. This particular Secretary of State was the living American the President most admired on account of his abilities and integrity. As Marshall would have defined it, integrity was about putting America’s national interests first and, to the limit of the possible within that context, doing what was legally and morally right. Truman had proudly endorsed Churchill’s view of Marshall—that no man had done more to enable the Allies to defeat Nazi Germany, fascist Italy and kamikaze Japan. In theory there was no better man than Marshall to assist Truman to keep Zionism in check. In practice the question now waiting for an answer was this: Would Marshall continue to be the man with most influence on Truman’s Palestine policy?

Two men were determined that he would not be. They were Niles, Zionism’s top man in the White House, and Clark Clifford. As Special Counsel to the President, Clifford’s main task was to advise Truman on what to do for the best if he was to be re-elected for a second term. After the policy reversal on Palestine, Truman’s prospects of being re-elected were judged to be so poor that some of his best friends were urging him not to run again.

It was Clifford who pushed the proposition that Truman should put self-interest and the interests of his Democratic party before the national interest. And that meant surrendering to Zionism. But first Clifford had to change his own mind.

In his own initial thinking Clifford had been of the view that, in the long run, there was likely to be greater gain for the President and his party “if the Palestine problem is approached on the basis of far-reaching decisions founded upon intrinsic merit.”
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In other words, Clifford was not convinced, initially, that the best way to win the organised Jewish vote, in New York especially, was by adopting pro-Zionist policies.

By the end of April, with the Second Special Session of the General Assembly getting down to business, and polling day only eight months away, Clifford had changed his mind. He was now of the opinion that Truman’s campaign for re-election (and that of many other Democrats) was being jeopardised by the administration’s reversal of its Palestine policy.

One of the main events that caused Clifford to let political expediency be his guide was the shock defeat of the Democratic candidate in a one-off congressional election for the Bronx constituency of New York. This was a 55 per cent Jewish constituency. The Democrats ought to have won without effort. But their candidate lost, not to a Republican but to a fringe candidate representing the American Labour Party, one Leo Isaacson. He had campaigned on a militant pro-Zionist ticket. The conclusion invited was that the voters had soundly repudiated the Truman administration’s refusal to implement the partition plan and give all-out support to the creation of a Jewish state.

During that Bronx campaign there were Democrats who said, “Truman still talks Jewish, but acts Arab.”
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To those responsible for Truman’s re-election that was really scary stuff. The importance of the Jewish bloc vote was critical in some key states. New York State had 47 electoral college votes and without them no sitting President, with the exception of Woodrow Wilson, had been re-elected since 1876.

By 4 May, 10 days before British rule in Palestine was going to end, and with the General Assembly still discussing trusteeship as the solution to the Palestine problem, Clifford was aware, according to his own papers, that a Jewish state “will shortly be set up.”
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In other words, he knew that Ben-Gurion was intending to make a unilateral declaration of Israel’s coming into being as soon as British rule ended. In Clifford’s reasoning Truman’s recognition of the Jewish state would be the magic that secured Jewish campaign funds as necessary, won him back the Jewish vote and, come November, would see him re-elected for a second term. If on the other hand the President refused to recognise the Jewish state, he would be politically dead and his party would suffer great damage at the polls. So far as Clifford was concerned, Truman had no choice. He had to recognise the Jewish state: and advising him to do so was now Clifford’s passionate priority.

The stage was being set for a dramatic showdown—Clifford v Marshall—in the White House.

On 6 May, after a meeting with Clifford and Max Lowenthal, Niles prepared an initial draft of the statement Zionism wanted President Truman to make, on Clifford’s advice, recognising the Jewish state.

Lowenthal was closely associated with the Jewish Agency—he had his own hotline to Ben-Gurion—and Niles had engineered his engagement as a consultant to the White House.

On 7 May Lowenthal sent a confidential memorandum to Clifford. It was “FOR MR. CLIFFORD ONLY”. And it carried a caution: “This is for the protection of the Administration, not to be shown in written form to anyone else, under any circumstances.”
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In that memorandum (and five others sent over five days) Lowenthal called for recognition of the Zionist state before 15 May— i.e. before the expiry of the Mandate and the ending of British rule. Advance recognition Lowenthal said, “would free the Administration of serious and unfair disadvantage” in the November elections. What a nice way of saying, “will remove Zionism’s threat to deny President Truman and his party Jewish campaign funds and votes!”

This was a new twist to the extent that other American Zionists and their supporters with access to the Truman administration at Executive level were pressing only for prompt U.S. recognition when the Zionist state unilaterally declared itself to be in existence—i.e.
after
the expiry of the Mandate.

Why was Lowenthal pressing for advance recognition?

I think his demand was an indication that some of Ben-Gurion’s leadership colleagues were mightily troubled by the possible consequences of what they were about to do. What if they unilaterally declared their state to be in existence and the U.S. refused to recognise it?

That would highlight in the most public way the new state’s lack of legitimacy, and that in turn could have unthinkable consequences.

If the Zionist state was not recognised by the U.S., there was the prospect of it being labelled an ‘outlaw’ state. In that event it might be difficult, and perhaps impossible, to import the weapons needed to guarantee the new state’s survival in the coming war with the Arabs. As part of its effort to stop the violence in Palestine escalating, the Truman administration had embargoed the shipment of all arms to the Middle East. The Zionists had protested bitterly because, they said, the embargo was hurting the Jews far more than the Arabs. As we have seen, that was not so. As we will see, Ben-Gurion had already purchased the weapons and military hardware needed to win the coming war with the Arab states. The problem would be importing them if Israel, when it declared itself to be in existence, was perceived to be an outlaw state.

In the context outlined above, some of Ben-Gurion’s leadership colleagues believed that a unilateral declaration of independence would be too risky unless President Truman could be prevailed upon to give an advance public signal that he intended to recognise the Jewish state when it came into being. Ben-Gurion for his part was determined that there would be a unilateral declaration of independence no matter what, and his response to the doubters in his own camp was: “We have to take the risk. If we don’t seize the moment when British rule ends, there may never be a Jewish state.”
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My speculation is that Ben-Gurion or somebody for him instructed Lowenthal to put pressure on Truman through Clifford in order to be seen by his own colleagues to be doing everything possible to minimise the risk. The Lowenthal memorandum of 7 May plus the five others he sent over five days eventually had the desired effect on Clifford. By 12 May—the day of the showdown with Marshall—he was ready to advise President Truman to approve and make the statement that it was his intention to recognise the Jewish state when it came into existence.

While Lowenthal under the supervision of Niles was working with Clifford, others were piling the pressure on the President and members of his cabinet. The others included the Democratic National Chairman, Senator Howard McGrath, the man with the greatest institutional need for Jewish campaign funds and votes. And in the State Department General John Hilldring, a long-time Zionist supporter, was doing his best to undermine the influence of all who were cautioning against premature recognition of the Zionist state. Hilldring had been appointed by the President as Special Assistant to Marshall on Palestinian Affairs. Two days before his appointment, in a speech to the Jewish Welfare Board, General Hilldring had declared that he was in favour of partition. It is, I think, reasonable to assume that the President planted Hilldring on Marshall to appease the Zionists—i.e., not, as others have suggested, because Truman himself had stopped trusting the Secretary of State.

High Noon in the White House was actually at 4.00 p.m. on 12 May. In addition to the President himself, those present were: Marshall, Lovett, Clifford, Niles, White House Aide Connelly (the one who had begged Jacobson not to raise the subject of Palestine) and two veteran State Department Foreign Service Officers—Robert McClintock and Fraser Wilkins.

From the parts of the official record that were declassified many years after the event, including Marshall’s own memorandum of the discussion, we know something of who said what to whom.

On the table for discussion was the statement Niles had drafted on Zionism’s behalf and which Clifford wanted the President to make, either that very day or the following day at his scheduled press conference. If Clifford had his way, President Truman was about to tell the world—before the Mandate and British rule in Palestine ended,
and while the General Assembly was still debating what to do about the Holy Land—
that he intended to recognise the Jewish state when it came into being.

Clifford to his credit admitted that his support for such a policy initiative was based upon consideration of the “political implications involved and the need to improve election prospects.” The presidential statement he was recommending would also enable the U.S. to “steal a march on the U.S.S.R. (the Soviet Union).”
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Marshall exploded. He deeply resented the fact that Clifford was even present. “Mr. President, this is not a matter to be determined on the basis of politics. Unless politics were involved, Mr. Clifford would not even be at this conference.”
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The counsel Mr. Clifford was offering, Marshall said, was “a transparent dodge to win a few votes.” It was “based on domestic political considerations when the problem confronting them was international.”