On May 14, we’ll be celebrating the sixty-first anniversary of President Harry S. Truman’s decision to recognize the State of Israel, the first country to do so. The most complex and controversial issue of Truman’s presidency, the official recognition of Israel was a watershed moment in American foreign policy. His daughter Margaret claimed that Palestine was the most difficult dilemma her father encountered while in office. Indeed, Truman faced pressures from all corners of the globe to reach a decision that would have been a challenge to Solomon: the future of the Middle East, the Jews, and the demand to create a Jewish State in Palestine.
In A Safe Haven we seek to answer the persistent question, why did he do it? We follow Truman as he grappled with the pros and cons of supporting the creation of a Jewish state and making crucial decisions that would affect the outcome. Through a narrative history, we view Truman as he confronted the Holocaust, the situation of the Jews still lingering in European DP camps after the war, and the resolve of world Jewry to have a country of their own in Palestine. Supporting this goal were significant numbers of the American public and Congress, key White House advisors, influential opinion-leaders, and ultimately the United Nations.
Along the way, we tried to capture the remarkable cast of characters involved, among them Truman’s Secretaries of State James Byrnes and George C. Marshall, British Foreign Minister Ernest Bevin, Secretary-General of the newly formed Arab League, Abdul Rahman Hassan Azzam, White House Advisors Samuel Rosenman, David Niles, and Clark Clifford, Zionist leaders Chaim Weizmann, David Ben-Gurion, Rabbis Stephen Wise and Abba Hillel Silver, and Truman’s friend and former business partner Eddie Jacobson.
Strong opposition came from Truman’s own Defense and State Departments, the Arabs, and the British who held the Mandate over Palestine. No wonder Truman claimed the issue left him in a state of “political battle fatigue.” Our research uncovered the fierce fight waged by the State Department to prevent Truman from moving to recognize the new Jewish State. Their opposition began from the moment Truman became President, and increased in intensity as it appeared that he was leaning towards approval of the Zionists’ dream.
The claim made by the head of the Jewish Agency in New York City, Eliahu Epstein, that the State Department was undertaking a “vast conspiracy” against the President, was not far off the mark. Among other things, we pay attention to the major argument against recognition presented to Truman by George F. Kennan, the architect of “containment,” who it turns out was equally involved in attempting to reverse US approval of the UN Partition Resolution of November 29, 1947, that separated Palestine into two states, one Jewish and one Arab.
It is our argument that had FDR lived and Truman not become President, Israel most likely would not exist today. It is a dramatic story about the many forces Truman had to deal with, especially his handling of the Arabs who insisted that the only acceptable outcome was for the Jews to live as a minority in an Arab state, the recalcitrant British who gave up their Mandate over Palestine and handed it over to the United Nations to come up with a solution, and his own. Department of State, whose Arabists sought to undermine him.
We hope that Pajamas Media readers will consider reading this story of how a great Democratic Party leader, President Harry S. Truman, came to undertake one of the great moral decisions of his presidency. You can order the book by looking on the right under “Books,” and clicking on the cover of A Safe Haven.
______________________________________________________________
Ronald Radosh is the distinguished historian and author of books including The Rosenberg File (with Joyce Milton), The Amerasia Spy Case, Spain Betrayed:The Soviet Union in the Spanish Civil War, and, most recently, with Allis Radosh, Red Star Over Hollywood. The Radoshes’ new book, available online and at bookstores today, is A Safe Haven: Harry S. Truman and The Founding of Israel
Their book has won prepublication plaudits from scholars and writers including Michael Oren and Princeton’s Professor Sean Wilentz. Oren is of course Israel’s newly appointed Ambassador to the United States and a distinguished historian in his own right. Oren writes: “Exhaustively researched, compellingly narrated and conceived, A Safe Haven is an outstanding achievement. The Radoshes succeed in debunking the many myths surrounding President Truman’s policies toward Palestine and Zionism, and answer the lingering questions concerning his decision-making on the crucial issue of Jewish statehood.”
Professor Wilentz adds: “Allis Radosh and Ronald Radosh have written a thorough, powerful, and often surprising account of a fascinating political history, covering everything from diplomacy at the highest levels to the backroom machinations of left-wing Manhattan. It is one of the great stories in modern history, with a seemingly unlikely but steadfast hero in Truman — a book which will absorb anyone who cares about how the world we know came to be.”
Cokie Roberts, NPR Senior analyst and bestselling author of Ladies of Liberty, adds: “Even though I knew how the story would end, A Safe Haven still had me sitting on the edge of my seat, watching Harry S. Truman weight the arguments of his friends and advisers in the months, then weeks, ten days leading up to his recognition of Israel. This widely researched account…puts you inside the room as the new president made his often emotional decisions about a Jewish homeland, and then watched in dismay as the State Department went its own way.”
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A Safe Haven: Harry S. Truman and the Founding of Israel
Commies: A Journey Through the Old Left, the New Left and the Leftover Left
Red Star Over Hollywood: The Film Colony’s Long Romance with the Left
The Rosenberg File: Second Edition
Spain Betrayed: The Soviet Union in the Spanish Civil War (Annals of Communism Series)
Divided They Fell
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30 Comments
1. David Thomson:Amazon.com has already sent out my copy. It should be delivered before the end of the day. The important thing to remember is that Harry Truman acted bravely—and therefore the Democratic Party of that era deserves a lot of credit. However, that has nothing whatsoever to do with today’s realities. Pragmatic politics is normally about answering the all important question: What have you done for me recently? 1948 was a long time ago. What is the current Democratic Party doing on behalf of Israel? More specifically, are Barack Obama’s policies good for that country?
May 12, 2009 - 8:48 am 2. Hans Moleman:Put simply, if not for Truman, Israel would not now exist. Harry Truman, not the Truman administration or the United States. Truman. Democrat Harry Truman.
And if not for the creation of Israel, the desert wind could blow from North Africa to southwest Asia unimpeded by anything as tawdry as a voting booth.
Truman’s decision to support the UN partition plan that put Israel on the map was fought by many of the wise men in his State Department and the rest of the foreign policy establishment. They thought it was a big mistake.
Still, for many years after 1948 Truman’s role in the creation of Israel was regarded as one of his (and our) greatest achievements. Helping to birth a modern democratic state that guaranteed the rights of minorities, including freedom of speech and worship, was considered a good thing. Helping a half-destroyed race defend itself and build a homeland was something to be proud of.
But that was before the West had reached the final stages of loss of confidence in our own values. Back then Palestinian claims of victimhood were not thought sufficient justification for a death cult of maniacal hatred, one that danced with joy when Jewish women and children were murdered.
But that, as they say, was then, and this, as the say, is now.
May 12, 2009 - 11:57 am 3. David Thomson:“Put simply, if not for Truman, Israel would not now exist.”
My hunch is that neither the Franklin D. Roosevelt nor the Dwight D. Eisenhower administrations would have recognized the state of Israel. They would have likely found one excuse or another to “study the issue further” until the end of time. Indeed, Harry Truman’s courage saved the day. The political rewards probably seemed remote while the risks were enormous. What advice would a Karl Rove or a Bob Beckel have provided? Me thinks they would have both strongly urged Truman to minimally wait until after the November elections. Oh well, I should have a better understanding once I start reading our host’s new book.
May 12, 2009 - 2:10 pm 4. scaramouche:Just bought my copy at my local branch of Canada’s bookstore monopoly, and I look forward to reading it.
May 12, 2009 - 4:11 pm 5. Pajamas Media » A Safe Haven: Harry Truman and the Founding of Israel:[...] Read the entire piece here. [...]
May 13, 2009 - 4:15 am 6. BPT (Australia):Sounds fascinating. BTW, I thought Red Star over Hollywood was a good intellectual investment too.
May 13, 2009 - 4:29 am 7. Marie Claude:don’t forget that Ben Gourion lived in France from 1945 to 1947, that France helped him to resist to the secret anglo-syrian agreement to undertake the Great Syria, where no Israel country was forecasted
that de Gaulle went to America to bring the proofs to Truman of the Brits conspiration
that Gromyko acknoledged the state of Israel in 1947
France vs Britain in ME (in french)
May 13, 2009 - 5:19 am 8. Bill:Marie Claude:
Quite so. Of course, De Gaulle couls be counted on to oppose anything Britain wanted, just because.
The USSR- the forgotten bit of history is that the Kremlin supported the creation of Israel at first because they saw it as a potential ally: the Kibbutzes were of small-c communist inspiration, most Jewish intellectuals were of the Left; and of course the Soviets viewed the Arabs as British allies. It was only with the Suez crisis that Moscow chose to side with Nasser and abandon Israel, and US support for Tel Aviv really only started in 1967.
May 13, 2009 - 5:47 am 9. Joe Bison:If the US had abstained as Britain did the
UN resolution would still have passed. The
components of the USSR voted yes among
others. I can’t see the US regardless of
whom was President voting no.
The Soviets wanted to cause problems
in the West and this would have helped
them and possibly made an isolated
Israel a partial client of theirs.
Also Canada, Australia and France
May 13, 2009 - 7:11 am 10. JFM:voted yes. Yugoslavia abstained
because it had favored a federation.
We see how well that worked out in
their case.
Don’t forget that in 1956 half of Israel’s air force was composed of piston planes and the other half of first generation jets completely outclassed by the modern jets the Soviets had provided Egypt and it was France who provided Israel with planes able to meet the Mig15s on equal terms and to intercept the Ilyushin bombers. Don’t forget that Israel’s only had ultra-obsolete MkIII Shermans (1) that their tracks were unsuitable for desert operations and that it was France who supplied Israel with modern tanks and some desert tracks for the Sheamans. That Israel’s Army had few trucks so it had to use civilian cars and trucks who quickly broke or got stuck (2) and that it was France who provided Israel with 6×6 trucks. And of course that the 1967 planes who destroyed the Arab air forces and harrassed the ground armies were Mirages, Mysteres, Ouragans. That several years after De Gaulle’s policy reversal, French civilians and military men (many of them non-Jews) put their careers at risk by looking the other way when the Israelis hijacked the missile boats from Cherbourg and by later “failing” to intercept them.
For Marie Claude’s link it leads to one of those far left sites who behind an “antisionist” rethoric conceal a genocidal hate of Jews at least as strong as the one the Nazis had. It faults De Gaulle for “helping the Zionist entity”. The article is pure crap: It was De Gaulle who released war criminal and Hitler’’s friend Hadj Amin Husseini and De Gaulle resigned power in January 1946 so he was not around in 1948
(1) From thirty years old memories about Dayan’s book: “When I told the French general that we had MkIIIs I felt he was wondering I wasn’t going to tell him we still had mounted cavalry”
(2) “It was more of the troops carrying the trucks than the opposite” (Dayan about the advance on Kuntilla)
May 13, 2009 - 7:14 am 11. Marie Claude:JFM, your first paragraph was so right, then it turned vinegar when you see “De Gaulle”
sorry for the lefty article, I forgot about what it means here, though the related historical facts are right, (plus not written by a French but a Belgian) and correspond to the years of de Gaulle government, Marcel Bidault was in charge for the ME
Hadj Amin Husseini escaped himself, but probably one closed his eyes when he did, it was mere political calcul to calm down the revolts in north Africa (umm that the Brits initiated with some of their syrian agents) also France wasn’t the only one to resort to former nazi, the US did, the URSS did… This wouldn’t have happened if the Brits hadn’t conspired behind the curtains
about the mufti
May 13, 2009 - 9:58 am 12. Marie Claude:JFM, your first paragraph was so right, then it turned vinegar when you see “De Gaulle”
sorry for the lefty article, I forgot about what it means here, though the related historical facts are right, (plus not written by a French but a Belgian) and correspond to the years of de Gaulle government, Marcel Bidault was in charge for the ME
Hadj Amin Husseini escaped himself, but probably one closed his eyes when he did, it was mere political calcul to calm down the revolts in north Africa (umm that the Brits initiated with some of their syrian agents) also France wasn’t the only one to resort to former nazi, the US did, the URSS did… This wouldn’t have happened if the Brits hadn’t conspired behind the curtains
May 13, 2009 - 10:01 am 13. naftali:The State Department also waged war against the Bush Administration and won handily. They’ve finally got their man in the White House now. How’s that working out, by the way?
May 13, 2009 - 10:21 am 14. donttreadonme:On balance, I wish we had REPUBLICANS like Truman nowadays! Truman makes Bush look like Adlai Stevenson.
May 13, 2009 - 10:32 am 15. JFM:Marie Claude
Husseini didn’t escape, he was released. Now I don’t know who made the decision: it could have been De Gaulle or he could have been one of those French civil servants who still had not understood that France and Great Britain were no longer structural enemies like they were in Louis XIV times (England’s safety depended on never allowing anyone to dominate Europe, thus oppose the strongest european country and after 1860 it is no longer France). Now De Gaulle ever said, and I paise him for it, that a real leader must assume responsibility for actions performed by subordinates but I agree that it was unfair to put the release of Amin Husseini at his feet.
However in 1948 De Gaulle had about zeo influence on France’s politics.
BTW I forgot to mention in 1956 the French Navy helped in protecting Israeli coasts and in the sinking of the Ibrahim al Awal destroyer who had been sent to attack one of Israel’s costal cities.
Alors, heureuse? (Running for cover).
May 13, 2009 - 11:56 am 16. Marie Claude:umm, JFM, “running for cover”, you’re quoting Donna Summers now !
“he was released”
no document said it, supposition !
“he could have been one of those French civil servants who still had not understood that France and Great Britain”
umm d’ya think that the Brits were saints ? nah, they chased us, they wanted to take over Syria and Lebanon, they also betrayed the Arabs there, in promissing them a great Syria (Palestine included) but wanted to rule a big Arab federation until Irak instead of !
BTW, it isn’t “he”, but “it”
(running for cover)
May 13, 2009 - 12:43 pm 17. JFM:Marie Claude
Never told there weren’t the same kind of immoral and hare-brained Brits.
For the running for cover given the circumstances in which in France a man says “Alors, heureuse?” to a woman I really feared for my life.
May 13, 2009 - 1:16 pm 18. ic:the fierce fight waged by the State Department to prevent Truman from moving to recognize the new Jewish State…
Thus the unelected bureaucrats at W’s State Department were not the first to undermine an elected president. Presidents come and go, State, Defence, and the CIA remain, doing whatever they want to do, leaking whatever they want to leak.
May 13, 2009 - 1:30 pm 19. ic:7. Joe Bison:
If the US had abstained as Britain did the
UN resolution would still have passed…
Canada, Australia and France
voted yes.
Would they if the US voted no or abstained?
The Resolution would have passed with the Soviet vote, and Israel would be a Soviet puppet.
The French helped the Israelis more than the US did to found the Jewish State. But the 800 pound gorilla has to recognize Israel to make it legit. We are talking about 1948, when the world was substained by the Marshall Plan. The Brits could not vote no if the US voted yes, thus they abstained. Likewise, France could not vote yes if the US voted no.
May 13, 2009 - 1:51 pm 20. Marie Claude:“For the running for cover given the circumstances in which in France a man says “Alors, heureuse?” to a woman I really feared for my life.”
then you know in wich circumstances and whose famous sentence is
no problem for your life, it’s only words
besides I don’t even bite !
May 13, 2009 - 3:15 pm 21. progressoverpeace:Israel fought its own way into existence. That would have happened with, or without, the US. Personally, I think Israel’s initial mistake was waiting for the UN to declare the existence of the state, since the UN never did anything, afterwards, but work to kill Israel. It would have been better to have the state born of its own and for Israel to have never joined the UN.
Israel must leave the UN as soon as possible. Staying in it only shows that Israel is acting like a battered wife, staying with a husband who beats her senseless every night. After Israel would leave the UN, that organization would have almost nothing to do, as it has spent the great majority of its time, since its inception, passing anti-Israel resolutions and working for Israel’s demise.
P.S. The UN is one of the most destructive, and dumbest, ideas that has ever been implemented. Anyone who thinks that the existence of an empowered, peerless, competitionless entity is a constructive venture is just too stupid for words. While it’s true that the UN was not really empowered until 1991 (when Bush Sr. stupidly empowered the institution as the USSR fell – one of the dumbest moves in all of human history), just the idea of creating such an entity was a testament to the stupidity of people.
May 13, 2009 - 6:31 pm 22. Berlet98:Israel and Two Popes
The young Bavarian, Joseph Ratzinger, must have been in a quandary. He had just hit 14 and all 14 year old boys in Hitler’s Germany of 1941 were automatically drafted into the Hitler Youth, a paramilitary unit of the Nazi Party obligatory for all future Nazis. The Third Reich was designed to last a thousand years and it needed regular recruits to perpetuate its “Master Race.”
His older brother, Georg, was already enrolled even though their Catholic father was strongly opposed to der Feuher and all that godless Nazism represented. However, Joseph’s and Georg’s options were severely limited, unlike the largely-fantasized lives of Austrians, Maria Reiner and the von Trapp family in The Sound of Music. Their hills were alive with more than music and flight was unrealistic.
Besides, Joseph wanted to be a priest, even a cardinal, so his planbook didn’t include marriage and propagating. He retaliated by not bothering to attend required Hitler Youth meetings in a silent protest. Joseph was again drafted at 16, after entering the seminary, this time into the German anti-aircraft corps and he briefly trained for the infantry.
As World War Two was ending, he deserted from the German military, briefly became an Allied POW, re-entered the seminary, received Holy Orders, and went on to become a liturgical scholar, bishop, archbishop, and a cardinal.
In April, 2005 Joseph Alois Ratzinger succeeded Pope John Paul II when he was elected 265th Supreme Pontiff of the Roman Catholic Church. Pope Benedict XVI became sovereign head of the Vatican, Bishop of Rome, and leader of the world’s 1.13 billion Catholics.
Fast forward four years, which is where this article is going. It required a short intro just as a personal admission is in order.
As a Catholic, I have major issues with my Church, especially but not limited to its infestation by homosexuals who have disgraced and all but impoverished the Catholic Church with their perversions.
My other issues range from disagreements with the Second Vatican Council to ordaining women as priests to permitting priests to marry, marry women, that is. Such changes would go a long way toward cleaning up the mess the Church is in.
As for regretting the excesses of the Crusades and the Inquisition, they are such old news they don’t merit regrets or apologies in A.D. 2009. Others should follow suit in burying the past.
I should also add that I am of Irish extraction with no known connections or relatives in Germany, Austria, or in any of the neighboring Benelux countries. Point is, I don’t have a national dog in the fight between Pope Benedict and Israelis and, unfortunately, there is a very mean fight in progress.
This pope, in my estimation, is a good man, a man who has experienced and dealt with life up very closely and very personally. He has seen and resisted evil incarnate in Hitler and Nazism and what he witnessed has clearly colored his life and thinking.
I would not sanctify him as a future saint, as I would his predecessor, Pope John Paul II. Sainthood requires far more proof of holiness and more longevity in his current position.
He also is a peace-loving man, as most popes and other spiritual leaders have tended to be in the last 500 years or so. In that role as peace advocate, if he were to “take sides,” any hopes for accomplishing any true peace on Earth would be dashed against the rocks of divisive political sectarianism and nationalistic bluster.
And, so, Pope Benedict XVI went to the MidEast, to a Holy Land that has been immersed in violent turmoil for 6 decades, if not for 2000 years. To an objective observer, based on the reactions of some to his journey, it would seem this 82 year old holy man took this road trip for the sole purpose of stirring up trouble.
He was received well enough in Jordan on what the Vatican termed a ”journey of faith,” of peace, and renewal, a pilgrimage intent on avoiding political intrigues and entrapment: xxhttp://www.zenit.org/rssenglish-25775.
In Israel, he encountered what can best be described as a cool welcome, something shy of wild enthusiasm. At worst, he was received with outright condemnation.
Israel is still steeped in a seething, unrelenting anger against Germany for the Holocaust, three generations and more since Hitler’s war was ended by Allied troops and after those Allies freed the concentration camp survivors. Sixty-four years may not be sufficient time for Jews to consign memories of the Holocaust to an awful era of their history.
The matter of Jewish antipathy toward the papacy is more complex. It should have been so consigned years ago since the initial disdainful and rude reaction to Benedict’s visit is rooted in a misconception, namely what they regard as Pope Pius XII’s inadequate response to Jewish refugees during the Second World War.
That canard has long been floating around but the best recent Jewish recognition of its inaccuracy is this grudging, almost sarcastic, report that Pius XII saved 24 Jewish refugees, “just weeks after German occupiers rounded up about 2,000 Roman Jews on Oct. 16 and deported them to Auschwitz.” (http://jta.org/news/article/2009/03/05/1003472/vatican-document-shows-pius-xii-saved-jews)
A far more exhaustive and objective article refuting the charge of Pius’ disregard for the Jewish plight and his designation in one book as “Hitler’s Pope,” can be found here: http://www.columbia.edu/cu/augustine/arch/dalin.html.
A more pertinent question may be, If Pope Pius XII is to be condemned, why should not the United States, and FDR, be condemned for failing to rescue Jewish refugees in the 1940’s? After all, FDR turned back a boatload of them and had far less compassion, although . . .
(Read the rest at http://genelalor.com/)
May 13, 2009 - 11:58 pm 23. PatriotUSA:What Truman did for the establishment of a Jewish homeland cannot be overlooked or undestated.The fight from the State Dept. against what Truman wanted to do was an act of cowardice and anti semitism within the ranks of the State dept. That same theme or current of anti Israeli-Jewish sentiment runs even stronger today, at least in my eyes it does. Every one the mullah obamaham has appointed into his farcical cabinet are known to be anti Israel and anti Jewish. If Truman were alive today , I truly beieve he would be apalled at how unfriendly the Obuma administration has been,and will continue to be towards Israel and world Jewry. I plan on reading this book and the parallels of liberal tyranny aliging with the sick ideology of islam was alive and well back in 1947, just as it is today, and that is a very real danger to not only Israel but the entire free world.
May 14, 2009 - 12:41 am 24. David Thomson:“…at how unfriendly the Obuma administration has been”
Barack Obama will not act “unfriendly” towards Israel. As matter of fact, I expect him to constantly utter sentimental and well-meaning, mushy sounding rhetoric. Obama will stress that he is the best friend that Israel ever had. Tears may even well up in his eyes. The ultimate danger is that this very left-wing president will endanger the country with his naiveté and self-hating Western instincts. He is existentially committed to the notion that the white skinned Israeli establishment is victimizing the darker skin Palestinians.
May 14, 2009 - 4:32 am 25. Ted Lawrence:I think you are much to hard on Roosevelt in your interpretation. I realize that’s a popular thing to do nowadays when so many people argue he didn’t do enough to stand up for the Jews, but the fact was that he mentioned the idea of a Jewish homeland in the 1030’s and everything in his record says he would have supported the creation of such a state.
May 14, 2009 - 7:19 am 26. Sapwolf:My family were traditional Truman Dems. Then the Dems embraced the New Left and we have been more Repuclican/Independent since then.
Truman was one of my favorite Dems after learning more about Israel and the Atom Bomb.
He was a good man.
May 14, 2009 - 10:16 am 27. bubblehead:@22
Ted, I’m sorry but you are misinformed. Roosavelt was infamously anti-semitic, as were all the moneyed elite of the era. He mouthed public sympathies toward the Jews, but privately (and not so privately) he talked in the vilest of terms with regard to Jews. Reading just about any biography of Roosavelt that is not a fawning whitewash will reveal just how deeply rooted his bigotry was. He was typical of his class and time. It wasn’t just jews, but blacks, Hispanics, Catholics and anyone else who was different in class, culture or race from him. Roosavelt was not a nice person!
Roosavelt absolutely would have found sufficient reason not to support a Jewish homeland. Certainly, the State Department (a hotbed of anti-semitism to this day) proved itself willing to throw up sufficient interference that he could have justified doing nothing. Certainly, it took more strength of character and humanity to accomplish what Truman did than Roosavelt ever displayed.
May 15, 2009 - 10:06 am 28. typos_R_us:I’m not a fan of alternate history sci fi, except for the 1632 series.
So I see the presentation of Truman , America’s worst ever President, being the creator of Israel, as pretty much a bucket of hogwash.
Israel was re-created by the Balfour Declaration;
http://history1900s.about.com/cs/holocaust/p/balfourdeclare.htm
As you might know, that was in 1917. Truman was still in school then, IIRC.
By the time Truman fell into the oval office, Israel was already a done deal. When the UN declared Israel a state in 1947, it was the culmination of a long process and recognition of the facts on the ground.
snipped from wikipedia;
“On May 14 1948, the last British forces left Haifa, and the Jewish Agency, led by David Ben-Gurion, declared the creation of the State of Israel, in accordance with the 1947 UN Partition Plan. Both U.S. President Harry S. Truman and Soviet leader Joseph Stalin immediately recognized the new state.”
Why don’t you give Stalin the bulk of the credit for Israel? He had more to do with it then Truman did.
You are just another in a long line of revisionist historians that are trying to do a make over of that worthless sack of shit’s Truman’s place in history.
Worst President ever. Worse then Bush, Carter and Clinton combined.
Take Truman out of the equation and Israel still exists, without much change in the actual events.
May 16, 2009 - 6:53 am 29. Oscar the Grouch:It was JFK that forged the ’special’ relationship between Israel and the USA. IIRC, TRuman actually did as little as possible to support Israel, which is why the Israel used French fighters during that period instead of American. French and British armor instead of American.
That was the period when Truman’s stupid and cowardly containment policy was created. His only interest in Israel was to prevent it from falling into the Soviet sphere.
It was Joseph Stalin who sent a ship load of infantry weapons to Israel at a time when it was teetering in the battle against the Arab armies.
The main weapons sent were Cezch Mauser rifles and ammunition. Those weapons made the difference in the fight for survival.
Stalin’s hope was that Israel would be a springboard for the spread of Communism. When this hope didn’t mature, Stalin ordered the murder of all Jewish intellegencia in Russia.
May 17, 2009 - 7:26 pm 30. Obamas fortsatta marsch rakt åt skogen « Israel i Sverige:[...] sköldar för terror. Demonstranterna påminde om hur motvilligt USA erkände Israel från början, president Truman fick som alltid kämpa mot arabisterna i State [...]
Jul 27, 2009 - 7:00 pm