1948: A History of the First Arab-Israeli War by Benny Morris Read Free Book Online

Europe during 1941-1945.
    Nonetheless, the war significantly speeded up the march toward Jewish statehood. In January 1942, Chaim Weizmann, in an article in Foreign Af= fairs, explicitly demanded the establishment of a Jewish "state" in all of Palestine.37 And in May, an Extraordinary Zionist Conference, attended by most leaders of American Zionism, a number of exiled European Zionist leaders, and three members, including Ben-Gurion, of the JAE from Jerusalem, formalized this demand by voting to support what became known as the Biltmore Program (drafted by Meyer Weisgal, a Weizmann aide). Meeting at the Biltmore Hotel, New York, the delegates called for "the Land of Israel to be established as a Jewish Commonwealth integrated in the structure of the new [postwar] democratic world."38 By "commonwealth" they meant state. This was to remain Zionist policy down to the end of 1947.
    Palestine remained under British control, and the 1939 white paper continued to guide Whitehall's policies. But during the two and a half years between the end of World War II and the start of the first Arab-Israeli war, developments on the ground-in Washington, Palestine, and Europe-were to prove more important than the character and mindset of Whitehall's mandarins or their calculations and declarations. In the United States, the Jews decisively won the battle for the hearts and minds of the American people and its leaders, due to the impact of the Holocaust and effective Zionist propaganda. The existence of the five-million-strong Jewish community proved extremely important. The Jews, themselves energized and united by the Holocaust, were well organized and wealthy and were traditionally big donors to political campaigns. They also tended to vote in high numbers, were concentrated in such key electoral states as New York and California, and were, by tradition, Democrats. It was Zionism's luck that Democrats controlled the White House and Congress during the war and postwar years.
    Perhaps the surprising thing is that, despite Jewish clout, the administration of President Franklin D. Roosevelt had managed during the 193os and the first years of the war to desist from anything but insignificant expressions of sympathy for Zionism. Roosevelt avoided a forthright commitment to Jewish statehood. The plight of European Jewry may have weighed heavily on the side of Zionism; but American global interests, as they emerged in the war against Germany, Italy, and Japan and as perceived by most senior officials in the relevant departments (State, Defense), militated in the other direction. The officials worried about the continued supply of oil, American bases, and open lines of communication as well as, from the war's end, countering Soviet influence and power. The continued goodwill or, at least, neutrality of the Arab world remained a major American interest. In May 1943 Roosevelt assured King Abdul Aziz Ibn Saud of Saudi Arabia that both Arabs and Jews would be heard before the powers decided on the contours of the postwar settlement in Palestine.
    But the last months of the war saw a dramatic, gradual shift in American policy. In March 1944 the White House, under pressure from various departments, may have persuaded Congress to withdraw a joint resolution calling on Britain to rescind the white paper and supporting a Jewish state. But Roosevelt assured the Jews that "full justice will be done [after the war] to those who seek a Jewish national home, for which our Government and the American People have always had the deepest sympathy and today more than ever in view of the tragic plight of hundreds of thousands of homeless Jewish refugees."39 During the second half of 1944, both the Republicans and Democrats included in their election platforms pro-Zionist provisions, with the Republican presidential contender, Governor Thomas Dewey, declaring support for the establishment of a "Jewish ... commonwealth" in Palestine. At Yalta, in February 1945, Roosevelt, in